{Love, Sex and Marriage [continued (5)]}[27th August 1990]

[Redbook7:258][19900827:1050d]{Love, Sex and Marriage [continued (5)]}[27th August 1990]

.1050

[continued]

What is the reason for the frequency with which this* happens? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with Nature’s purpose for physical marriage – that is, for children. Even if the loss of self in the other was mutual in a couple, which it often isn’t, it is {(}even{)} less likely to be so after the arrival of children: he may or may not be lost in her, but she is likely to be lost, if at all, in the children.

That disposes more-or-less completely of the couple’s pure or romantic Love for each other, which cannot last for ever if unrequited or [if] returned and then withdrawn. All he can do is to turn it** to the children as well. And the sheer tiredness, the utter exhaustion involved in bringing up young children, not to mention the frequent interruptions, generally disposes of ἐρως,*** sexual or erotic Love [sic], even though through sheer frustration lust may actually increase.

#Nature, too, has its own ways – being ignorant of modern contraceptive methods – of saying ‘enough is enough’, by means of physical changes of shape and of chemistry (eg hormonal imbalances), all of which tend to reduce sexual love in one or the other partner.****

#And of course there is the undoubted crippling effect on the Individual’s inner life – inspiration and analysis alike – brought about by the well-evidenced parental inability to complete a conversation or a train of thought without a very high chance of interruption: so that there is little consolation in joint or Individual mental recreation either.

*[See last previous journal entry]

**{(ie Pure Love)}

***eros

****{or both}

#[These two sentences originally written in reverse order, corrected by an arrow in the ms]

[continued]

[PostedBlogger03for04122021]