Catholic Candle note: Recently, we published Part 1 of an article on the connection between virtue and happiness.  That article can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/11/26/the-connection-between-virtue-and-happiness-part-1/

Summary of What We Covered in Part One

In Part 1, we saw that happiness is the one thing everyone wants for its own sake and that everything else (e.g., money, power, pleasure, and fame) is only desired for the sake of happiness.

We saw that happiness requires virtue.  We saw that friendship is the crown of the virtuous life and is impossible without that virtuous life.  Most people do not have genuine, significant friendships because such friendship requires genuine, significant virtue and most people do not have such virtue.  For a friendship that is not only genuine and significant but which is even very great, there is required as a condition, virtue which is also very great.

We saw that most people are unhappy and that they try to distract themselves from their unhappiness (with things such as pleasures, travel, rock music, videos, video games, money, fast cars, fame, hallucinogenic drugs, abusing alcohol, etc.).

We saw that those who are somewhat more conservative and have some tendency toward being more virtuous, are happier or less unhappy than those persons who are more liberal and are more immersed in sin and vice.

Part 2

The Connection Between Virtue and Happiness

Concerning The Happiness of Virtuous Persons;
The “Somewhat Happiness” of the “Somewhat Virtuous”;
And the Unhappiness of the Rest of Mankind

A Look at Depression – the “Flip-side” of Happiness

Let us now look at the flip-side of this “happiness gap” between conservatives and liberals.   That is, which group tends to be more depressed?  Predictably, the answer is the mirror image of the happiness studies.  Whereas conservatives are happier, so liberals are more depressed, especially liberal women, as shown in the graph below:

This graph is taken from Gimbrone’s 2022 study, available here: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

Pew Research Center gives additional data which shows the greater unhappiness of liberals (compared to conservatives):  Pew researchers asked their respondents whether they had ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.  Similar to the depression question above (and constituting a mirror image of the results of the happiness survey), liberals, especially liberal women, are much more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness.  Most of all, this is true about young liberal women.  See the graph below, where more than 50% of young liberal women responded that they were diagnosed with a mental illness.

Figure 1.  Data from Pew Research, American Trends Panel Wave 64. The survey was fielded March 19–24, 2020. Graphed by Jon Haidt.  This graph is available here: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

Keeping in mind the happiness research we reviewed earlier in this article, it is no surprise that liberals would be more depressed and be more likely to have “mental” problems because “mental” problems and depression are roughly the opposite of happiness, just like liberal doctrine is roughly the opposite of conservative doctrine.  But why are these problems worse in liberal women as compared to liberal men?  

One answer appears to be that young women are more liberal than young men.  So, it makes sense that just as liberalism correlates with unhappiness, and young women tend to be more liberal than young men, that young women would be more unhappy and depressed than young men.  See the Gallup poll data below.This Gallup poll data is from the Gallup Poll Social Series and it available here: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/featured_data/the-growing-political-divide-between-young-men-and-women/

Also, just as it is consistent with young women tending to be more liberal, they also tend as a group to be more godless and irreligious.  So, whereas conservatives make a larger place in their lives for God and are happier, so young liberal women, especially, are less likely to make room for God in their lives and are more depressed and more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness.[1]  See the graph of Gallup poll data below.

The data from this Gallup poll is available at this link: https://storylines.substack.com/p/the-political-gender-gap-is-exploding?s=w

What we have seen in the article above not only fits with what Aristotle proves in the Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.10, ch.6, but also fits with the rest of what we know.  For example, there is the old French proverb: “A sad saint is a sad saint indeed”, (which is a pun equivocating on the meaning of “sad”) meaning that a saint who is unhappy is a poor excuse for a real saint.

Comparing the Happiness of Young Liberal Women to the Happiness of Young Conservative Women

How good God is, that the more we do His Will on earth, the more He prepares us for the perfect happiness of heaven while making us happy on earth!  Of course, the happiness God gives on earth is genuine but does not necessarily mean greater pleasure or riches.

Having just seen that young liberal women (as a group) are more depressed and more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than any other group, even more likely than young, liberal men, now let us compare young liberal women – who are the most unhappy group – with their opposites: young conservative women.  How do they compare? 

