Here's a thought. What women call love is actually honor. Certainly not the broad honor (no pun intended) we give some governing official but the same heart/head notion and expression. A governor's relationship to us is as one to many. "Love" occurs when a woman is personally and intimately secured by an agent that was not in the Great Chain of Being for her heretofore.
A woman's love in marriage is weak when the husband only has possession of the honor given to "husbands" ( general honor belonging to a kind) or no honor at all. Her love is strong when she perceives and reveres the individual honor given to his actual individual excellences. This notion of honor/love becomes the love we speak of romantically when the personal, intimate securing qualities of the man reaches a certain pitch in the woman's mind as she regards her jeopardization in life. Her own personal, immediate fief needs a particular, local rule. This encounter with "love" is particular and unique because of particular and unique subjective vantages but, in kind, it is not some arcane other magic for which understanding is impossible, it is honor.
Such is feminine love.
Masculine love is all Mojo.
I guess you should have been at the seminar this weekend.
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It certianly includes honor, but I am not convinced that it is honor. But your understanding seems to reduce a woman's love for a man to love for herself. She desires a well ordered fief, and recognizes she is incompotent as its lord. She therefore seeks a man to be lord of her fief. But it is not the man that she desires, but her own peace and safety. Yes, she desires this man to give her peace and safety, but she does not desire this man. Or to put the same thing another way, the man does not give her himself, but by giving her other things he gives her safety.
But this seems seperate from your earlier claim "her love is strong when she perceives and reveres the individual honor given to his actual individual excellences." (Incidentally this is not what you mean. You mean when she perceives and honors his actual individual excellences. To revere his honor is to not honor him, but his honor.) This claim I also disagree with. I agree that there is a link, the more she honors him, the more she loves him. But isn't it possible for a soman to love a man without honoring him? (Though of course such love would be perverted.) Your comment does not seem to jive with your other statements about a woman loving to reform a man. "Why are you with him, he's a looser, he drinks all the time, he isn't polite to you, etc." "I know he's a jerk, but I love him, I can fix him."
Hey, it was just a thought.
Then what is the love that is apart from the feeling of honor?
Love (in general not gender specific) has two aspects: first the rational end of actions, and second the desire. In perfect love, both of these are directed toward the beloved. Thus the lover desires his beloved, and seeks the good of his beloved. Likewise the beloved desires the lover and seeks his good. Ideally this love is requited, so this is the whole of the story. The beloved desiring the lovers good, and seeking his good is the beloved desiring the lover and giving herself to him.
But there is another question relating gender. I can see something of this, but not so much I used to be able to (like when I went to the Mojo Oracles though I disagree with you on some points I think you are close). What is it about feminine that the masculine desires and what is about the masculine that the feminine desires. (Or what is it that makes this female a good Eve for this Adam.) Moreover, though I have read Austen and Bronte and Shakespeare and Dante and the Troubadors, I have never been married and so I don't know I am qualified to speak on this.
I am saying that this desire of woman for man is the realization of a particular and personal jeopardy met intriguingly by a certain man. Her jeopardy seeks an efficacious government lacking in her Self. Her desire is to have the peace he brings and her Love is the honor she lends him for his potential or actual rule.
He has stood in a unique dignity regarding her and her unique needs met are honored/loved.
Ben,
For Men, rapprochement is the true desire for woman. Sex, as it is an expression of conquest and possession, is just the fleshly desired metaphor for the true desire. It is solace as well for the inability for rapprochement to fully occur.
For Women, jeopardy ruled is the true desire for man. Sex, as it is the submission of citizen, is the statement of true desire.
As it is a fleshly desire, it has pleasures attached to it which mention their own bond. Some people err when they think that this is the actual or sufficient bond for marriage.
But my point is that your answer to the second question contradicts the correct answer to the first question. Your understanding of female love says that women do not desire the man, but peace. Therefore the man does not give himself, but something else, etc. Likewise it contradicts your previous thoughts (not in this post) on romance.
Your answer to Ben shows how close and how far we are. Though I am not sure what you mean by rapprochement, the online definitions are only "A coming or bringing together, an establishment of harmonious relations" (OED) and generally applies to international relations after a war; we are in agreement. Except for one fact: you are Docetist, I am orthodox. You say that what is desired is the coming together and reunion. I say what is desired is a mutual enjoyment of each other thus creating union. But you say sex is a metaphor for the real, (perhaps) that it reveals the real, but is not itself real. I say men and women desire to come together, but as physical beings this implies a real physical coming together. And this is the sexual act.
