For Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich Our Lives

In this direct, eloquent, unabashed argument on behalf of sexual fidelity--its meaning, its blessing, its rewards, its necessity--Catherine Wallace addresses a major concern of our time.

At atime when emotional commitments are increasingly nervous, fragile, and short-lived, Wallace's vision of faithful lovers--with its aura of warmth, calm, and emotional continuity--is almost shockingly attractive.

Speaking to heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, she reminds us how deeply the powerful physical tempest that is sexual desire is connected to heart and soul, how immediately and profoundly it spiralsto the core of our very identity; how reductive casual sex can be, how easily it can mute, indeed injure, the capacity for ultimate sexual happiness that exists only within the full development of true intimacy--intimacythat arises as fidelity is established and a promise is kept.

What's the difference between fidelity and repression or mere sexual exclusivity? How can people stay faithfully married for decades, whilecontinuing to grow--and to change--as individuals? How do we help our sons and daughters sort through the conflicting messages about sexuality with which they are bombarded from childhood? The author's responses to theseand other questions powerfully suggest to us that honor and courage, commitment and kindness to self and others, are indeed within our reach.

Catherine Wallace's gentle, moving, and persuasive argumentfor fidelity as the core of an entire way of being again and again draws assent from the reader--and provides, at last, a mode of talking with our children about a subject crucial to their success in achieving thefulfilled lives we so fervently wish for them.

From the Hardcover edition.

Drawing inspiration from both contemporary psychology and ancient spiritual traditions, Catherine Wallace presents her vision of marriage as an art and a spiritual exercise. The rewards are limitless: properly nurtured, our sexual needs and vulnerabilities turn out not to be liabilities but powerful, generative gifts. At a time when emotional commitments are increasingly fragile and short-lived, Wallace makes a direct and eloquent plea on behalf of sexual fidelityits blessings, its demands, its moral and emotional necessity.

Catherine M. Wallace was born in Chicago in 1950. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1977 and was Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern University from 1976 to 1982. She set aside her scholarly career in literary theory to stay home full-time with newborn twins and a two-year-old--all three of whom are now in high school. She has spent the last fifteen years reading eclectically, speaking and writing about literary approaches to spiritual issues, and working as a homemaker. Her writing has appeared in pamphlets published by Forward Movement Publications and in scholarly journals.

From the Hardcover edition.

1. Accounting for fidelity — 2. Erotic desire and Western culture — 3. Intimacy in relationships — 4. The blessing of sexual fidelity — 5. Teaching ethics to kids.