DEVELOPMENT OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE (By sanguv simon peter fomonyuy)

INTRODUCTION.

In the world of existence there is indeed no greater power than the power of love.To love is a universal human attribute. There exists in man an eternal quest, a quest which is the motivating force impelling man to seek knowledge, to search for truth, to behold beauty, to experience the most, to reach the highest, to create the best, and above all to achieve union with the Beloved. This fundamental quest is the manifestation of the basic, eternal love with which every human being is endowed. Given the central role of love in human relationships, the many attempts to understand love, to explain its nature, to describe its characteristics, and to unravel its mysteries are not surprising. Nevertheless, love remains poorly understood. Many believe that love cannot be explained but only experienced, while others consider love to be merely another human emotion. In this paper, I will attempt to describe love both from an experiential and a phenomenological perspective. The concepts presented are derived from the teachings of the Christain Faith on this issue and from my clinical observations pertaining to love at the individual and marital levels under healthy and pathological conditions in the context of various social and cultural settings. Although the main focus of the presentation is on love in marriage, the concepts presented are also applicable, with some modification, to other types of human love relationships. My main thesis is that love is developmental in its nature and conditional in its quality. The developmental quality of love is self-explanatory. It refers to the fact that a confident, mature love manifests itself differently from an infantile, possessive type of love, or that self-centered love is an indication of an earlier stage of growth than an unconditional love. The conditional aspect of love refers to the fact that human love can be creative or destructive, enlightened or ignorant, universal or limited, and material or spiritual. These diverse, opposite qualities of love are due to the qualities of the object of the person's love. In other words, if the object of human love is beauty, knowledge, or life, love is manifested in its most beautiful, enlightened and creative manner. If the object of the person's love is untruth, cruelty, and materialism, then falsehood and destruction are the outcome. The ultimate aim of this process is the love of God which is the source of human joy and glory: If one possesses the love of God, everything that he undertakes is useful, but if the undertaking is without the Love of God, then it is hurtful and the cause of veiling one's self from the Lord of the Kingdom. With the love of God all sciences are accepted and beloved, but without it, are fruitless; nay, rather the cause of insanity. It should be clear that the developmental nature of love and the choice of love object are totally interrelated. In other words, the more mature an individual's love, the more sublime the object of his love will be. Of all the types of love between human beings, love in marriage seems to be the most complicated but potentially the most rewarding. While parent-child, sibling and familial types of love draw their validity and strength from already established biological, psychosocial, and spiritual bonds, the partners in marital love have to establish all these facets of their love from the beginning. Thus, the marital partners, through their own choices, create for themselves immense challenges and opportunities for the development of a unique relationship which can either withstand the vagaries of life or disintegrate in the face of relationship's tests and demands. Love is the main force which brings the husband and wife together in the context of marriage. However, it should be remembered that love and marriage are not synonymous. There have been, and continue to be, marriages in which love is lacking or even completely absent. Conversely there are many situations in which love exists between a man and a woman, but they do not marry. The reasons for these conditions lie in the nature and expression of love, both generally and specifically in the context of marriage. These points will be discussed more fully in the text, however, the reader should be cautioned that the stages and dimensions of love described here are not as rigid or predictable as might be inferred from reading them in outline form. Human beings are creative beings; therefore, love relationships in different couples will be unique according to each couple's qualities and characteristics. The classifications and stages of love presented in this paper are intended to facilitate study of the phenomenon of love and not to relegate it to a rigid and classified condition.

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF LOVE.

