About a month ago I attended a Philosophy lecture at the local library which sparked much food for thought and interesting conversation. The topic was on Plato, Women, Sex and Eternity. Apparently Plato had a lot to say about marriage, even advocating it, for a man who himself never married. The subject of love also attracted some debate - do we love the other person in and of themselves? Do we love them for their help in us fulfilling procreation and legacy? Do we marry the person we love or love the person we marry?
"You do not marry the one you love; you love the one you marry."
- Indian Proverb.
In our culture at least marriages tend not to be pre-arranged, they're more or less of the choosing of the bride and groom alone, and I could say that marriages of convenience are a thing of the past, but that assumption may be a little naive. Generally speaking they're based on love - romantic, erotic, I'm almost scared to apply those two labels as the semantics seem to vary from one century to the next or even between different schools of thought.
As for procreation, is that really a prerequisite? History has proven that the answer is "Not necessarily". Most royal marriages throughout history were political business transactions and procreation was very necessary for the sake of the kingdom, and if the king and queen fell in love with each other that was a bonus. No doubt in most cases they grew to love each other, but that was more of a mature love than a romantic love (the marriages between King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane and, more recently, Charles and Diana are proof that marriage for purely political and/or dynastic reasons is a bad idea, especially as both unions ended rather acrimoniously and in the former case an entire family was torn apart and at war with each other). Conversely, there have been couples who no doubt loved each other very much but one partner was barren - does this make their love any less valid? And then there are all those gay couples throughout history who have all been biologically incapable of procreating together - does that make their love any less valid?
"Eros" as it was in ancient and classical Greek originally referred to an all-consuming love, be it between man and woman, between parent and child, between man and God, whatever, though only in the case of husband and wife or that of paramours hetero or otherwise was there a sexual element to it. Or indeed it referred to the essential life force in all of us manifested in an all-consuming, all pervasive love. However, transferring to English the meaning has been down-graded and bastardised somewhat, so that in modern English "erotic" is synonymous with "sexual", pure and simple, and whether love is involved is another story.
One tangent the talk of love/"eros"/call it what you will led us on was onto Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, and his muse Beatrice. He was never with her and never could be with her because he was already married so instead he wrote an epic poem (the aforementioned Divine Comedy) with himself as the hero and her as the heroine/love interest.
As a writer myself I can totally relate - when a man is in love with a woman he can never have, what better catharsis than to channel those feelings into great writing or art or music? Sappho wrote poetry dealing with unrequited love, and such feelings have been set to music in all its forms and genres - Eric Clapton's feelings for George Harrison's wife Patti were famously articulated in the song Layla, and a lot of John Lennon's contribution to The Beatles' White Album dealt with his feelings for Yoko Ono. Eric did get together with Patti, albeit temporarily, and John did end up with Yoko, but they didn't know that at the time, and that didn't detract from their feelings. Also, there are a plethora of blues songs dealing with unrequited love and also illicit love. And we have knights and their lady friends to thank for the concept of courtly love - whether it was completely platonic I don't know and couldn't say for sure, but theirs was a love more or less invariably doomed and at least in real life couldn't be seen through to the ideal romantic conclusion because they were married to other people. Mind you, even now in this age of no-fault divorce these situations are never totally painless or without consequence so I guess the great art will continue to be fuelled by such feelings for a long time to come.
Someone once said that love should set you on fire. Would one want to feel that way about someone else if they either don't feel the same way, or worse that person is someone other than one's spouse or they're someone else's spouse? It certainly defies logic and rational thought, and a cool, clear head is what each person needs when they decide to make a commitment such as marriage - granted, it should be governed by both the heart and the head. As for the love that sets you on fire, well, if it ultimately fuels great art, literature or music and gets channelled in that direction because the more desired pathway is closed off then it is not a complete waste of time and energy after all.
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