Religious Orders Men/women / Both

[Luigi]

Now I realize the Franciscans an other orders have orders for women,

 

But what I am curious about is, would the Church allow both genders to be living under the same roof in a religious order ?

 

If each are living in the proper vows etc shouldn't there not be a problem to allow both genders to live under the same roof in different dorms and to thusly pray together as a separate gender order would , or is there worry of emotional relationships forming ?

 

and then I guess flat out my question is why are there no co gender monasteries / etc.

 

I wasn't actively looking, but I found just such as thing as you describe above. 

 

It's a Benedictine monastery in Hawaii - four men and four women.They were founded in 1983 from Our Lady of Guadalupe in Pecos, NM. However, the Pecos monastery is no longer sponsoring them. So they're now considered a public association of the faithful under the auspices of the diocese of Honolulu. 

 

Google: Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Or just: benedictine monastery hawaii). There's a 15-minute video on their vocations page, so you can not only see but also hear the brothers and sisters. 

http://www.hawaiibenedictines.org/index.html

 

Edited July 15, 2014 by Luigi

[The Hierophant]

I can see practical reasons for doing this - say, an order has a small number of members and it can better pool it's resources by sharing a single community - but by and large, it seems like an unnecessary temptation to me.  I'm no expert on the religious life, though.