Before looking at the survey research, let us first of all reason about this question and see if we already know the answer that the survey will show us. 

Young Liberal Women are – as a Group – Farthest from the Life that God and Nature Intended for Them.

We know that happiness requires that we live in conformity with our nature and our highest faculty (reason).  And we know that the happy life is the virtuous life.  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.10, ch.6.

What does this mean more particularly?  One thing is that we must live the role in life that God created us to live.  So, the great work of a woman’s life – for which God made her – is usually to be (and to dedicate her life to being) a wife and mother[2] although God also can call her to be a spiritual wife (Bride of Christ) and mother in the religious life.  To take merely one of the proofs by which we infallibly know this truth, St. Paul teaches us:

She [viz., a woman] shall be saved through childbearing; if she continues in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.” 

1 Timothy, 2:15.

The anti-feminist author, Mrs. Donna Steichen,[3]  describes a man’s vocation and role in the family in the following words:

A father’s role is of great importance … [b]ut normally he must be engaged elsewhere much of the time, dealing with the world, providing for his family’s material needs.[4]

So, a liberal, young woman is farther from the natural role in life for which God created her, than is the young liberal man.  This is because God made her to be creating a happy home for her husband and children and to spend her days caring for her children and her home.[5]  Instead, a liberal, young woman is out in the workplace, competing with men, earning a paycheck, trying to advance in the career world.  She cannot entirely escape realizing the emptiness of her life which she lives in opposition to the way she was created to live.  Often, she even murders her (unborn) babies rather than cherishing and nurturing them, as God intended and as He put into the very “fabric” of her being.

By contrast, even though most young, liberal men are not getting married (and so are rejecting the calls of their vocations) their lives are still largely spent “dealing with the world” outside the home as married men also do.  Thus, they are not as far from the life for which God created them as are those liberal women.  Of course, the work those men do is devoid of the greater significance which that work would have had, if they had been married and were doing that work for the sake of devotedly providing for their families’ material needs. 

Here is how Mrs. Steichen states this reality of the importance of a husband’s work being primarily in its final cause (goal) of supporting his family as a necessary part of fulfilling the vocation of his life:

Only a fortunate minority of men find work significant in itself.  For most, the knowledge that they are supporting their families is all that gives their labor meaning.[6]

Therefore, the young liberal man’s work has a large element of emptiness in it, because it lacks its familial purpose which “gives their labor meaning” (as Mrs. Steichen observes).  There is much greater satisfaction and meaning in the work of a man who is providing for the material needs of those whom he loves, compared to merely providing for himself.  We might say that providing for himself alone is much more a situation of focusing on himself and partaking more of a me-first and me-centered selfishness.  That never makes a person happy.

 

So, we see that the life and circumstances of young, liberal women are even more a cause of unhappiness than those of the liberal young man.  Like his work, her work is empty because it lacks God’s intended goal of that work and it is me-centric.  But in addition to that, her work is not centered on the type of activities that God gave her to do with her life, which constitute the happy life of a woman.  Thus, it makes sense that with a greater “distance” between her and the life she was created to live, there is also a greater “distance” between her and happiness (as compared to even a liberal young man).

By contrast, look how there is virtually no difference between the depression scores of conservative men and women:

This graph is taken from Gimbrone’s 2022 study, available here: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

That makes sense because conservative men and women are both living more the lives God created them to live.  Conservatives are more likely to be married.  The husband/father is more likely to be supporting his family, with his wife more likely to be a homemaker raising children and living the life of the heart of the home.  Thus, although conservatives are not nearly as conservative and as virtuous as they should be, nonetheless, compared to liberals, they are happier and are living more the life God created them to live.  Since young conservative men and women are both living more the life that God, Nature, and reason direct them to live, they are both (roughly) equally happy – and happier than liberals.

Reasoning about Why a Woman Might Choose the Feminist Life

As we consider how young, liberal women – who are shown to be the most unhappy group – compare with their philosophical opposites: young, conservative women, let us pause before looking at the polling data to do some “Aristotelean” reasoning.  Let us consider this:

These unhappy liberal young women were not told that the feminist life they chose would make them unhappy.  (People don’t choose a course of conduct because they believe it will make them unhappy.)  So, what were these women told that the feminist lifestyle would accomplish for them? 

