Romance and Realism in Love and Marriage

There is a tendency in our day to describe love as "realistic" if it is individual, physiological, and without ideals. Sexual intercourse, according to this view, is not social intercourse. To believe that physical expression of love inevitably involves two personalities, each with its own rich and inescapable history, is considered "romantic."

Surely here is some confusion of terms.

The way of romance has always been the way of oversimplification, the way of fitting complicated reality into a single pattern or ideal. The way of realism has always demanded an honest attempt to consider even complex and puzzling factors. So it is interesting that at least a part of the thinking of our time is calling "realistic" that which is an obvious over-simplification of the relationship between men and women. The over-simplification is understandable in a time of doubt and change. There is much to be said for it: at least that it sharpens issues. But over-simplification it remains, and therefore romance.

The "truth" about love and its possibilities lies still in the region of unsettled questions. What we do not know, and what perhaps we need most to know, is how much of human conduct is biologically inevitable from the moment of conception on, and how much is determined by cultural patterns or social inheritance. The answers are not all in; indeed, we are only beginning to ask the questions.

At the same time, we must all continue to act in this area of uncertainty, even though still blindly. But blindness as such is not necessarily a virtue, and what attempts have been made toward the light are presumably helpful. To follow them far may even require a sort of high courage in the presence of mirrors.

But courage has always rated fairly high among the romantic virtues. What follows might even be described as an attempt to show that, in a certain sense, realism in matters of love is less a destruction of castles in the air than an attempt to build foundations under them. It may, indeed, offer the best way in which so-called romantic values can be realized.