Unidirectional Love. Love is developmental in nature. Its development is closely related to the process of maturation in the individual and parallels the stages of life, birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and maturity. At birth, and for some time thereafter, the normal human infant is totally self-centered, while at the same time dependent upon his parents and environment for well-being, growth, and security. Even at this stage of dependence and helplessness, however, the child is endowed with qualities that facilitate the development of love relationships with others. Love at this level is unidirectional. The child receives the love of his parents, grows as a result of this love's nurturing properties, and displays signs of satisfaction, comfort, and enjoyment. At this level, the parent's love is also unidirectional: giving attention, care, and comfort to the child. The parent's love is given with full awareness and consciousness, and the child accepts with total unconditional trust. At this level, unidirectional love is both healthy and essential. Other similar, but not identical circumstances, that call for unidirectional love are severe illness, extreme danger, or serious handicaps. The ultimate manifestation of unidirectional love occurs between God and man. In this discourses on love, I identifies four kinds of love, two of which (love of God for man and love of man for God) are the best examples of unidirectional love: God giving and man receiving....The first is the love that flows from God to man; it consists of the inexhaustible graces, the Divine effulgence and heavenly illumination. Through this love the world of being receives life....This love is the origin of all the love in the world of creation. The second is the love that flows from man to God. This is faith, attraction to the Divine, enkindlement, progress, entrance into the Kingdom of God, receiving the Bounties of God....This love is the origin of all philanthropy. Unidirectional love can become quite unhealthy in a relationship between two adults who have equal conditions and opportunities. Examples of this type of love occur quite often in those relationships and cultures in which bestowing love is considered meritorious and receiving love is viewed as a sign of selfishness and/or weakness. Consequently, the giver of such love under these circumstances gives with some degree of resentment and an aura of self- sacrifice, and the recipients of such love often feel manipulated, indebted, and humiliated. The feelings of humiliation are due to the fact that their attempts to reciprocate love are not accepted or valued. In such a relationship, unidirectional love becomes ineffective and arouses feelings of anger, resentment, and mistrust. These conditions are fertile grounds for the development of resentment and anger, which in turn become obstacles to the demonstration of love for the other person. Similar unhealthy conditions exist in marriages in which one partner assumes the role of the giver and the other that of the receiver of love.

Competitive Love. Under healthy conditions, the unidirectional love of infancy and early childhood gives way to the type of love which is most characteristic of late childhood and adolescent stages of human development. This type of love is basically intense, erratic, and often irrational. It is characterized by competitive behaviour and an "all or nothing" quality. To adolescents, both giving and receiving love are indications of their worth, ability, capacity, desirability, lovability, and goodness - in short, signs of their identity. Young individuals gradually establish their identity by comparing their own experiences and accomplishments with those of their peers. Love is no exception to this process of comparison. The young lovers show their love by competing with their peers both with respect to giving and receiving love. They feel that they must constantly prove themselves. They tend to demand love in an absolute, exclusive manner. They, and only they, should be loved; they should love one and only one person. This "all or nothing" love is limited in scope, rigid in the way it is shown and extreme in practice, and confused in the nature and type of emotions which it creates in the minds and hearts of the lovers. The love relationship under these circumstances becomes erratic. Competition results in the development of unhealthy extremes in behaviour and demands. An example of such a process is the manner in which a competitive lover tries to prove the extent and depth of his love by showering the other person with gifts beyond his means; by actions obviously injurious to himself and others; and by making demands which are unfruitful if not impossible. At this level, the lovers "love each other to death." Consequently their love, instead of becoming a creative, life engendering force in their relationship, becomes a basically rigid and destructive process. They prove their identity by showing themselves more capable of love than the other person, or as it happens quite frequently, by proving the other person less capable of loving. Furthermore, the erratic nature of competitive love results in insecurity and mistrust. This type of love, although characteristic of the developmental years of childhood and adolescence, can be modified by guidance and support so that the young individuals gradually learn that it is unnecessary to compete in their love relationship and hence gradually develop cooperative love. The phenomenon of falling in love, with its intensity, fervour, and blindness, occurs at all levels of the human love experience, but is usually most dramatic in the competitive stage. A healthy, extremely powerful and constructive version of this is the love manifested in the life of mystics and saints -- a powerful, blinding and intense love, painful and all-consuming. The object of this love is God, and its intensity heralds the beginning stages of the spiritual journey of the human soul. In reality all other types of love, such as love for another individual or love for material things, are but a reflection of this fundamental and all pervasive love.