Isn’t the answer that they were told (at least implicitly) that feminism would make them happier, rather than unhappy and depressed?  They were told (really, lied to) that having a career would make them more “fulfilled”, right?  Isn’t this another way of being told they would be more satisfied and happier? 

But Aristotle and St. Thomas prove that happiness is caused by living according to our rational nature.  Further, the rational life is the life of virtue, as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas prove because virtue is acting (and living) according to reason (our highest faculty).  For example, temperance is eating the amount of food that reason – not our passions – tell us is the correct amount.

 

Does the Feminist Life make a Woman Happier Because It Makes Her Richer?

So, when women are lied to that the feminist life will make them feel more “fulfilled”, what does that really mean?  One possibility is that these young women suppose that being “fulfilled” means making more money.  As we saw above, money does not cause happiness.  Having a larger “number” in your bank account does not cause a person to live better the life of reason and virtue.  Thus, being richer does not cause happiness. 

Further, focusing on acquiring money is an empty life, not a meaningful life.  Consider the man in the Gospel who gloried in his riches and exalted himself with having so much grain that he had to tear down his barns to build bigger ones.  This is what Our Lord declared to him:

Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?  So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.

St. Luke’s Gospel, 12:20-21.

If money were to buy happiness, then rich people, (e.g., the lottery winners quoted earlier in this article), would be happier than other people – but they’re not.  In fact, the opposite is true: lottery jackpot winners are more unhappy than most people.

If money were to buy happiness, then having lots of money would help us to live more the life of reason, but it does not.  So, if being a career woman would make a woman richer, then this would not cause greater happiness because those riches would not be the cause of greater virtue and living a more rational life. 

Of course, by our Catholic Faith we know that money is not of great importance but the real problem is the desire for money (i.e., the lack of poverty of spirit).  So, the young liberal women would be led to unhappiness to the extent that they choose the life they do for the purpose of acquiring lots of money. 

Incidentally, it actually happens that single career women are usually not richer than women who live more the traditional life that God created them to live.  For example, in a Newsweek article, citing U.S. Census data, it states:

Married mothers ages 18-55 have a mean household income of $133,000, compared to $79,000 for childless, single women 18-55 ….[7]

In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to pursue money, that would explain their greater depression and unhappiness: money cannot buy happiness, and their feminist choices apparently do not lead to more money anyway. 

But let’s look at other possible motives for why young women live the feminist life.

Does the Feminist Life Make a Woman Happier by Giving Her a Life of Greater Pleasure?

Perhaps young liberal women gullibly believe that feminism would make them happier by increasing the amount of bodily pleasure in which they can indulge.[8]  But that cannot lead to happiness because living the life of pleasure makes it harder to live the life of reason because it increases passion and this passion obscures reason and promotes a life of slavery to one’s passions.  Thus, living the life which is focused on pleasure tends to decrease virtue and, therefore, also decrease happiness. 

Further, the life of pleasure is the life shared in common with the brute (irrational) beasts.  If (contrary to fact) the life of bodily pleasure were the cause of the happy life, then those who indulged most extremely in bodily pleasures would be the most extremely happy.  There are countless greatly-indulgent people who show this theory is false by their misery amidst their continual pleasures.  Those people tend to use pleasure as a distraction to help them forget their unhappiness.

Also, reflecting on our own experience and those of others, people who have lost a loved one know by experience that the hurt of that loss is not cured by pleasures and that those people in the midst of their loss don’t “feel like” indulging in pleasures because they know it won’t help their sorrow.

Moreover, if pleasure were the cause of happiness, why is it true throughout history, that there have been many poor people who did not have much bodily pleasure, yet were very happy and lacked nothing of happiness despite the austerity of their lives?  Consider the  saints and holy religious.

Lastly, focusing life on pleasure-seeking is recognized as low and empty.  People pity other people who have a pleasure-focused life.  People who live for pleasure try to hide this fact because this life is one of addiction (or something similar to an addiction).

In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus on pleasure, that would explain their greater depression and unhappiness.

Let’s look at other possible motives for why young women live the feminist life.

Does the feminist life make a woman happier by making her feel “empowered” and “honored”?  

