You might like to first read What Kind of Thing Is Complementarity? which gives a general introduction to this question.
Complementarity is not some simple and obvious thing but a rich and many-faceted phenomenon. Here I will explore complementarity under eight different and related aspects.
In Brief: Eight Dimensions of Complementarity
The complementarity of men and women is a multi-layered phenomenon, having a number of different essential dimensions. Here we examine a framework for understanding complementarity that identifies eight different dimensions.
1. Reproductive Complementarity
The simplest and most obvious aspect of complementarity is the bodily complementarity of male and female that makes possible human reproduction. This provides a grounding for the other aspects which relate to it in various ways.
2. Sexual Complementarity
The sexual dimension involves the interpersonal character of sexual intercourse, the human act by which procreation becomes possible. Whereas the reproductive dimension is simply the material possibility of reproduction, the sexual act between male and female is needed to make this potential an actuality.
3. Parental Complementarity
Since sexual intercourse can lead to conception, the progenitors also become the parents who raise the children born. Although there are some differences in how this is arranged in different societies, there is a strong bond between parents and children that provides a more or less universal link between the sexual and parental dimensions of complementarity. Parental complementarity mainly concerns the affective bonds that unite parents and children, closely related to some of the most immediately practical matters involving bodily closeness, basic needs and bonds of affection.
4. Practical Complementarity
Practical complementarity arises from the parental and situates it within the whole of social life, so that mothers and fathers are necessarily involved in a whole array of practical tasks where they need to cooperate for the good of their family. Practical complementarity concerns how the parents work together for the common good of the family, and how they share and divide typical responsibilities.
5. Social Complementarity
Societies tend to develop somewhat different roles for men and women growing out of the practical implications of family life, but also going beyond what might be practically necessary. For most of history this has entailed a fairly strong demarcation of social roles, being a practical synthesis growing out of both the pressures of necessity and the innate preferences of men and women. Although this shapes the basic form of social roles these can also be distorted by rigidities and inequalities. Modern affluent societies with greater technological, economic and social differentiation open up the practical possibility for less demarcation of social roles along gender lines.
6. Emotional Complementarity
The whole constellation of factors that shape the previously listed, and the following, dimensions of complementarity also shape the emotional lives of men and women, and lead to a characteristically different weighting of emotional preferences. This draws on the underlying bodily differences and is shaped and developed through habitual engagement in the differing experiences of the other dimensions.
7. Attractive Complementarity
The emotional dimension does not remain merely implicit but in the right conditions develops into what could be called the attractive dimension of complementarity. This is both individual and cultural. There are attributes of women that men generally find attractive, and vice versa. This dimension becomes subject to cultivation to varying degrees.
8. Spiritual Complementarity
The attraction between men and women is not only grounded in their bodily natures, but it has a second grounding in the spiritual. This is because human beings are persons, with both a bodily and a spiritual nature. Attraction is not only skin deep, nor only psychological, but participates in the deeper mystery of the spiritual attraction between persons.
In Detail: Two Different Ways of Being Fully Human
We go on now to look more closely at each of these dimensions and identify within them different principles of unity and distinction. Complementarity requires two principles.
The first is the principle of distinction or differentiation. This is what produces two distinct realities, in this case those things that are different between the sexes.
The second is the principle of unity or integration. This is what relates these differences as parts of the one whole, in this case that which gives men and women the same humanity.
Man and woman are two different ways of being fully human.
1. Reproductive Complementarity
Differentiation
The relevant difference is that between male and female reproductive organs, and specifically the female egg and the male sperm. At this level the underlying distinction between male and female is chromosomal, with the female XX chromosome and male XY chromosome.
Integration
The integration occurs in fertilisation that unites egg and sperm from female and male. With fertilisation a new human being comes into existence, so that the principle of unity of reproductive complementarity in its fullest sense is the new human being.
2. Sexual Complementarity
Differentiation
The relevant difference here is between the female and male sexual organs, the vagina and the penis. In reproductive complementarity we consider the biological reality at the cellular level whereas in sexual complementarity we consider the fully human bodily act which sets that cellular process in motion.
Integration
The principle of integration is the act of sexual intercourse between female and male. This act includes the biological components that are the potencies for fertilisation, but sexual intercourse is a self conscious act of two human beings.
3. Parental Complementarity
Differentiation
The principle of differentiation distinguishes mother and father. The differentiation of parental roles begins with the bodily realities of pregnancy, child-birth and breast-feeding. These are of necessity the role of the mother. The father’s role in that regard is indirect, and focused on protection where necessary and provision of support.
During a child’s infancy there is a natural flow-on predominance of the mother’s role in direct child care. This has both a practical and affective dimension. Mothers usually have a strong preference to spend this period of a child’s life as primary care-giver. There are also practical reasons why it makes sense for the mother to do this and for the father to provide support. Nevertheless some space begins to open up for some interchangeability in roles.
