Forbidden Love: A Guide To Valentine's Day Part Two

By BARCODE 2x

There are some relationships that have little value to the world at large. The wrong relationships, or inappropriate relationships often benefit no one but the people involved. On one hand, we should let love run its course. The human heart is illogical; passion knows nothing, and love often blinds us to our surroundings.

Couples who do nothing but fight really have no business staying together. Couples who recognize that they have a conflict should enter into counseling, but when most of the time a couple spends together is spent in rage and anger, the couple needs to find an equitable way to end the relationship. Angry couples need not even stay together for their children. The child will be affected by a divorce or a separation, but it is better to create a civil environment for them to grow in than to linger on in strife. Angry couples can start off great, but their conflict can lead to messy situations, and even violent behavior.

Extramarital affairs cannot lead to good results, not within the institution of marriage as it exists today. If a couple begins to seek affection outside of the marriage, then they must be prepared for the consequences. A modern marriage may develop; there are examples of open marriage, where affairs are allowed, but our ideas of marriage have evolved out of generations of monogamy, and so to rock the boat and to try to create new kinds of marriage is really going the long way around. Better to stay single. If you marry at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, you run the risk of sowing your oats at the wrong time too. Our culture does not know how to handle extramarital affairs. There is no foundation built to support it. There are no prescribed solutions for it, and once it begins, it can lead to major trouble. Dishonesty and breach of trust will destroy a marriage.

There are other kinds of relationships to beware of. Not that we here at a2ethics.org are Puritans. Far from it. We are liberal's liberals when it comes to matters of the heart. But it is our job, as ethicists, to caution against certain behaviors, in both our private and public lives.

Relationships between people of vastly differing ages can become very problematic. I am speaking of legal relationships, where there is a gap in age and experience. I also should touch upon illegal pairings. These relationships involve persons under legal age of consent, and while the relationship might be perfectly healthy, it is not good for the world.

Legal age-gap relationships are perfectly fine, but they have few benefits to society. These people are not as likely to procreate. They are not as likely to get seriously involved and advance the relationship to deeper levels. Say, for example, that a person in their 20s becomes involved with someone ten or more years older. The older partner has had more experience, and very likely has been in at least one long-term relationship. The younger person enjoys the company of a more mature, more stable older partner, and there is no doubt a physical attraction that does not mind age boundaries.

As outsiders, we must consider our own role in their relationship. It is not as though couples can exist in a vacuum. There are communities outside of them who act out of concern for their well-being. As outsiders, we are flawed collaborators, perhaps friends who advise them, or parents who try to support them. But underlying all of our good intentions, we may seriously object to the pairing. Our own notions of propriety get involved. It is never on our radar to become linked with persons of vastly different ages. We are conditioned to seek partners of our own age, of our own type, as it were. So when someone ventures outside of the norm, we pass judgment. Judgment has its own ethical problems. We establish ourselves as superior when we see something morally questionable taking place.

Our chief concern perhaps should be for the younger partner. We expect that these younger people will want to seek something more fulfilling with persons their own age. Many emotionally mature young people have trouble finding suitable partners of their own age. They seek older lovers to satisfy their desires for more emotional fulfillment, just as the older partner may be very energized and inspired by the younger one. We fear, however, that the younger one will be hurt, or that they will run away when things get complicated. We spend our time fearing for the other person. Even in elderly couples of 70 and 90, we fear for them. One is caring for the other, and the younger one may be seen as throwing away their good remaining years.

Let us briefly touch upon the illegal relationships. Normally, when there are existing laws prohibiting certain behaviors, we need not look into the ethics of it. We know it is wrong. But still, these relationships carry on. Let us imagine a borderline-dangerous relationship between two people. One is 17, and the other is only a little older. Maybe only 20. In emotional development, they are roughly in the same spot. And biologically too. Set them free in the wilderness, and they would naturally become a couple.

The law prohibiting coupling with a minor is relatively new, in the history of humanity. The law only evolved over the recent few centuries, and prior to that, it would not be uncommon or frowned-upon for a man to take a young wife in her teens. But in the here and now, this forbidden relationship has major implications. The older person is taking advantage of the younger. The younger person still lives with a parent or guardian, and so extreme secrecy is required to carry on the affair. Outsiders are not involved; it is not as though you can go on a double-date with friends your own age when you are clearly breaking the law. These relationships do not benefit anyone, including those involved. Even if they say they are in love. And when sex is involved, the emotions and the laws and the social norms get all tangled up in a web. Who benefits, besides the two partners, and when do they personally benefit, except in the climax of physical passion?

A relationship does not need to benefit society to take place, even to flourish. An affair could develop that splits married couples, bringing two people together against certain odds. Divorces occur, people come together and try to rebuild something. They throw caution to the wind.Perhaps they are to be commended. Perhaps they released themselves from unhappy marriages and came together to build a mature, more healthy bond than what they knew before.

The community will be rocked. People get hurt in these situations. Surrounding each couple are families, workplaces and neighborhoods, communities at large that are dealing with a loss. Not unlike a premature death, these relationships surprise and devastate circles and circles of people.

But over time, the benefit may come clear. After the dust has settled, the assets are divided, children are situated. After the gossip subsides, and the new couple is relaxed and relocated, the benefits of a new partnership can develop. Society benefits from happy people. The beginning of a new relationship is the best time. Once it moves past the initial fireworks, and settles into something sustainable and more serious. Then the couple begins building a life, becoming contributing members of society again.

Relationships are serious. They are complicated. Despite our desires for what we call simplicity and happiness. A partnership will encounter many things besides happiness. The bumps on the road. Some last. Some do not. The ethics are very fuzzy in matters of the heart. There are no procedures to follow. There are influences, good and bad, that shift our behaviors. There are desires, sometimes strange, unexpected, illogical desires that pull us off the right course. And while we should never deny ourselves happiness, there is a certain healthy caution that we hear, while our hearts and minds are in flux. It is what it is to be in love. And love is strange.