Spiritual Sensuality Versus the "Esquire Mentality": Catholic Converts Dorothy Day, Clare Boothe Luce, and Thomas Merton and the Quest for Companionate Love

ABSTRACT: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some notable American Catholic thinkers began to question their church's traditional teachings about the institution of marriage. These thinkers believed that it was possible to retain the essential tenets of their faith while simultaneously embracing certain aspects of American secular modernity, including companionate marriage and a favorable view of romantic sensuality. This article will explore the spiritual journeys of Dorothy Day, Clare Boothe Luce, and Thomas Merton, three notable American Catholic converts, in the context of the companionate marriage movement and in relation to a concept I have dubbed the " Esquire Mentality," which refers to a celebration of transactional sexuality that emerged in the early twentieth century. I argue that the rise of a new consumer culture in the early decades of the twentieth century helped to foster an outlook, celebrated in certain types of popular media (such as Esquire magazine) where men were encouraged to use women as social currency and women were encouraged to embrace the role of "gold-digger." In their respective spiritual journeys, Day, Luce, and Merton simultaneously embraced the principles of the companionate marriage movement and offered powerful repudiations of the Esquire Mentality.