Women.
Always causing so much unnecessary heartbreak, no?
Based on the french novel Atala, this painting captures the moment where her native american fiancee Chactas has to finally say goodbye to her after she’s poisoned herself in order to maintain a vow of chastity.
Even in death, we see that Chactas is an honourable man with pure intentions, as he pauses to embrace her legs, the least intimate part of her, even in death.
The tragedy is, that if Atala had just asked the priest about it, he could have released her from her vow and they would have lived happily ever after.
Instead, she threw everything away—her love, her future, even her life—not because she had to, but because of her own scrupulosity.
She was so obsessed with preserving her purity that she never stopped to consider, was this really what God wanted? Or was it just her own spiritual pride convincing her that suffering was the holier choice?
Saint Teresa of Avila warned about this very thing—when fear of our own weaknesses drives us to extreme measures, it’s often pride disguised as devotion.
Which often leads to scrupulosity. How often do religious people today make their own lives harder than they need to?