As the child grows the role of the father becomes more prominent than before, and the roles of both parents develop and diversify. There is a typical difference in affective styles of men and women and these assist children to form a clear identity as masculine or feminine. Children benefit from both kinds of interpersonal presence and the example of two kinds of role model.
Integration
The principle of integration is family. Mother and father establish a small and often growing primary community, and this is linked both through the generations and across relations with other families in an extended family. Children grow up with a spontaneous affinity to the others in their family, and these form for most people the most enduring and significant relationships in their lives.
4. Practical Complementarity
Differentiation
The general distinction in the practical life of the parents is between the domestic sphere and the broader public sphere. There are tasks that need to be done on the home front and others that need to be done in the world of paid employment and other public contexts. The first three dimensions of complementarity have traditionally shaped a weighting of mother with domestic sphere and father with public sphere. There still tends to be a weighting of this kind, but it is less marked now due to technological, economic and social changes that have opened up the possibility of greater interchangeability of practical roles between men and women.
This is not just a question of different roles for men and women but a reshaping of what is done in the domestic sphere. Many things that used to be done in families are now done in larger institutional settings. The domestic sphere has contracted in its practical scope, so that much of the family’s traditional economic, educational, and social welfare functions are now carried out in the public sphere. Nevertheless, a family still takes a lot of work, and it still needs to meet its internal needs as well as connecting with the larger society.
Integration
The integration of practical complementarity is cooperation. Wife and husband, mother and father, need close cooperation between them to meet the needs of their family. Nowadays couples tend to develop a mode of cooperation that suits themselves, with less clear demarcations based on gender roles. Yet such arrangements are usually still shaped in various ways by the typical preferences of men and women.
5. Social Complementarity
Differentiation
Social complementarity is like parental-practical complementarity writ large. The larger social and economic changes that have reshaped modern societies have developed in tandem with their counterparts in family life. At the large social level we could characterise the complementarity of social roles as involving a distinction between the interpersonal or communal principle and the technical or organisational principle.
To identify the social complementarity of men and women now it would not be enough to look only at different occupations, since men and women often do the same jobs. However, within those jobs we would need to look at the manner in which men and women approach doing the same tasks. Some jobs have little scope for personalisation, but when there is such scope men and women still typically tend to prefer a different style.
Women tend to bring a more interpersonal style to their work while men tend to be less personal in manner and more focused on the technical side of the job. Women commonly see their role as building a sense of community or family, while men would like their organisation to be ‘like a well-oiled machine’.
Integration
The principle of integration could be called simply society. From that broader perspective we could consider the interpersonal and the technical as the communal and the organisational respectively. Society needs a balance of both, and men and women are both capable of acting in both modes in various ways. Yet I think it’s fair to say that women ‘carry the flag’ for the communal principle more than men do, and men represent the organisational principle more than women do.
At the larger scale these differences are discernible more strongly in the symbolism than in many of the specifics of everyday activity. Such symbolism is nevertheless a real factor in how society works. It helps to draw attention to the relative strengths of the different sexes so that both principles are given due weight.
Many commentators have made critiques of contemporary society along the lines that the communal principle has suffered at the expense of the organisational principle. This is not quite the same as saying that the ‘feminine principle’ has suffered at the expense of the ‘masculine principle’, but there is a link between them.
In any case, men and women in society need to cooperate for the common good, contributing their own special gifts and having these gifts recognised and valued.
6. Emotional Complementarity
Differentiation
Emotional complementarity refers to how men and women tend to have distinctive kinds of emotional life, drawing on bodily factors, including hormonal differences, and being cultivated along noticeably different lines. Although interior realities such as emotional life can be difficult to adequately characterise I would say that the emotional lives of women could be described as relational-personal while men’s emotional lives could be described more as individual-natural.
I am not going to try and explain this in detail here but give a general indication of what is meant. Women are more inclined to share with each other in a more overtly personal style revolving around the relationships in their lives. This is not just in a social setting, but women’s interior lives are shaped by the anticipation of this kind of sharing. You could say that women’s emotional lives have more personal immediacy.
Men are more inclined to relate to each other in relation to common interests and activities such as work, pastimes, games and ideas. The content of their emotional lives is shaped more by the world of nature, society and ideas than of direct interpersonal relationships. You could say that men’s emotional lives are more characteristically socially mediated than immediate.
While noting typical differences there is also commonly a fair amount of overlap between men’s and women’s emotional lives so that there is plenty they can share in common, even while being mystified with each other often enough.
Integration
The principle of integration in the realm of emotional complementarity could be called encounter. That is a rather general term, but it’s hard to think how best to describe it. I think ‘encounter’ is apt since men and women often meet in a space characterised by some mutual uncertainty. At its best it is not with presumption but with some openness and deference.
Openness is needed so there will be a space for the recognition of the other as someone different from oneself, even while being in many ways similar. Such openness allows differences to come out into the space between man and woman so that each can be recognised and hopefully understood - by degrees.
Deference is needed in order to indicate genuineness in the encounter, not to occupy the whole space with one’s own habitual manner and preferences but to mindfully encourage the other to enter more personally into the encounter.