Suppose a young liberal woman pursues the feminist lifestyle because she seeks and loves power, desires to be the boss, feels important because she receives business honors, or because she is the "first woman to reach such-and-such a height", etc.

Living dedicated to such goals, is to live according to the Pride of Life, one of the three causes of sin mentioned in St. John the Evangelist’s first epistle, 2: 16.  See also, Summa, Ia IIae, Q.77, a.5.  This life is caused by pride, which is the “inordinate desire of one’s own excellence”.  Summa, IIa IIae, Q.162, a.2, respondeo.

This is a life lived in a way which is the opposite of the way Our Lord commands us to live:

Learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart. 

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 11:29. 

Because this life fosters the root of all evil, which is pride, this life does not foster virtue and so it cannot bring happiness.  Instead, this life to promotes unhappiness both in those who achieve the pinnacles of worldly human respect and in those who are disappointed and fail in their goal. 

In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus on the accolades of the world, this would explain their greater depression and unhappiness.

Does the Feminist Life Make a Woman Happier by Giving Her a Life Where She can Focus More on Herself?

Perhaps those young women gullibly believe that feminism would make them happier by increasing their ability to focus on themselves.  But such a me-first focus is a program of an emptier, more meaningless life.  By contrast, a life of loving, self-forgetful service to others (especially to God and family) is a satisfying life of purpose and accomplishment. 

God made woman to be generous and giving.  He made her to serve Him in her womanly vocation.  Here is one way St. Paul makes that connection:

She [viz., a woman] shall be saved through childbearing; if she continues in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety. 

1 Timothy, 2:15.

When a woman has spent her life that way, she can look back at her life with true contentment.  This is because this life is devoted to the Good and to the love of this Good.

The current fad and modern jargon emphasize the importance of “self-care”.  In practice, such “self-care” is a “justification” for persons to eschew the responsibilities of selfless dedication to vocational responsibilities in order to have more time to focus on themselves.  In other words, this is an excuse for a more selfish, me-centered life.  One secular feminist leader used the following words to declare her own refusal of her vocational responsibilities so that she could free her time for whatever she would prefer to do instead:

I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding . . . time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness ….  Nothing will make me want a baby ….[9]

But let us ask ourselves:

Does this type of a more self-absorbed life result in greater happiness? 

We can rhetorically answer that question by asking another question:

When a person lives a more self-centered life, does that foster a life of reason and virtue, and therefore also greater happiness ? 

When a young liberal woman focuses on herself, this increases vice (e.g., pride and self-love), decreases her use of reason and weakens or destroys virtue.  Thus, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus more on “self-care” and to have more time for themselves, that would explain their greater depression and unhappiness, as shown in the happiness polls earlier in this article (including part 1). 

Further, if self-centeredness were the cause of happiness, then the most self-centered people would be the happiest.  But we see they are not.  In fact, we observe the opposite: viz., the people who are the most self-centered are among the unhappiest people.

It is obvious to everyone that being more self-centered is connected to the vice of pride (and other vices), not to a life of reason and virtue.  Even the worldlings see self-centeredness as bad (at least in other people, even if they themselves are also self-centered).  Whenever someone is told “you are becoming more focused on yourself”, he never says “Oh, thank you!  That is so kind of you!”  Because everyone knows being me-focused is bad and shameful, people who are like that try to hide this fact.

But let’s now look at another possible motive for why young women might choose to live the feminist life.

Does such a Young Woman Suppose that the Feminist Life will Make Her Happier by Giving Her More Time in Which to Focus on Her Social Life?

Perhaps such a young woman naïvely believes that feminism would make her happier by increasing her opportunity to focus on her social life.  For example, she might think that instead of making dinner for her family, she can have dinner in a restaurant with her “friends” from her workplace.

But as Aristotle proves in his Nicomachean Ethics, a person cannot have a true friendship without true virtue.[10]  So whatever feminists suppose they will obtain, the truth is that they will fail to achieve real friendship without real virtue.

Let us ask ourselves:

Does this greater amount of social life result in greater happiness? 

We can rhetorically answer that question by asking another question:

When a person lives a more social life, does that foster a life of reason and
virtue? 

The answer, of course, is that if a more social life does not foster a life of reason and virtue, then it does not foster happiness.

