On Love and Marriage
Apr. 19th, 2010 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe priest at the wedding we attended gave a homily on love--appropriate for a wedding--specifically equating the love between husband and wife to the love between Jesus and the church. Pretty standard Catholic stuff, really, and I'm pretty sure I'd heard most of it before.
One thing that caught my ear, though, was the comment that we should give love freely and unconditionally, even if we feel that the person doesn't deserve it, because God loves humanity even though we don't deserve it. My main issue with this line of theology has always been that this requires a perfect, omnipotent god to nonetheless create imperfect, undeserving creations, which means he's either not omnipotent or a right bastard. That wasn't what bothered me this time, though: I was caught by the idea that we should do things because God/Jesus does them.
I grew up in a house where religion wasn't a thing, and our only nods to Christianity or Judaism were cultural (and typically food-related). The ideas of a moral system based on "God says do this...or else!" or "Do this because God does it" are equally alien. We do things that are morally correct because, as good people, that's what we do. You can parse out the secular first principles ("do onto others", "things that are necessary for a functioning society", etc) and derive everything my parents taught me, but what it really comes down to is that the reason isn't the point. You don't help people because you want to be helped; you help people because it's the right thing to do.
(Which is some ways is a very Jewish concept of morality. Jews are the chosen people regardless of their actions; at no point will God get fed up enough to throw you into eternal fire. You do good things because, as Jews, that's what you do. On the other hand, it's a very non-Jewish concept of morality because it doesn't allow for any negotiation or wiggle room. It's very black and white. You can hem and haw and justify the questionable things you do--something I'm often prone to--but when you get right down to it, you did something that wasn't right, and have to deal with that.)
Coming back to love, this leads to a straightforward view of unconditional love: There are people that you care about no matter what they do; they're called family. No one is perfect, no one will always "deserve" your love, but loving them regardless is something that you do. Even if you don't like them, even if they're too toxic to spend time with. Family is about unconditional love regardless of other factors. As I understand it, this is the love that is described by the term "agape", which from Wikipedia, "represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love."
(This is part of why I really like the concept of Nakama, because it allows for a greater understanding of the concept of family than just blood relations. The best illustration I can think of is from Good Will Hunting, where, during a discussion of soul mates, Will brings up his best friend Chuckie. Sean replies, "Chuckie's family; he would lie down in fucking traffic for you.")
Marriage is about redefining "family" to add a person. It's a status change and a declaration, that this person now counts as someone who, like parents, siblings or children, is deserving of my love regardless. Whether we're happy, sad, cranky, annoyed, fighting, or apart for whatever reason, this person is still family and always loved. Which, in turn, is why marriage is important: That's a big fucking responsibility, there. You are choosing to say to someone, "You never need to prove anything to me, you will always be deserving of my love no matter what you do," and the reason you can say that is because you know, as much as you can know anything, that they won't take such a declaration for granted and will try to be deserving regardless.
Marriage means never needing to try, but always wanting to; never needing to be perfect, but always working to; and always being able to fail, because someone feels you are worthy of unconditional love.
And I feel better, perhaps selfishly, believing that we don't do that because God told us to or He set a good example. We do this because, as good people, this is what we do.
One thing that caught my ear, though, was the comment that we should give love freely and unconditionally, even if we feel that the person doesn't deserve it, because God loves humanity even though we don't deserve it. My main issue with this line of theology has always been that this requires a perfect, omnipotent god to nonetheless create imperfect, undeserving creations, which means he's either not omnipotent or a right bastard. That wasn't what bothered me this time, though: I was caught by the idea that we should do things because God/Jesus does them.
I grew up in a house where religion wasn't a thing, and our only nods to Christianity or Judaism were cultural (and typically food-related). The ideas of a moral system based on "God says do this...or else!" or "Do this because God does it" are equally alien. We do things that are morally correct because, as good people, that's what we do. You can parse out the secular first principles ("do onto others", "things that are necessary for a functioning society", etc) and derive everything my parents taught me, but what it really comes down to is that the reason isn't the point. You don't help people because you want to be helped; you help people because it's the right thing to do.