A couple other quick points: I have no idea by what you mean by "jeopardy ruled is the true desire for man. Sex, as it is the submission of citizen, is the statement of true desire." The sentences limp. Second, I disagree regarding "conquest and possession". Conquest: I may desire to conquer a woman, but this is a sin I must confess. Does Christ wish to conquer us? (Or are you afraid of using Biblical imagery). Likewise the lover in The Song of Songs does not desire to conquer the beloved. Possession: This term seems to imply man is Eustace seeking to possess a woman. Perhaps this is true for most men. They are after all children of the dragon. But is it Christian? It was seeking treasure in this way that turned Eustace into a dragon. I would rather use the word "enjoy". But this may be merely a verbal disagreement. I'll stop by sometime.
Rev. 5:5 Then one of the elders said to me, "Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals."
Is that a joke?
"And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."???? He has prevailed by suffering and not sinning. (KJV, NKJV) or he has overcome or triumphed, or he has conquered (RSV NEV). But conquered the Church? Conquered sin and Satan! "Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led captivity captive thou hast received gifts for men yea for the rebellious also that the LORD God might dwell among them." He conquered to give gifts, not to conquer the Church.
I thought I was the only one who said ridiculous things about Christ and the Church. At least I can point to Ephesians 5:31-32, and I Corinthians 6:15-17.
Matt,
We were all rebels to God. Some of us have been won over and redeemed to God. Others will never be. Would it not therefore be fitting to say that God has conquered us? albeit in a different way than He will conquer the ultimately damned? "Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord." All shall be conquered, either as a surrendered submission or as annihilation on our own terms. "Conquest" being the taking over of governance, is of itself neither a right or a wrong thing. It gains moral valuation in whether or not the entity conquering should be in governance over the conquered and how they go about doing so. Both the man who honorably get a wife and a man who beds a woman for the night have made conquest of her, yet one is right and one is wrong.
Nollan,
It seems you have several arguments for conquest in your paragraph. Correct me if I am wrong. First, it seems you argue that God has conquered us rebels. Second, that conquest is not necessarialy morally evil. On the second point, I will grant it. I didn't say it is morally evil, but that it isn't what happens.
Regarding the first argument, no I don't think God conqueres us--except in the way a man is conquered by a beautiful woman. Yes it is true that we are rebels against God, and we need to turn to Him. But conquest and imposition of governance implies supression and domination of wills. But because man is a willing creature to dominate his will is to destroy him. Therefore if man is conquered in the redemption, the redemption is not complete. A free Adam is replaced by a bound Christ (for we are Christ.)
You sound like a Calvinist.
What I just said is particularly true with respect to Evan's comment "Sex...is an expression of conquest and possession." It does not seem sex is an expression of conquest. Perhaps it is the result of surrender (I would say mutual surrender I Cor. 7:4) but it is not the expression of conquest. Likewise it may be accurate to say we surrender to God, but to say that God desires our surrender is misleading. God desires us and the necessary means to this is our surrender. Thus God desires our surrender as a means, but does not desire it per se. But Evan's comment seems to imply that a man desires to conquer Vincenda (=L. she who ought to be conquered) and God desires to conquer me, rather than a man desires Amanda (=L. she who ought to be loved) and God desires me.
Matt,
Perhaps "conquest" is an unfortunate word in this instance for it bears connotations of "by main force" which is not true of this case. "Seduction" has certain bearing to the case at hand, and yet it bears unfortunate connotations both of enticing to that which is wrong and of a feminine sort of enticement. Evan is right to choose a new word "Masculine love is all Mojo." You also note that your analogy of "man being conquered by a beautiful woman is both exactly reversed from the biblical imagery (we are presented as feminine with respect to God) and this idea of woman "conquering" man is itself not biblical (Sngs 4:9 comes to mind, but this is feminine seduction: that is enticement to the desire to possess). Also, note domination does not imply suppression. It can allow for suppression. But governance rightly executed is to the good of the governed: that it is to the good of the governed does not make it less governing. Therefore, redemption brings us to the free obedience to the dominion of God over our lives rather than the rebellious acquesance of our destruction before the dominion of God. He is LORD and His dominion will be fully realized over all, but the nature of the application of governance differs (whether by main force or free obedience). It is in this sense that I apply the word "conquer" to both situations - as applications of governance to previously rebel realms, even though the means of application differs.
Nuallain
I have a long comment, but because it is so long and tangential I posted it on my blog here. Feel free to comment there.
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