By contrast, those traditional family responsibilities (which a feminist rejects) are great opportunities for acquiring (and increasing) virtue.  These maternal responsibilities are the fertile seedbed in which virtue and friendship can grow.  In her traditional role – for which her womanly nature has prepared her – this young woman could be spending her days and the focus of her thoughts upon doing as much good as possible to those she loves the most (her husband and children), as well as aging parents, etc..  Such a young woman lives in a partnership aimed at this very important work.  She teams up in this enterprise with her best friend and partner: her husband.

Of course, this family life is not a guaranty of virtue, friendship, or happiness.  Nor does family life mean that those great Goods always come, or come without effort.  Rather, this family life is a pathway which disposes the members of the family to attain these great Goods.  This is like a school disposing its students to knowledge but some students learn very little (i.e., get very little good out of the school) because they are unwilling and rebellious.

Further, just as a student can commit the further wrong by separating himself from his school (i.e., being a truant), so likewise a spouse can not only do a bad job fulfilling his family responsibilities, but even abandon those responsibilities entirely, through abandoning his family.  However, such bad conduct does not change the fact that a school and a family can be places of great Good, although that Good is not realized by ill-disposed persons. 

It is neither the “fault” of matrimony nor a school that some people are ill-disposed.  Nor does it mean that there is a better way to achieve those Goods than the way provided by those institutions.

So even though the feminists seek happiness like everyone else, they do not take the path which God and Nature intend for them – that is, the path which leads to happiness.  So, the feminists do not have true and deep friendships.  Often, they foolishly seek happiness by having more time to spend in shallow social interactions and transitory liaisons.  Perhaps the feminist young woman watches movies with her “friends” or has “health club buddies” with whom she spends time and money dining at restaurants, etc.  Any such “friendships” of pleasure are shallow and do not really satisfy the heart because those acquaintances lack the real virtue which is essential for real friendship.  The unsatisfying shallowness of these “friendships” is a crucial reason why young liberal women have a greater incidence of unhappiness and depression. 

As reported in an article in Newsweek on the subject, “single, childless women are about 60 percent more likely to report feelings of loneliness compared to married mothers.”[11]  The reason is obvious: it is not a greater amount of social time or a larger number of supposed “friends” – but only the excellence of true friendships – which satisfies the heart and contributes to happiness and a satisfying life.  A person who lacks deep friendships and instead substitutes shallow (so-called) “friendships” is sometimes described as a person “being alone even in a crowd”.

So, the feminists find themselves with more social time but with an inability to be a real friend and to possess (and enjoy) real, true friendships.  Thus, the feminists spend their greater social time on emptier and more meaningless activities.  They often spend lots of time on “social media”.  They might have a great number of Facebook “friends” and foolishly follow their peers’ example of supposing that, the larger the number of Facebook “friends” they have, the happier and more popular they will be.  The truth is that this number of such “friends” is virtually irrelevant, even detrimental.

On Facebook, the use of the term “friend” is misleading.  The term “contact” would be more accurate.  The Facebook software prods each “friend” to “react” to the new pictures posted since the previous day by various “friends” and so, the more such “friends” a person has, the more time he needs to “keep up” with all of the “friends” and so it is a burden and time-drain to “have to” go through all of the usually-banal photos to tell each “friend” how “awesome” or “amazing” the photo is and try to find some witty words or insightful comment by which he can receive the attention of the rest of the ”friends” of that mutual “friend”.

The concept of Facebook “friends” turns true friendship on its head and exalts numbers (quantity) over quality, in direct contradiction to the truth.  Thus, a person might be thrilled by receiving approving responses from a thousand of his Facebook “friends”, but overlook the fact that, if he had one genuine, deep friend in his entire lifetime, that would be worth far more than twenty thousand of those so-called “friends”.

The emptiness of this “social” life is obvious to any sensible person.  This empty, feminist life with a greater amount of social time simply results in a greater incidence of unhappiness (and depression).    

If more time for a social life were the cause of happiness, then those persons who had the greatest time for socializing would be the happiest.  But they are not.  And those people who had the least amount of social time would be the least happy.  But they are not.

