The Temperaments at Play in Marriage

Rosemary McGuire Berry explains how spouses of differing temperaments can learn to understand each other.

Have you ever watched the 1966 movie A Man for All Seasons with Paul Scofield, that earned six Oscars? It tells the story of Saint Thomas More, a husband and father who died for the rights of the Church and the sanctity of marriage.

A Portrayal of How Knowledge of Temperaments Can Help Us in Marriage

We also see a brilliant example of how knowledge of the temperaments can help us in marriage. The four temperaments were first delineated by Hippocrates (c. 375 BC): Choleric (the decisive, dominant leader), Sanguine (the cheerful, upbeat salesperson), Melancholic (the detail-oriented, sensitive accountant) and Phlegmatic (the easy-going, peace-seeking worker bee).

When the Phlegmatic Saint Thomas was imprisoned for resisting the Act of Supremacy naming King Henry VIII head of the Church in England, his Choleric wife Alice tried to get him to capitulate. Cholerics are persuasive because they are confident and driven. When the peace-loving saint couldn’t change Alice’s mind, he gave her a huge hug. “It’s a lion I married; a lion! A lion!” he exclaimed. He understood her personality and saw love shining through her misguided attempts to save him.

God created Phlegmatics “as special people to be buffers for the emotions of the other three [temperaments], to provide stability and balance,” wrote Florence Littauer, in her delightful book, Personality Plus: How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself (Revell, 1983). As Henry VIII raged and preened, and Thomas’s wife tried to push him to her will, Thomas remained stable and balanced.

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In London, you can visit “Old Chelsea Church” where the saint worshipped. When I asked directions the first time, a local said, “Tommy More’s church? It’s just up the road!” Imagine being on a first-name basis with a saint, because he was your neighbor!

The church was rebuilt after Hitler’s Blitz, but you can clearly see the tomb of Thomas’s first wife Jane. She died in 1511, and in 1532, Thomas composed an epitaph expressing the wish that he and Alice would be buried here. Notice the Phlegmatic again — he hoped that he and both his wives, though so temperamentally different, would lie near each other in death. He eulogizes both wives in the composition.

He didn’t denounce the king like Saint Sebastian censured the Roman Emperor. When he saw Henry VIII’s affair with Anne Boleyn and his abandonment of his wife Catherine, Thomas quietly resigned as Chancellor of England.

In the movie, he humbly says, patting his chest, “This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made.” When his daughter told him about the Act of Supremacy, he encouraged her to wait to see what it actually said, because it might be possible to acquiesce.

But once he was sure of his duty, his Phlegmatic stubbornness was revealed. His captors goaded him to speak so they could call him traitor, but he would not be baited.

In the most soul-stirring scene in the movie, after he is sentenced to death, he gives a rousing speech explaining the truth. When the Phlegmatic is finally moved to anger, he is a powerful force.

The Four Temperaments

Littauer gives a reverse example in which a wife learns to appreciate her Choleric husband:

“Missy once told me her Powerful Choleric husband never made a mistake, and this fact really irked her…One day the thought came to her: If she were going to hire a business manager to run her family, she would want one who didn’t make any mistakes. She already had one at no charge, and from then on she looked at him in a new positive light.” (Littauer, 71)

Maybe you’re a Sanguine instead. We women, as a rule, like to process our emotions verbally, especially if we’re Sanguine. Our husbands are wired by God to solve problems. If the pipes burst or the house catches fire, we want them to act decisively and quickly.

As we talk our way through our thoughts, though, sometimes it’s hard for our guys to listen to all that processing without trying to fix it. They want to “call a plumber” or “douse the fire.” So, if we know this, we can call a female friend or journal instead. Then when we’ve talked our way to the root cause of our difficulty, we can go to our husbands and ask them for the actual thing that will help.

Melancholics can be the Eeyores in life, if they are not careful. They are inclined to be overthinkers and perfectionists because of their high ideals and sensitivity. If your husband is a Melancholic, you can sympathize, while showing him the brighter side of life. His attention to detail and sensitive heart are not bugs, but features.

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God gave each person strengths and asks us to be patient with each other’s weaknesses. We can do this through a deeper understanding and appreciation of our differences, just like Saint Thomas More.

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About the author:

Rosemary McGuire Berry, author of the new release Piety and Personality: The Temperaments of the Saints, is a lifelong Catholic reader, writer and traveler who homeschools now in beautiful Colorado – when she’s not leading European pilgrimages! She has a unique knowledge of hagiography and a background in journalism. She posts about the Saints on Instagram @rosemary.writer, writes weekly at RosemaryMcGuireBerry.substack.com and gives Catholic travel tips on her website RosemaryMcGuireBerry.com.