(Which is some ways is a very Jewish concept of morality. Jews are the chosen people regardless of their actions; at no point will God get fed up enough to throw you into eternal fire. You do good things because, as Jews, that's what you do. On the other hand, it's a very non-Jewish concept of morality because it doesn't allow for any negotiation or wiggle room. It's very black and white. You can hem and haw and justify the questionable things you do--something I'm often prone to--but when you get right down to it, you did something that wasn't right, and have to deal with that.)
Coming back to love, this leads to a straightforward view of unconditional love: There are people that you care about no matter what they do; they're called family. No one is perfect, no one will always "deserve" your love, but loving them regardless is something that you do. Even if you don't like them, even if they're too toxic to spend time with. Family is about unconditional love regardless of other factors. As I understand it, this is the love that is described by the term "agape", which from Wikipedia, "represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love."
(This is part of why I really like the concept of Nakama, because it allows for a greater understanding of the concept of family than just blood relations. The best illustration I can think of is from Good Will Hunting, where, during a discussion of soul mates, Will brings up his best friend Chuckie. Sean replies, "Chuckie's family; he would lie down in fucking traffic for you.")
Marriage is about redefining "family" to add a person. It's a status change and a declaration, that this person now counts as someone who, like parents, siblings or children, is deserving of my love regardless. Whether we're happy, sad, cranky, annoyed, fighting, or apart for whatever reason, this person is still family and always loved. Which, in turn, is why marriage is important: That's a big fucking responsibility, there. You are choosing to say to someone, "You never need to prove anything to me, you will always be deserving of my love no matter what you do," and the reason you can say that is because you know, as much as you can know anything, that they won't take such a declaration for granted and will try to be deserving regardless.
Marriage means never needing to try, but always wanting to; never needing to be perfect, but always working to; and always being able to fail, because someone feels you are worthy of unconditional love.
And I feel better, perhaps selfishly, believing that we don't do that because God told us to or He set a good example. We do this because, as good people, this is what we do.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 07:14 am (UTC)And by bringing up Nakama, are you saying that you accept extremely close friendships as family-equivalents, or by bringing up marriage are you saying that no matter how close a relationship may be, family is different?
Not trying to give you a hard time, and of course one's views are formed by one's experiences and everyone's experiences are different. Close friendships and family are subjects I've done a lot of thinking about, and it's always interesting to hear how other people's experiences have led them to see things.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 12:21 pm (UTC)My point about Nakama is that close friendships can become family: That's what marriage is to me. Marriage gets a wedding ceremony as a public way to declare it, because our society gives it particular value for other reasons, but everyone is free to define their family as they see fit, and define the people who they feel are worthy of unconditional love.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 05:38 pm (UTC)When you say "Sometimes you do have to say 'I love you and want what's best for you, but...'", might it not be incorrect to assume the speaker does in fact want what's best for the target of the speech? Even if the target isn't an abusive drug addict parent, there are plenty of teenagers who are angry enough and (rightly or wrongly) feel oppressed enough that they can't summon up that much good will toward their captors. Even in non-pathological cases where the only problem is a big failure between parents and kids to connect with and understand each other, some kids feel like they're doing pretty well if they can say "I don't wish you any actual harm, but...". (A representative close to that sentence would be "...but QUIT FUCKING WITH MY LIFE [with your stupid rules about where I can't go and who I can't hang out with and what I have to do and etc. etc.]!")
Laying out the idealized version as a starting point makes sense, but the part that I've had difficulty with over the years is figuring out how to define love in actual families without being tautological about it. I get along great with my mom now, but I was a very independent teenager and she was a somewhat overprotective (and maybe just a bit smothering) mother, and I don't know that I could've said "I love you and want what's best for you" at all points during those years. I probably would've felt that what's best for her (peace of mind knowing that I was safe, minimal experimentation and exploration on my part, etc.) infringed on my rights too much for me to want it.
In some ways it's easier to answer the question "What is romantic love?" than to answer "What is family?"!