I still hope to read a few more books this summer, but I think I might have found the most impacting: Denis de Roguemont’s Love In the Western World.
This book is a high end literary, mythological, psychological, and sociological analysis—so it has a lot going against it. (If you get bored during this paragraph just skip four paragraphs.) The thesis of the book is that a virus has entered the mind of Western Civilization. This virus is very dangerous. It is so dangerous because it goes by names that tend to cause confusion—typically, we call it “love.” De Roguemont’s staggering thesis is that an Eastern mystical view of love (he calls it by the name Manichaeism) invaded the medieval West through the Catharist heresy prevalent in the South of France during the 12th century. This heretical view of love consists in an overwhelming passion that turns on itself. It loves the “other” mainly because of the longing and pain that the “other” brings. This “love” forms the basis for the poems of the troubadours that head out from the South of France and spread this errant view of love throughout the Christian West. This ends in the ethics of courtesy, chivalry and courtly love—love in which the lovers are bound to love each other from a distance.
This “love” or “passion” is typified in the tragic story of Tristan and Iseult. In the story Tristan goes to fetch a bride for his good King Mark (in Wales). Unwittingly, and by various magic and providence, he ends up falling in love with Iseult. This love is so powerful that they wreck their lives and run off and fall into immorality. The story continues and Tristan inexplicably (until you read this book) takes Iseult back to Mark and places obstacles between him and his beloved. They die terribly.
De Roguemont convincingly argues that the Manichaean/Eastern Mystic/Catharist “love” is at the root of medieval courtly loves, mutates into the Don Juan libertinisms of Renaissance, and finds an ample megaphone in modern American literature, television and cinema. The mutant form of the heresy that we have now basically justifies all on “passion” and makes marriage a slave of passion. Thus, a spouse is only a good spouse if he or she spurs your “love passion” when things become old and boring the most authentic people cast sidelong glances to find a better object for their passion. Admittedly, this is hard to follow, but it gets worse.
This book has even more going against it. De Roguemont is French and is writing for a French audience. His literary references are French, so I know few of them. His cultural knowledge is voluminous and esoteric. There were many chapters that I did not understand and few chapters that did not contain sentences that I did not understand even after a few readings. He expects you to have completed a lot of reading that I did not have under my belt. He also writes in an engaging style which is usually a plus (I did like it), but contributed to the sense of vertigo that I felt from time to time. It is mind bending. So, I really think that you should read the book, but I understand if you are frustrated with me if you take this advice.
So with all this going against it, how could it be so good? First, it explains mysteries. It ties together the odd courtly love ethics (even the Christianized and orthodox traditions) with sources that help us make sense of them. Second, he shows how these historical movements have a staggering and destructive affect on our lives today. So many divorces in our day are results of these aberrant ideas. Almost all sexual immorality in heart, mind, and body find their genesis in these heretical ideas. Finally, stupendously, De Rougemont makes application of his theory in the real world where we live. He calls on believers to renounce their aberrant views of “love”—love that burns with unending (even desirable) all consuming (to death) passion for a far away other—and instead he calls us to the redemption of eros by subjugating it to agape. Our love for our spouses is to begin with the biblical love for our neighbor. We are to love our wives not for the way that they make us feel (about them—or more often than not -- about ourselves) but because they are one made in the image of God. He has a wonderful section on marriage and love that calls on people (mainly believers) to return to a biblical view of love which recognizes decision as the basis of true, active, I will lay down my life for you every day, love. He calls on us to throw off “love” that places “passion” (which in modern times has really become a secret code for “self”) on the throne of our lives and marriages. Our spouses are not objects. They are beings made imago Dei.
Marriage, Christian marriage, then is to be a commitment not to fulfill all the dreams and passions of the other person, not to avoid becoming boring (we all will), not to forever give an endorphin rush to your spouse, but a pledge to give your life to them. This pledge can and should be made with an assessment of the other person, but we need to remember that most of what will become of the other person and of ourself is completely unknown and unknowable when we take our vows. It is the decision made in faith and the persistence to hold to that decision and to share life with the other person that makes us like God (not our ability to provide for the needs or passions of the other). God persists in His pursuit of us. He will not let go. That is love.
It is heavy reading. The reader that digs in to Love In the Western World will be rewarded.
