An Anatomy of Love

In his timeless treatise on love, Stendhal divided it into four tiers: passionate love, mannered love, physical love, and vanity-love. This had better be reorganised—passion encompasses physical desire, the stately, refined, highly codified love of the aristocracy can be divided further into falsehood, which is the offspring of vanity, and the genuine affection and affinity. Barring vanity, the other three—attraction, affection, and affinity—are the pillars of the grand amour. Removing one of them, the edifice shall not collapse yet; removing two, it shall crumble.

Marriage does not necessarily entail all the three aspects. It is not uncommon for marriage to be based on affection and affinity alone. Such marriage is not only an exclusive form of friendship; it is partnership and companionship. It is an economic joint-venture; it is a shared household, a shared life, a shared future. Emotional support is given and received, mutual aid is rendered, and the two parties are bound by the children, which completes the family.

Without the bond of passion, marriage is insecure. A man spends ten years asserting his separateness from his parents. What reason is strong enough for him to give up his new-found independence to tolerate the presence of a stranger? It is passion. What induces affairs, liaisons, and fornication? It is also passion. Passion is forceful and is strong. But it wanes. Passion alone sustains no relationship.

Passion is irrational. A passionate heart is the enemy of a sensible mind. The origins of affinity and affection are traceable, while attraction is a mystery, a gift—or a curse. Reciprocal attraction breeds affinity and affection. A lover imitates his beloved, and the beloved imitates the lover. The two become alike, and in time, become one.

Affection can build without passion. Affection is the habitual trust, care, and concern. It is the internalised knowledge of the warmth of the other’s presence—a cat basks in silence in the glow of the sun on the windowsill. Affection endures.

How does a relationship fall apart? It is the absence of passion. While affection builds, grudges accumulate, and the latter outgrow the former. The differences are now magnified; the unfulfillment is unbearable. The children are adored, but no longer a bond: the father resents the mother, and the mother resents the father. The strongest bond is that of passion. Any can be given, any can be forgiven because of passion.

Can passion be rekindled? The happily married will gladly impart their wisdom: do what was done in courtship, and fall again for the same person.

I haven't quite finished but I must rest now. This shall be continued.

29 December: I cannot exactly pick up where I left off and what now remains in my mind is merely one fragment.

There is a golden mean between utter idolisation and complete unfeelingness. The propensity for passion is an inborn, perhaps hereditary trait, manifesting early its intensity. Rousseau’s parents were ‘inseparable by ten years’; his own rapture and agitation began at the age of 11¹; he loved Mme de Warens at 15, instantly, at first sight. Another man from a breed of rationalists, however, is indifferent. The young Schopenhauer dismissed love as a trick of Will, and in his old age he bemoaned how novels and poetry misguided the youth. A columnist of The Economist read Romeo and Juliet as a recount of a political feud; your hapless author was totally distracted by the love story in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Love for the happy majority is no more than one tributary of the river of life; for the unfortunate few, it is the river itself.