John Melia considers why so many marriages today end in divorce and what our understanding of love has got to do with it
LOVE Makes the World Go Round was the title of a frequently heard popular song of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
That the same theme can he used to exemplify one of the principal preoccupations of Western society in the early 21st century is not too difficult to substantiate.
We theologise about love: “God is Love”. We sociologise about love: “Anti-social behaviour results from love deprivation in childhood”. We romanticise about love: “Love conquers all … love is blind … all you need is love … love is a many splendoured thing”.
The problem is that we rarely think about it.
That this is a problem can be gathered from an examination of the divorce statistics of many
Western countries, but especially of those countries where the love ethic reigns supreme as the principal basis for marital union.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, it is reckoned that four out of every 10 marriages now end in divorce. This statistic does not take into account those couples who decide simply to separate, without seeking a divorce.
The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from these statistics is that the usual motivation for entering the married state — being/falling in love — has proved insufficient to sustain the union.
Whatever else has happened, at least one of the contracting parties has concluded that the initial decision, even if well intentioned, was wrong.
“Being/falling in love” has been widely eulogised in Western culture. In literature, art, opera, films, television, and music, both classical and popular — but especially the latter — it is a frequently repeated theme, usually proposed as the acme of human experience.
The corollary, however, is pernicious. If you can fall in love, then you can fall out of love.
Since being in love is a pre-condition of marriage, the argument goes, where love has ceased to exist, the marriage is ready for dissolution.
This understanding, however, sees love as a unique relationship or experience, which overwhelms the would-be lover like some sort of blinding force, instinctively intuited.
It is as if this experience, when it occurs, will present itself with its own label telling you: “Hey, you’re in love! Do something about it!” — as if, again, this experience is something additional to and distinct from those relationships on which a couple might decide to base a permanent and mutual commitment.
On this view it is not surprising that the would-be lover (as exemplified in romantic fiction, drama, etc) should agonise about whether he/she is truly in love or not.
The agony, of course, occurs because some sort of unique experience is being sought, an experience which is in fact undiscoverable.
On this view it is just as customary to be told the answer: “Don’t worry! You’ll know when it happens”.
Such an answer assumes that the presence of love will be confirmed by introspection — which is really an impossible discovery!
It is not surprising therefore that, as a result of this confusion, the would-be lover sees the eventual confirmation of his/her love for the loved one solely in terms of the physical and emotional pleasures provided by that same beloved.
Here is the imaginary unique experience of falling in love. After all, “You’ll know, when it happens!”
This misunderstanding arises, however, because love is seen as the same type of experience as hate, pride, fear, envy and so on.
We have little difficulty in recognising those experiences, so for instance we never assert our uncertainty about hating someone, or fearing something … and here lies the confusion.
Hate, pride, fear and so on are names we apply to fairly specific experiences.
Love is a much more complex experience, an over-arching term we assign to a whole series of relationships — and this is the crucial point — the desirability of each relationship has to be decided on its own grounds in the light of the partner’s good according to right reason.
It is simply not the case that love can be experienced as some special happening, which automatically legitimises this or that behaviour towards the beloved, least of all a proposal and acceptance of marriage.
Consider a courting couple. After the initial attraction both will want to look to the good of the other.
As the courtship proceeds they will discover ways to fulfil that desire. They will select and reject, adjusting their responses to the events of their courtship in the light of what is seen as the good of the partner according to right reason.
It will sometimes happen that this selecting and rejecting gives rise to an awareness of insuperable incompatibility, and the courtship will be ended by one or both partners.
Where, however, no break-up occurs, this process of selection and rejection is not to be seen as a stage on the way to falling in love, which latter state, once attained, prepares them for marriage.
On the contrary, this selecting and rejecting of different responses, chosen for the good of the partner according to right reason, is itself the experience of loving, which continues up to, through, and beyond the marriage ceremony to include more intimate, more responsible and — it must be said — very often much more mundane experiences than the couple has so far enjoyed.
If anything can be said to symbolise that mutual loving, it must be the couple’s willingness mutually to commit themselves, expressed in the simple but sincerely uttered words of the marriage ceremony: “I do”.
Here, if anywhere, occurs the great act of love. Here, if anywhere, occurs the great act of self-giving, at once as humbling as it is ennobling.
Romance, if there must be romance, thus becomes rooted in honest realism.
When “love” is understood in this sense, therefore, it becomes a contradiction to assert one’s love for another, and at the same time to express unwillingness to make a commitment, quite simply because love is at least this, a willingness to commit oneself.
In this way it does, however, make sense to talk about a love growing, in proportion as the lover’s willingness to commit touches more and more aspects of the life of the beloved.
Seen in this manner, love becomes the catalyst which releases the full potential of husband and wife at all levels, and transforms their life together.
“For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part” need not ring out as a hollow promise, repeatedly contradicted by the divorce statistics.
A genuine commitment such as this will make the happy times happier and the sad times more tolerable. To love and to be loved will indeed be a “many splendoured thing’.
John Melia is a freelance writer based in Lancashire, England.
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