So much for the general relations between Love and Beauty. It now remains to consider in detail what peculiarities of personal appearance are and have been specially favoured by Love. This involves an æsthetico-anatomical analysis of every part of the human body from toe to top. To this analysis almost one half of this work will be devoted—showing the preponderating importance of Personal Beauty over the other factors in Modern Love. But before proceeding to this pleasant task it will be well, for the sake of continuity, to discuss the remaining aspects of Modern Love: how it differs from conjugal affection; how men of genius behave when in Love; what are the peculiarities of the physical expression of Love in features and actions; how Love maybe won and cured; and how the leading modern nations differ in their amorous peculiarities. A consideration of Schopenhauer’s theory of Love will then naturally lead us to the second part of this treatise, in which Personal Beauty alone will form our theme.
CONJUGAL AFFECTION AND ROMANTIC LOVE
Perhaps the main reason why no one has anticipated me in writing a book showing that Love is an exclusively modern sentiment, and tracing its gradual development, is because no distinction has been commonly made between Romantic Love and Conjugal Affection, though they differ as widely as maternal love and friendship. The occurrence of noble examples of conjugal attachment as far back as Homer has obscured the fact that pre-nuptial or Romantic Love is almost as modern as the telegraph, the railway, and the electric light.
Two thousand and four hundred years ago the Greek philosopher Empedokles taught that there are four elements—fire, air, water, earth—which remain unchanged amid all combinations. Chemistry has long since shown that these supposed elements are compounds, and that the number of real elements is much larger.
In a similar way the tender or family emotions have been gradually distinguished from one another. Among the ancient Greeks φιλότης meant both friendship and sexual love, which, as we have seen, they strangely confounded, both in theory and in practice. To-day we distinguish not only between friendship and sexual love, but between the two phases of sexual love—Romantic and Conjugal Affection—the former of which was unknown to the Greeks. We do this not only because, as in the case of the chemical elements, our knowledge has become more precise and subtle, but because these emotions have been gradually developed, and have assumed different characteristics, so that it would be difficult at present to mistake one for the other.
As regards the difference between Conjugal and Romantic Love, however, the current conceptions are not yet so clear and definite; many good folks being, in fact, inclined to frown upon the suggestion that there is any such difference. Yet it is useless for them to endeavour, with well-meant hypocrisy, to impress upon the young the notion that Love is unchangeable, since no one who keeps his eyes open can help noticing how differently married couples behave from lovers. In marriage the dazzling blue flame of Romantic Love gradually grows smaller and dies away. But the coals may retain their glow and perchance keep the heart warmer than the former flickering flames of Love.
There is, indeed, a great moral advantage to be gained by frankly acknowledging that Love undergoes a metamorphosis in wedlock. It breaks the sting of cynicism. For if we are told that “marriage is the sunset of love,” or that “the only sure cure for love is marriage,” we may calmly retort, “What of it?” When the romantic passion subsides, its place is taken by another group of emotions, equally noble and conducive to the welfare of society. It is not an annihilation of anything, but simply a change: losing some pleasures, but gaining others in their place; getting rid of some pains to be burdened with others. Love’s metamorphosis into conjugal affection is like that of a wild rose into its red berry. Though less fragrant and lovely than the rose, the berry is almost as warm in colour, endures longer, and brings forth fresh plants to adorn future seasons.
Similes, however, are not arguments; and it behoves us therefore, for the benefit of bachelors and old maids, and of married folks who never were in love, to point out definitely wherein conjugal differs from Romantic Love; which at the same time will explain why conjugal affection was able to exist so many centuries before Romantic Love.
In preceding pages a fragmentary attempt has been made to characterise Love, and to show how its growth was impeded through the inferior social and intellectual status of women and the absolute chaperonage of the young. Maidens and youths had no opportunity to meet and become acquainted. Barter, and considerations of rank and expediency, took the place of affection, and parental authority that of individual choice. There was no prolonged courtship, hence no jealousy of rivals, no female coyness and coquetry, no alternating hopes and doubts, no monopoly of mutual admiration, no ecstatic adoration, sympathetic sharing of lovers’ joys and griefs, or pride of conquest and possession.
Conjugal affection, on the other hand, was much less retarded in its growth by such artificial arrangements, the outcome of strong man’s brutal selfishness. Polygamy was the chief impediment; but as soon as woman became sufficiently “emancipated” to claim a husband of her own, the soil was ready for the growth of conjugal affection. In its early stages this form of affection must have been much more crude and simple than it is in modern society. In most instances it was probably little more than a mere superficial attachment, growing out of the habit of living together for some time; the husband being attached to his wife on account of the domestic comforts and ease she provided for him, and the wife to the husband very much as a dog is to his master, who, though cruel, yet takes care of and feeds him.