7. Attractive Complementarity
Differentiation
The principle of differentiation in the realm of attractive complementarity is between masculine and feminine. These terms are used here to indicate something more than male and female, to include the cultivation of distinctly different appearance, manner, and quality of presence.
The attraction between masculine and feminine is accentuated by heightening differences, not minimising them.
Cultures typically provide models of masculinity and femininity to be emulated, and although these can sometimes be criticised as too narrow, it is warranted to have simplified stylisations of masculine and feminine, since we all start out as beginners. As children and young men and women grow it is good if they have cultural guidelines to follow, confident they will be understood and accepted. This helps to take the pressure off trying to be too sophisticated too soon.
As men and women grow more comfortably into their social masculinity and femininity they come to see the cultural models not as straitjackets to which they have to unquestioningly conform but simplified types they can expand and shape to more accurately represent their own individuality.
It is important to note though that the cultural models are not something to be left behind, replaced by mere individuality, but that being masculine and feminine involves a blend of the individual and the cultural.
The contrast between the ideal type and the individual sets up an important dynamic in the attraction between the sexes, one that can be diminished by trying to be only the individual that you (currently) think you are.
Integration
The principle of integration in the realm of attractive complementarity could be called the dance of the sexes. The encounter between masculine and feminine is not meant to be something prosaic. It is meant to be infused with the poetic, the beautiful, the mysterious.
It is a dance, where the encounter takes on an elevated aspect capable of expressing more of the depth and spirit of what men and women are as spiritual beings.
In our times society has been pulled in two directions, two extremes, each being a distortion of what relations between the sexes are meant to be. On the one hand the differences between men and women are minimised and denied. This leads to loss of attraction and loss of interest. The culture becomes drab and prosaic, even ugly.
On the other hand the differences are turned into caricatures that do no justice to the personhood of either men or women, that no one can really relate to, and that do a lot of harm. The culture becomes garish and unreal, becoming by degrees more like a freak show than something genuinely exciting because of its promise of beauty.
8. Spiritual Complementarity
Differentiation
To repeat what was said above, the attraction between men and women is not only grounded in their bodily natures, but it has a second grounding in the spiritual. This is because human beings are persons, with both a bodily and a spiritual nature. Attraction is not only skin deep, nor only psychological, but participates in the deeper mystery of the spiritual attraction between persons.
The principle of differentiation in spiritual complementarity is the distinction between body and spirit. If we try to deny the body we don’t become more spiritual, but our spiritual aspirations become less generously human, as the spiritual is gradually replaced by the insubstantial.
And if we try to deny the spirit we don’t discover freedom to pursue our desires - those desires first become more strange and extreme, and then diminish to mere embers.
Integration
The principle of integration in spiritual complementarity is prayer. This is because the proper balance between body and spirit is attained only in the presence of God. Body and spirit are each sources of powerful energy, and being successful as a bodily-spiritual being (that is, human) is a real high wire act.
We might have the impression that being human is a bit humdrum, but the real cause of this is the difficulty we have keeping the balance between body and spirit. Yet since this is only possible in the presence of God, who is the actual principle of this balance, this integration, we generally struggle to attain or maintain it.
Since sexuality is such a powerful force in human reality the stakes are even higher there, so the relations between men and women especially need the spiritual integration that can only come through prayer. And since the relations between men and women are as much social and cultural as individual, society needs to have God self consciously at its heart.
This is conspicuously lacking today, and so the relations between men and women are likewise lacking the peace and joy they should have. However, we are starting to get into a topic too big to be dealt with here.
The Value of a Framework
This framework for understanding complementarity can help to avoid simplistic positions and clarify where difficulties or disagreements might arise when discussing the concept of complementarity.
Over the last 50 years I think it is fair to say that the predominant focus in this area has been on social complementarity, due to the campaign for women’s rights to participation in the public sphere and in all the variety of available social roles.
Due to a preoccupation with questions of social justice championed by feminism it might have seemed to many that the notion of complementarity itself is problematic. If the only concept you have of complementarity is social roles in the practical-social sphere it might seem that once equality is attained then the notion of complementarity would simply disappear. Then, if people kept going on about it this would signify some unjustified wish to put women in a subservient place.
A great deal more could be said on this topic, but here I just want to draw attention to the more sophisticated concept of complementarity presented here, and encourage people who might have dropped the concept itself to see how there is nothing inherently problematic about it at all.
It is indeed a positive good and one that should receive a lot more attention, since it can throw a great deal of light on many of the issues that face society at the present time.
The Focus of Man & Woman Magazine
The framework outlined above helps to clarify the specific purposes of Man & Woman Magazine. It focuses on the two areas of emotional complementarity and attractive complementarity, and to a lesser extent spiritual complementarity. It does not try to address the other areas, important though they are. It seems to me that the other areas have received a great deal of attention, while the questions of emotional and attractive complementarity are still rather undeveloped, not to mention spiritual complementarity. I hope this article clarifies the context of what I am trying to do here.