Cooperative Love. Gradually, with further maturity, love begins to be manifested in a cooperative manner At this stage which characteristically corresponds to adulthood in the individual, the love relationship becomes a sharing process. The lovers are now more certain of their own identity, more aware of their basic capacities, more assured of their experiences, and less threatened by the possibility of rejection. Furthermore, rejection at this level becomes more tolerable, and the ability to be objective in the evaluation of such circumstances becomes more refined and strong. A sharing relationship is indeed one of the most sought after types of love relationship. Ideally, marriage should take place at this level, or, if it occurs at an earlier stage in the love relationship, should be guided towards this objective. As a consequence of these efforts, the resultant marital relationship is characterized by a strong positive sense of identity for both the husband and the wife, a high capacity for cooperation and sharing, a fundamental belief in the integrity and nobility of each person, and a deep sense of respect for one another. Under such circumstances, love is manifested in a cooperative, assured, calm, and creative manner free from the competition, uncertainty, anxiety, and rigidity of the adolescent stage of development. During all these stages of development - unidirectional love, competitive love, and cooperative love - preoccupation with self steadily decreases. In fact, to the degree that the individual is able to focus his attention, energies, and capacities on others and at the same time maintain a basic sense of self, his strengths, and his positive capacities, he is able to engage in a higher level of love relationship and experience. The cooperative type of love is not only possible in marriage, but also in other forms of relationship, including our relationship with the Creator. God, in many of his utterances, challenges man to establish a higher level of relationship with his Creator. Until now, the relationship between man and God has been likened to that of a parent and child. But Bahá'u'lláh now puts forward a challenge:Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.4With this statement, a new era in the relationship between God and man has begun. Humanity has finally arrived at the stage of adulthood, a stage characterized by sharing. Within the context of marriage, however, love relationships gradually move from the level of cooperation to an unconditional type of love. The husband and wife then relate to one another with such a degree of respect and comfort that the conditions usually imposed in the love relationship become less frequent, less intense, and less necessary At this level, couples are able to broaden the scope of their love to include their children, parents, relatives, friends and eventually all of humanity, while at the same time being able to safeguard completely the Unconditional Love. Aside from these stages in the development of love, all of which require one-to- one types of relationship, there is a final stage of growth characterized by the capacity for unconditional love. In this stage, the highly matured individual no longer needs constantly to prove his abilities or to establish his identity. His capacity to love becomes unconditional and universal.

Unconditional love refers to that process in which the individual loves others because of their inherent nobility, beauty, uniqueness, and his oneness with all other members of the human race. Every human being is created noble in essence, beautiful in countenance, and unique in capacities. Furthermore, all people are like the cells of one body - the body of humanity. In order for the body to survive, there must exist a fundamental unity and harmony on the part of each cell towards all other cells. This unity is a requirement for existence and therefore must take place in an unconditional manner. At the level of human relationships, unity and harmony are manifested in the form of love. Each individual, by virtue of his will and power of decision making, is able to develop both the ability and the will to love others in an unconditional and other-directed (as opposed to self-centered) manner. However, attainment of this state is not an easy task and requires a lifelong, intensive effort on the part of the individual. Such a love may be likened to sunshine. The sun shines on everything, without any discrimination. However, not everything which is exposed to the rays of the sun is capable of taking advantage of it in the same manner. Under the influence of sunshine both the rosebush and the brambles grow, but each responds according to its nature and the degree of its ability. However, the sun is neither encouraged by one, nor dismayed by the other. Such a level of loving is not easy to acquire and as a prerequisite, the person needs to be fully cognizant of the nobility and spiritual reality of man, the basic goodness of all creation, and the developmental nature of his love. Furthermore, he must be willing to strive fully towards this achievement, a process which requires both constant diligence and the willingness to tolerate the pain of growth. Within the marital relationship, the cooperative and the unconditional types of love are required and essential. The following words set forth the essential aspects of an unconditional love: When you love a member of your family or a compatriot, let it be with a ray of the Infinite Love....Shed the light of a boundless love on every human being whom you meet, whether of your country, your race, your political party, or of any other nation, colour or shade of political opinion. This kind of love is impossible unless one turn his face towards God and be attracted to His beauty.

SUMMARY

This paper has attempted to show that love is an essential human attribute which matures as the individual matures. Marriage is a natural, extremely effective milieu for the development of love, provided that the husband and wife are aware of the dynamics of the development of love in human relationships and make conscious, enlightened efforts to facilitate the development and refinement of their love. Such a process requires willingness on the part of the husband and wife to assist each other in their attempts at growth, to choose meaningful mutual purpose and direction, to be willing to suffer the pain of love and growth, and to sacrifice, whenever necessary, their material pursuits for spiritual objectives. These lofty and difficult tasks are within the reach of the marital partners if only they combine their love for each other with enlightenment and wisdom and their knowledge of each other with care and compassion.