MOTHERLOVE: Maggie Gallagher

On the subject of whether and why marriage requires us to "forsake all others," a reader wonders about my earlier post, "And motherhood is probably the most intense, sustained experience of erotic love most women know."

Reader: "Hmmmm... you had best define "erotic". The word "erotic" almost universally refers to sexual desire and libido. "Agape" love, on the other hand, is a form of non-erotic, selfless love, of the sort shown by Jesus in his death on the cross.

Calling motherhood an erotic experience may lead people to think that you enjoy sexual relations with your children."

Dear Reader:

The classical definition of eros is not sexual desire, per se (which can exist quite apart from love). An erotic love is that love which desires union with the beloved. In greek philosophy (imported into Catholic thought) eros is the love that desires or needs the other, agape is selfless love, or self-giving love. (Actually in the greek tradition agape probably originally meant something rather different: "fulfilled love" rather than "desiring love.") A student has eros for his teacher and a philosopher for wisdom itself.

What I meant, in using this word to describe maternal love, is simply that women fall in love with their babies, and yearn for them in way for which the closest cognate is romantic love. A desire to touch, be close to and an identification with them, such that a baby's sufferiing is felt by the mother as her own suffering. Another person who is not an "other."

Yet this intense emotional fusion with one's own baby does not imply exclusivity. Quite the opposite. Which only highlights Eve's question about why marriage in our culture is the one intimate relationship which does seem to ask us to forsake all others.

As for maternal love, I can tell you about it from personal experience. I am insufficiently good Christian to speak from personal experience about the kind of love Jesus felt in dying on the cross, and whether Agape, rather than charity, is the right word to use. This would put us in a complex debate about love as a virtue versus love as a theological virtue, which we surely need not enter here. I would point out, in putting in a good word for eros, that when the Bible wants to describe the love of God for us human beings, it compares God's love to a) the love between parent and child and b) nuptial love.






posted by maggie at 2:29 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home