3. Love As Personal Emotion

All manner of emotions and mental processes have crystallized round the impulse of sexual approach: they form the complex, the abstract conception of love, without personal differentiation and fixation.

And whatever defects the human object suffers in comparison with the perfect beloved, are of no importance, for the love impulse attributes all that is desirable, all that is admirable, to the beloved being.

At first shy, stolen meeting – a word – a look, given and returned; the immortal flame shoots upwards, love is born in a sense of indescribable exaltation and joy.

And the impulse of approach, sublimated into love, now unfolds itself more and more frankly and fully. It thrives and puts forth leaves and bus, and gradually the lovers attain full union and communion. In that moment, when youth and girl are fulfilled in and by one another, the impulse to approach and the desire for consummation find each other, and merge into a new integral emotion. Love is come of age, and is in flower. Now, and now only, can it bloom right.

Love which has unfolded both its highest potentialities of joy and dignity and moral value, through marriage, can permanently bless both partners. It can do so; but, how often do the fairest feelings fade, the most solemn intentions subside! “The spirit is willing, but he flesh is weak”; and sometimes even the spirit does not remain “willing” for long!

And in this perpetual combat between instinctive sexual attraction and equally instinctive sexual repulsion, there are only two ways of preserving the happiness and permanence of the union: the finest and strongest altruistic emotion first and foremost, and then the prompt and constant enhancement of the attractive factors, so that antipathy remains dormant and has no opportunity to develop.

But specific sexual incongruence or incompatibility must be guarded against, and the impulse must be developed to at least approximate activity and intensity in both partners; relapses must be specifically avoided. And all this is possible! But certainly not easy. It is possible if the process of courtship is ever renewed afresh. If both partners “meet each other half-way”; are attentive, and adaptable to one another’s needs; display initiative and ingenuity in stimulating and satisfying one another’s needs; and by a culture of erotic technique beyond all present marital usage. That is: happiness is attained and preserved in the perfect marriage.