I would say the word love is so overused that it justifies anything.
A guy hits hiswife then saysheloves her. Another man deifies his wife and says he lover her while living life like a monk
Those four little letter seems to take on Lots Of Vague Emotions.
Sure there is eros – a word used by the Greeks to not only for intense – and fleeting – passion but also for another fleeting idea- called patriotism so easily flared for a convenient war.
A War we then later hate and regret. A lot like some lovers.
The moralists like to call on the ancient Greeks. The New Testament writes of Storge, – family love, philia or brothely love…. aAnd agape – a word used for love of principle, an altruistic, spiritual love that in some Protestant circles is almost devoid of feeling.
They often forget that in the ancient Greek translation agape is used for the lovers in Solomon’s song.
Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.
You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain” (Song of songs 4:12)
Please don’t tell me these lovers were simply sharing a polite theological conversation!
Its pretty clear which spring he wants to dip and she has little or no clothing to prevent him.
It reminds me of an incident in my life as a 12 year old.
I once met a women who made no secret of her former life as lady of the night and she criticized the Bible for saying sex was bad.
A lover of religious history even then, I opened up Genesis and pointed out that the Egyptian pharaoh realized Isaac was married when he discovered him ‘having a good time’ with his wife.
Now, they weren’t playing Backgammon!
So why is it that we get this crazy idea that sex is bad – or a nice girl should lay back and ‘think of England’ so the population grows and that beast of a man gets it over and done with?
Perhaps I exaggerate, just a tad. Or do I?
Or is it that, because love and sex are so intense and embracing experiences, we find them confronting/
Is it easier to distance ourselves from the intensity and confusion of our emotions. Or ia it that love is so vast an experience few of us ever manage to understand it?
However, in allegorizing and deifying love, the chivalrous tradition of knights in shining armour made love even harder to attain, explains Robert Johnson in We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love
“Catharism, the pure love
Psychologically our modern era began in the 12th century. At that time one of he most powerful of the early religions was the Manichean movement, in Europe called “Catharism” (the pure).
One of their basic beliefs was that “true love” was not the ordinary human love between husband and wife but rather the worship of a feminine saviour, a mediator between God and man,
who waited in the sky to welcome the “pure” with a holy kiss and lead him or her into the Realm of Light.
By contrast with this “pure” love, ordinary human sexuality and marriage were bestial and unspiritual. Many Christians at that time saw Catharism as a reform movement, a reaction against the corruption and politics within the religious hierarchy.
The pope declared Catharism heresy, but like every powerful idea, the teachings of Catharism suddenly reappeared in the cult of courtly love (a worship of a lady fair by a knight), in the songs and poems of troubadours and in the “romances”.
Some cultural historians belive that ladies and knights who first practiced courtly love were Cathars continuing their religious practice under the guise of a secular cult of love.”
Courtly love
“Thus the ideal of courtly love swept through the feudal courts of Europe and began a revolution in our attitudes towards the feminine values of love, relationship, devotion, spiritual experience and the pursuit of beauty.
That revolution finally matured into what we call romanticism. The Western men began to look on woman as the embodiment of all what is pure, sacred and whole, woman became the symbol of a anima, ‘My Lady Soul’”
Or, in my own words, while courtly love blessed us with the idea of Chivalrous respect it also scarred us with love as something unattainable. So many brave knights after months of courting would find a more willing local girl on the return to the battlefield!
“Modern love
A few things changed since the days of courtly love. At the beginning, it was an adoration without a physical contact. By contrast, we always mix romance with sex and marriage. And here comes the main conflict!
Haunting the ghost of true love
The courtly belief that true love can only exist outside marriage is still with us today, unconsciously affecting us more than we know. A man expects his wife to take care of the children, have food on the table, earn money, etc.
But some other part of him wants her to be the incarnation of anima, the Holy Lady in the sky who is always beautiful and perfect. He wonders how the pure and shining goddess whom he adored turned into this ordinary wife.
A woman sees her husband working, paying the bills, living the ordinariness of life. She wonders what happened to the knight who adored and worshiped her when he was “courting” her, in the days when everything was so intense, so ecstatic, so blissful.
The old unconscious belief returns to haunt them, whispering that “true love” is somewhere else, that it cannot be found within the ordinariness of marriage.?
It seems sad to me, that in deifying, and protecting love , we have made its harder to discover loves greater purpose to harness the hidden power of our inner world.
(With thanks to Axinia of 1000petals for putting me onto this)
