What’s been most interesting for me is the time since publishing an article about compatibility in December 2011. Shortly before submitting it, I started to feel like I wasn’t saying anything significant or different, that it was incomplete. I began to develop the ideas for this article around that time, but I couldn’t find the right direction. In fact, my first thoughts almost seemed to contradict what I’d said before. Because of this, I decided to hold off on, if not completely scrap what you are now reading.
I picked this up again almost two years later, when during the summer of 2013, I received the “Best Answer” (as it was then known) on a question asking what we believe about love. My answer consisted of the Four Loves as defined by the Ancient Greeks and was followed by a brief dialog on humility and justice. It was also one of my highest-rated answers. I normally didn’t write articles based on these, but given the subject matter and that people today are longing for something that they seem to be losing faith in, things fell into place.
Just in case you were wondering, I posted this in December 2013, but GAG switched to the new layout before it got featured.
Love In The Modern World
One user challenged my original piece by asking how one can define love. I don’t know how common ideas like this are, but at best, they are an incomplete, short-sighted, and, dare I say, very modern understanding of love.
If it sounds like I see “modern” as something bad, it’s because in the context of human love, I do. People today seem to be obsessed with “modern”, but how many understand what this entails? In the modern world, divorce is “normal”. People believe in love from parents, but not between them (though in some unfortunate cases, both can be called into question). Family lines are broken. People in general are less connected with and trusting of each other.
Many believe that love is nothing more than a set of chemical reactions in our brains and that marriage is an arbitrary institution bound by a mere legal contract, but marriage and family carry far greater importance than this. They are the cornerstone of society.
Most of this will be in the context of marriage.
Natural Law, Free Will, and The Four Loves
To say that love is a choice as well as an obligation might seem contradictory, but it’s actually not. Mankind is guided by what philosophers call “natural law”. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th Edition) defines natural law as a set of principles that are “basic and fundamental to human nature and discoverable by human reason without reference to specific legislative enactments or judicial decisions.” On the other hand, each person has free will. While our individual lives are guided by cultural norms and personal habits, we may choose whether or not to follow them. This established, there are things that we ought, but are not legally compelled to do, hence an “obligatory choice”.
The Ancient Greeks identified four different types of love. The first is “eros”; commonly understood to be romance and intimacy. The second is “philia”; loyalty. The third is “storge”; general affection. The fourth is “agape”; unconditional self-giving. Romantic relationships are unique in that they are the only ones that are encompassed by all four definitions. While eros itself is not the highest love, it is the gateway to the deepest intimacy. Eros causes the other definitions to function in a different way.
Humility and Justice
The two crucial touchstones of the unconditional self-giving are the virtues of humility and justice.
Humility does not mean thinking lowly of oneself. It simply means acknowledging that there is something greater than oneself. When one asks for the first date (and more importantly, marriage), they simultaneously make an offer as well a request. They invite someone to enter into a deeper state of life with them, but also ask to do the same with the other person. The key is that the other person had the choice to accept or decline.
Justice means giving one what is due to them. If a relationship is not only to survive, but to thrive, each person must place the good of the other above their own. Justice makes the self-giving reciprocal. A just couple knows that they cannot love each other on the condition that one loves the other. If a man loves his wife unconditionally, she knows that it is only just that she loves him unconditionally in return and vice versa.
The Reciprocity of Humility and Justice
As the relationship deepens and matures, the partnership between humility and justice becomes more enriched.
Out of humility, each remembers the simultaneous offer-request; “They said ‘no’ when they could have said ‘yes’” and “They asked me when they could have asked anyone else”. In accepting each other, the offer-request becomes mutual. In marriage, a couple lives with each other for each other. They entrust themselves to each other. They may retain their own desires, but know that they must make sacrifices for the good of the other and ultimately, the marriage.
Out of justice, each explores the traits and values that make each other what they are and, in the hopes of continuously developing a deeper intimacy, begins to conform in some way to these values. This could involve a number of things from a change in lifestyle to, in recognizing the burdens of the other person’s everyday life, something as simple as taking on extra chores, all the while nourishing “agape” with “eros”.
A Metaphysical Analysis of Love
We must briefly analyze love from a metaphysical perspective; from the Greek, “meta” (“outside”, “beyond”) and “physika” (“physics”, “nature”), so “outside or beyond the physical”. More than anything, love is a matter of faith. Logic certainly aids us, but is sufficient only to a point. How is compatibility measured and, more importantly, how accurate is it? An inherent danger in seeing love primarily, if not solely through a logical-compatibility scope is a belief that love should sustain itself rather than require sacrifice, effort, and education through their experiences together. Marriage becomes a logical step (“the thing to do”) rather than a decision.
When compatibility - the "how" - becomes an overweighed focus, it’s all too easy to forget the “why”; the other person. Selfishness takes deeper root; “How will this person become what I want them to be?”, “What do I get out of this relationship?” If this aspect of love is given the final word, it hinders the openness to the change that will be inevitable in a relationship by its very nature as a relationship. It will do more to restrict one’s willingness and freedom to fully unite with the other person and take that necessary leap of faith. It almost tries to build an image of perfection. This is why humility and justice are necessary in a relationship, to help us to break though that which can be observed and enter the infinitude of the other person.
The Obligatory Choice: Why Do We Love?
Today’s world does not understand love, love’s requirements, but above all, love’s rewards. Marriage, whether legal, sacramental, or both writes on stone what is written on our hearts. Some may say “we don’t need marriage to prove our love”. If it’s not clear enough already, that’s not the point. Love and marriage are not about proof. Whether they realize it or not, many people today enter into marriage with great fear and uncertainty. Prenuptial agreements, “irreconcilable differences”, and “no-fault divorces” can only degrade our belief in love.
The truest love is something that we choose. We make this choice for the one we love. Because each person, each living appeal to natural law, is who they are and because they desire that deepest intimacy, the only proper choice is to love. This love ultimately results in the creation of a new life. Through it all, we come to see what love is and find more than we could have ever hoped for.
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
2Opinion
Love is how you, yourself, make it... it isn't for anyone else to define.
I don't need to read advice on what love is - I know I'm in love.
These kind of articles are the reason why love is so twisted now... why it's lost its true meaning...
Why do you think that is? See, I would argue the exact opposite and that's why I wrote this.
And you're right. No one can tell you when you're in love, but I'm not talking about being IN love.
You should really write a summary, with your point.
A lot of text, but what is your point what are you saying?
Share the first opinion in your gender
and earn 1 more Xper point!