The fact that feminists are not the only ones who have rejected the life of virtue and reason (a life which causes happiness) does not change the fact that feminists do reject this life.  In any event, if young liberal women live the feminist life in order to focus on having more time for their social life, that would explain their greater incidence of depression and unhappiness.

Feminism Involves Hatred of the Feminine “Nature”

Feminism is an attack on the feminine nature of women and girls by Our Lord’s enemies.  Ultimately, this is the program of Satan, and his tools, the Marxists.  Feminism is the “gospel” that preaches that women are worthless (or worth less) unless they are like men.  This feminist “gospel” pushes women to live like men, dress like men, and try to be like men.  It is the “gospel” pushing women to be aggressive, manly, “business savvy”, powerful, un-maternal, un-nurturing, not homemakers – in short: un-womanly.

Instead of being glad for the feminine nature God gave to them, feminism tells young women that they should strive to be just like a man (although they do not phrase it that way).  Young women come to understand that, if they hope to be approved and to have their lives approved, they must try to be like a man.

Some of these young women try even harder than the others to be approved, by choosing the more extreme version of feminism, which is “transitioning” to “become” a “man”.  You can see why “transgenderism” is feminism taken to a more extreme level since it is a more extreme way for a young woman to follow the feminist “gospel”  to be like a man. 

“Transgenderism” is feminism which includes surgical mutilation and permanent chemically-induced ruining of their bodies, in order to try even harder to be like a man.  But this delusion merely causes more extreme unhappiness and even more depression because it is a more extreme rejection of God’s Will and of their feminine nature.

Although it is true that the leftists attack the whole population by promoting this gender dysphoria (“transgenderism”), the leftists especially prey upon young women.  According to one Wall Street Journal article, this “transgender” delusion “overwhelmingly afflicts girls”.[12] 

As compared to other groups, young women are most likely to declare themselves “transgender” – that is, to declare that they are really men.  These pitiable young women have been betrayed by their fathers who have neglected their paternal duties to guide and defend their daughters.  These young women have been tricked by society more broadly, e.g., by the media, academia, the entertainment industry, etc.  These young women are also betrayed by others such as their mothers.  But most of all, the corruption of society (including the “transgender” absurdity) is the fault of the men who did not do their duty to those under their care in their households.

So, feminism causes young women to be unhappy and have a higher incidence of depression.  For those who are deceived into declaring themselves to be men, this unhappiness and depression increases all the more.

Polling Data Comparing the Happiness of Liberal Women and Conservative Women

So, now let us look a little more at the polling data about the happiness of conservative young women, as compared to liberal young women.

❖  Conservative women are more likely to be married than liberal women.  Thirty-three percent of married mothers ages 18-55 say they are "completely satisfied" with their lives, compared to 15 percent of childless women in the same age range.[13] 

 

❖  Liberal women are more likely to be single and childless.  These women are about 60 percent more likely to report feelings of loneliness compared to married mothers.[14]
 

❖  Conservative women have a fifteen percentage-point advantage over liberal women in being “completely satisfied” with their lives.  Specifically, thirty-one percent of conservative women (18-55) are completely satisfied with their lives, versus sixteen percent of liberal women.  And this advantage can largely be explained by the fact that conservative women are 26 percentage points more likely to be married and 24 percentage points more likely to be happy with their family life.[15]

In the case of women, God’s purpose is inherently that women be wives and mothers (or spiritual wives – viz., religious sisters who are Brides of Christ; and spiritual mothers, such as teaching sisters, etc.)  

In other words, the happiest women in America today are those least likely to be following the profoundly self-centered and anti-family lifestyle promoted by the leftist establishment.

Conclusion

God made us to know, love, and serve Him in this life so that we can be happy with Him in the next.  That is our purpose.  We find our deepest satisfaction when living according to our purpose.  By contrast, we cannot find true satisfaction or happiness in rejecting God’s Plan for us. 

The more we strive for virtue and holiness, the more we will be happy.  If we are saintly, we will be extraordinarily happy.

Because the more we live the way God intended, the happier we will be, a woman’s happiness requires that she live the womanly life that God created for her to live.

Friendship is the crown of the virtuous life, and is incompatible with a life of sin and vice.  So, in this life virtue causes happiness and friendship which disposes us to the life of complete happiness and Divine friendship in heaven for all Eternity.