Beatrice or Iseult? The debate about romantic love

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 1997 by Thomas, Owen C

De Rougemont focuses especially on marriage. The Catharists had condemned procreation and therefore marriage, claiming that it was not a sacrament but rather a collaboration with the evil power which had created the world. They honored the passionate mystical love which led the soul out of the world to the divine. In the guise of courtly love, it took the form of passionate love of the Lady. It was gradually secularized and transformed into the myth of romantic love which honored the passionate love which was inflamed by obstacles. This led to the despising of marriage and the glorification of adulterous passion as the true human fulfillment. According to de Rougemont, however, Agape or Christian love can "rescue" Eros or passionate love, and "contain" it in marriage.20

Williams also sees his theology of romantic love as applying to all of life. Although its main focus is sexual love in marriage, "its principles are true in relation to other romantic occupations of men."21 He refers to what he calls virginal love, friendship, and also "any relation of man into which the element of sincere and single attraction enters."22 He mentions learning, art, nature, politics, sport, and even stamp collecting. "Any occupation exercising itself with passion, with self-oblivion, with devotion, towards an end other than itself, is a gateway to divine things."23 In particular, the image of the city and its relation to the state is a central concern of Williams. "The principles of [Dante's writings on the city of man] . . . are a necessary part of the Beatrician way. Politics are, or should be, a part of caritas; they are the matter to which the form of caritas must be applied."24

Williams's central concern, however, is also marriage. He is clear that it is an error to hold that romantic love should be the only basis for marriage or that it should necessarily lead to marriage. However, "the clearest possibility of this Way [of romantic love] and perhaps the most difficult, may be in marriage."25 Williams's theology of marriage views it as a microcosm of the church as well as of the state.

Williams also treats what is often assumed to be the problem which romantic love causes in marriage, namely, one partner falling in love with another person. Here there is a sharp contrast with de Rougemont who argues that the myth of romantic love exalts adulterous passion and derogates marriage. According to Williams, if a married person falls in love with another person (as happened to Williams), this person must not discard the first image of love in the spouse. Yet neither may this person deny the new love. The way of romantic love requires that one use the energy found in the second image of love for the heightening of the first. "One continues to love the second image, which is as much a revelation as the first, but restricts the expression of that love and its position in the total structure of one's life."26

And what should be the response of the spouse to this second image of love? Here Williams is a rigorist. Jealousy and the condoning of infidelity are both wrong. The spouse is called "to rejoice in every revelation the other receives, whatever it be, because `he who hates the manifestation of the kingdom hates the kingdom; he is an apostate to the kingdom.'"27 Williams points to the ideal of the way of romantic love: "The aim of the Romantic Way is the two great ends of liberty and power.... If it were possible to create in marriage a mutual adoration towards the second image, whenever and however it came, and also a mutual limitation of the method of it, I do not know what new liberties and powers might not be achieved."28