Romantic and marital love - part 2

I have struggled to continue with this topic of romantic love for over a week now. I think I am struggling with whether eros can be considered love at all, well at least in light of the Bible's definition of it. It is clear that the Bible does not use the word eros, and it is clear that the love Jesus modelled and called us to is not one of desire so much, as it is a self sacrificing love. Thus, even though eros is considered a type of love by Greek literature, does it deserve to belong to the semantic range of 'love' in modern English? Whether or not is should be considered love, it unmistakably is considered love, and even considered the primary connotation of love in the Western world. Therefore I will continue to use it in my investigation, even if it might only cloud the topic.

So last time I got to a point of understanding eros as self-transcendence or desire for something 'other'. This could be a desire to lose one's self in the other, or to take the other into one's self. This drive or force/dynamic does not include in and of itself any concern for the other, for the sake of the other alone. The drive is primarily centred around the I. That is, it is my desire for the other, my desire to have the other for myself. The other is thus a means to our end, and we are the end. Even if our desire becomes a kind of worship in which we want to become lost in the other, and would do anything for the other, the underlying drive here is because we desire to be with the other for ourselves and for our own sake, not necessarily for theirs, hence there are many stalkers in the world, and rapists etc in extreme cases.

Having said that, our desire of the other can be present simultaneously with our concern and care for the other. In a healthy romantic relationship there is usually both of these aspects. Desire brings the two together, but the two are not destroyed because love regards each other as in individual of worth, thus keeping the two as two and not as becoming one. If love did not stop desire (and assuming the desire was mutual), one would become consumed by the other, or both would become consumed by the 'we'.

It is worth noting that in romance, everything is tentative. Though pledges of undying love are made and felt, and though our desire would decide for us that we would give up all to have the other, or to be with the other, there is still some testing that usually goes on: can I really become one with this person? Can I really live the rest of my life with them? Is this the right one, given that I must forsake all others? Do they love me back? Do they really know me? Do I really know them? Will this 'feeling' last?...

If neighbour love sees something valuable in the other and loves them for their sake as a response, and in friendship love sees equality in the other and loves them for their sake but also expects of them reciprocation, then romantic love is one step further: it sees complementatlity in the other, that is, rather than equality, it sees something in the other that is not present in ourselves, whether femininity, masculinity, leadership, confidence, gentleness, creativity... something that might complete us or make us more full.

If friendship started placing expectations on the other in a two way relationship, romantic love begins to place responsibilities on the other. The more we open ourselves up to each other, and the more we are exposed, the more we risk. Trust becomes paramount the closer two get.

Our exploration of types of love seems to be heading on a continuum between two parties that might start off and remain quite separate, to two parties whose lives, selves, possessions, destinies, time, proximity, emotions, memories and history becomes more and more entangled and shared that we begin to look at love as union.

But not before we look at marital and family love.

I think that marital and family love will take romantic love to the necessary next step. This will probably be the most difficult of the types of love due to the current context in history, where marriage and monogamy is coming to be seen as 'un natural', and promiscuity is becoming the norm.

I will start on marriage in my next post, and might look at it first on its own, and then in contrast to the pitfalls of romantic love outside of the context of marriage.

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Snippet

Interesting excerpt from Ben Witherington's blog:

“The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can tell; it goes beyond the highest star and reaches lowest hell…Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies a parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole if stretched across the sky.”(Lehman)

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Romantic and marital love - part 1

Having explored the similarities and differences of neighbour and friendship love, as well as how they inform and shape our understanding of the very essence of love itself, we now turn to two other types of love, that of romantic love and marital love. Firstly, is there a difference between the two or are they essentially the same thing?

If we look at romantic love first and how it typically appears (at least in the West) before marriage, we will then explore if anything changes when two who are "in love" romantically take their relationship "to the next level" and marry.

Romantic love it typically identified with the Greek word eros, which we had identified in an earlier post as such:

It's central characteristic is desire, desire for the beloved. It sees in the beloved something it desires, and seeks to acquire that something for itself. In some ways it could be referred to as the souls attempt to transcend itself, to find completion in another. Eros is never used in the Bible, and thus never used to express God's love toward us, but some theologians believe it is apt to represent our reaching for God, as Augustine says "we are restless until we find our rest in him." As Eros can be understood as our reaching beyond ourselves for something to 'complete' us, it is typically seen as an egocentric love, a love that consumes, and is therefore unworthy of the love Christ commands us to have. It also makes sense, that if this is the definition of eros then it is not appropriate for God, who is complete in himself and thus does not desire anything from us.

Why would a person try to transcend themselves and seek completion in another? Is the only appropriate object of eros the God who can alone fill the God-shaped hole? Or is it appropriate to experience eros for another person? Is eros actually selfish and therefore a low love?

From what I have read and see in the media through movies, songs and shows, eros is like having an unknown other person living in us and making decisions for us, and promises on our behalf. We are simply slaves to its whim and must follow its lead, execute its decisions and fulfil its promises, hence another saying 'a slave to love'.

Eros is characterised by desire, and this is typically the desire for the opposite sex (sexual desire). Yet eros as sexual desire can also be directed at the same sex, and various other objects which the Bible understands as inappropriate (for example paedophilia). I don’t want to get into these variations, and what the Bible understands as corruptions of eros, suffice to say there are many other corruptions, such as David’s desire for Bathsheba, a married woman whose husband David sent to his death in order to attain his desire. It seems that unrestrained eros is a force for evil, and yet as one of the most powerful motives/drives on earth, human sexual desire is as much a power for evil as it is for good.

In speaking of sexual desire have I strayed from eros? I don’t think so. I think it is one specific manifestation of eros, one that has strong biological connections. But eros can also be desire for intimacy even if sex is not involved. Eros can also be desire for fame, or for riches, since eros is desire itself. On this understanding of eros many have argued that all humans desire something. We are not content on our own and within ourselves. We are not made to be alone (Genesis 2:18) and we cannot sustain life solely within ourselves. We always seek to transcend ourselves, to find completion in the other, to leave ourselves and live inside another, or to take another into ourselves. Eros can lead us to want to leave behind everything we had ever achieved and saved up, our entire kingdom. We want to lose ourselves in the other, in the object of our desire.

In this way eros leads to worship: the total dedication of ourselves to the service of the beloved. For this reason Augustine would say that the only appropriate object of eros is God himself. But eros can work the other way too, for desire is often a drive to take for one’s self. It can be not about losing ourselves in the other, but taking the other into ourselves, consuming them. Passionate acts of intimacy can involve both of these motions/directions. A kiss can be the offering of lips or the eating of the other, sex can be a pulling into one’s self or a losing one’s self into the other. The closeness of a hug can be the pulling of the two into one. And yet the Bible indicates the only appropriate context for the full expression of eros is safely inside a marriage.

Question 1: Why?
Question 2: If this is so, then what is the difference between marital love and romantic love, if anything?

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