Love Is A Recent Invention
66 JOHNNY,"
" said Papa, with the enslavement of the machine yourself-are incapable: love a wo- Queen Elizabeth, such love was that it inspired some embarrassment, to his gave the average man and the aver- man, not an angel; a man, not an rare, so rare
the greatest of playwrights. To- ten-year-old hopeful, "have you been age woman sufficient leisure to de- eidolon.
Don't think of yourselves as one day the story of Romeo and Juliet enlightened about the Facts of velop the more exalted emotions. To
is no longer exceptional. There is Life?"
the extent to which our civilisation or as two, but as a two-some.
Don't lose yourself in by-paths not a day when some girl does not "Yes, Papa," the lad replied with still falls short of realising these eager solicitude, what is it you essentials, it still falls short of and blind alleys: there is always a defy her family for her love's sake. way out of emotional labyrinths- Love in our century has energ- would like to know?"
achieving love. There is no doubt that we know Century after century, the vital potentially all humans are funda- ed from its Dark Ages. Many fac
tors in modern life are favourable. more about sex to-day than our energies of men and women were mentally normal.
It was Leibnitz, a great German Nevertheless there are still many fathers did. But do we know more absorbed by gruelling tasks before about love? We are sometimes in the conception of the eight-hour philosopher, who said that the soul factors, rising from the imperfec- clined to confuse the two.
day, the five-day week. Women, as was a "house without windows." All' tions of human society, which mili- his opinion were tate against love. These factors Love is a word that is bandied a rule, were uneducated, and did mortals in about too freely. Falling in and not take the exacting care of them- "monads," solitary creatures, in- inspire the "masculine protest" in out of love is a common experience, selves which came with the age of capable of communication. But he women and the inordinate "fear of but how many men and
women plumbing. Marie Antoinette, for did not know that lave opens the women" in man. No man is civilised qualify as great lovers? How many all her rococo daintiness, was care- windows of the soul. When Jack until he knows that he can would receive a passing mark in less about brushing her teeth. We and Jill find love, they cease to be complete self-realisation only in amatory proficiency? How many, know this from the letters of her monads. In place of solitude, the what I have called "the human
dyad" even in this day and generation, mother, Maria Theresa, to the solitude of all created things," the Woman is even more handi- would deserve the degree of A. D. Queen of France. Bathing was re- lovers discover a new and blessed
Fran by ancient Amoris Doctor Doctor of garded as a luxury, even by royal state for which Nietzsche has coin- capped than
taboos, sombre vestiges of her past. ladies. The home of peasant and ed the term Zweisamkeit duali- Love?
Language itself creates antagonism Here the reader, with contracted burgher, even the castle of the feu tade
between the male and female by re- eyebrow, may ask very properly, dal lord, was primarily a factory.
may believe ferring to Eve's daughters as "the "What do you mean by love?" Don't Eve cooked and spun: she made expect a humble psychologist to soap and candles and minded the the testimony of his sonnets and cuposite sex" Language denies to say in one sentence what ten thou- children, but she did not visit the the testimony of his biographers, woman the complete equality es- including Frank Harris, was not sential for love. We still say that sand poets and rhapsodists in all beauty parlour. She was primar- himself a successful lover. But he a man "takes" a wife. Words and
Adam
only one of its elements. It is not seduction of housemaids.
The new leisure has enabled us
Shakespeare, if we
ful early version of modern love, a but a mutual "give and take;"
find
the ages have been unable to ex- ily housewife and mother. pound. It is easier to tell what ploughed the field, he hunted and has said many beautiful things proverbs in which the old pre- love is not than to tell what is. Love he fought and he performed his about love. He was sufficiently judices still linger are more potent is not the glorification of the body conjugal duties with great regular- great and, belonging to all time, than most men realise. They keep that inspired King Solomon's Song ity. Devotion to the mother of his sufficiently modern, to have at least false traditions alive and subtly an idea of the new conception of corrupt our judgment. There should of Songs. Physical fascination is children did not always exclude the love. Romeo and Juliet is a beauti- be no "taking" in love or marriage, the romance of Antony and Cleopa- tra. Each "of these glamorous to develop a new conception and love that defies family conventions Holy Trinity (if I may be permitted lovers attempted to beguile and do- feeling of love. Love is neither a and sacrifices if necessary, even to esin a word), in which neither minate the other. That is not love, gamble nor a one-sided infatuation. life itself. In the days when Romeo the male nor the female strives for
and Juliet lived and in the days of domination. Love is not the syrupy song of the Love, modern love, is based upon-
We are not Troubadour, whose one-sided ador mutual devotion. ation feeds on its own lyric frustra- lovers until we know that it takes tion. Tannhauser thought he knew two to make love. When I explain- something about love. But did he? ed this to a patient of mine who, in Love is not the morbid concupi- spite of innumerable amours, some- scence of the senses - the "ob how never finds happiness, he scure Venus of the hollow hili, the laughed. “And you call that a dis- thing transformed that was the covery? I knew that from the day Cytherean
when I first made eyes at the jan-
I
Love is not Don Juan's lust for itor's girl" That is, no doubt, the conquest. I remember one patient average reaction to my statement. who boasted of a new affair every Paradoxical as it may sound, the week I told him: "You are a col- average person does not realise that lector of scalps, not a lover." It is love is a task for two. “A task?” not the pleasure hunger of Casa- said a pretty young friend of mine. nova: The voluptuary who seeks a "I thought it was a pleasure.” sensuous thrill in every move deliberately use the word "task." ment, in every swish of a skirt, is Love may have its beginnings in a pathological. He is an amorist, sudden infatuation, but it does not not a lover. Love is not a blind mature, it does not deserve the alley. It is not the infatuation of name of love, without.labour and Narcissus with his own lovely im- discipline, sacrifice and co-oper- age, nor the inane devotion of the ation. nymph Echo who pines for the In the past, as in the present beautiful youth in vain. I have the predatory male seized the fem- known too mary young men and ale and the predatory female en- too many young women who im- snared and captured the male. agined that they were in love with Such a relationship involves neither others when they were only in love reciprocity nor mutual sacrifice. with themselves; I have known too Love, like the dance, needs the har- many unhappy women who franti- monious co-operation of two part- cally hug an illusion.
ners. German peasants. to this day Many of these subterfuges have impose upon a newly betrothed been mistaken for love, but they couple the task of cutting down a were not love. The ideal of mo tree with a two-handed saw. On dern love did not come into eris the way in which they handle the tence until woman was emancipat job, on their ability to co-operate ed from her social and economic are based predictions as to their shackles.
future and their chances of connu- Venus, Goddess of Love, according bial felicity. to legend, rose from the white sea To achieve the dyad of perfect fcam. I believe that love is more love, the following rules may re indebted to the vacuum cleaner, the commend themselves to the reader: electric refrigerator, the electric Don't look up to your mate, and washer than to the briny deep. Os don't look down: approach love as car Wilde once said that civiza, an equal
tion depends upon the slavery of Don't the machine. He was right. Only fection
expect an impossible per- others, of which you
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