Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

that time, the engaged couple were under age and very young, often only twelve or fifteen
years old. Incidentally, it was assumed that the profound relatedness between the two sexes
would soon lead to liking and affection. Not infrequently, the engaged couple saw each other
for the first time in their lives on the wedding day, as, for example, King Philip II of Spain
and his fifteen-year-old bride, Isabel de Valois, who were introduced to each other on January
31, 1560 in the festival hall of the pal- ace of Guadalajara whereupon the wedding ceremony
followed immediately in the palace chapel. The marriage between Philip and Isabel was a
very happy one, just as at time in general „there were probably fewer unhappy marriages than
today“ because „instead of an individual attraction, an attraction between families and clans“
could be effective. 47 At that time people said: „I love you because you are my wife“; today we
say: „You are my wife because I love you.“
Of course, the patriarchal practice of contracting marriage was morally unobjectionable only
when the engaged couple assented to the decision of the parents without fear or coercion and
when it could be considered certain that love would grow in them. Therefore, in the age of
patriarchalism the Church always recognized a marriage contracted against the will of the
parents as valid and declared marriages forced upon the engaged couple invalid, and it did so
in an effective way because ecclesiastical tribunals were entitled to marital jurisdiction. Affection
and love were therefore recognized as marriage-forming powers in the patriarchal age
also. Many sociologists do indeed affirm that the union of personal love and marriage was
foreign to the patriarchal age and only emerged gradually in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
with the troubadours and minne-singers, but this is a thesis that stands in contradiction to the
historical witnesses. Even in the Book of Genesis where typically patriarchal conditions are
described, we read: „Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel. ..So Jacob served seven years for
Rachel, yet they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her“ (Gen29:18 ft).
When Samuel's mother remained childless and was grieving on that account, her husband,
Elkanah, consoled her thus: „Hannah, why do you weep, and why do you refuse to eat? Why
do you grieve? Am I not more to you than ten sons?“ (I Sm I :8).
2. Of course, there is hardly a word that can designate something so lofty and holy and at the
same time something so low and common as the simple little word 'love'. There is a so-called
love that exploits another person and forces him or her into sexual submission. Thomas Aquinas
thinks that the lion also loves the deer „in relation to its food“ when it sees it or hears its
voice (11-11.141,4 ad 3). Such sexual exploitation is crass egoism, but not love. True love has
its original ground in God whose likeness man is. Because „God is Love“(I Jn 4:8), man too
is a loving being, and most people experience this mystery in a particularly deep and happy
way in the married love between man and woman. Only that love which is also respect, however,
possesses a marriage-forming power. It is of a twofold kind: Eros and agape.
The general attraction and tension between the sexes becomes specialized and concretized
with one person of the other sex through that emotional sexual love that we call Eros. Today,
Eros probably stands at the beginning of most love relationships and marriages. It is the 'covetous
love', but in a noble sense; for it seeks completion, enrichment of life, bliss, and fulfillment
in the person loved .It is, however, threatened by the twofold danger of getting bogged
down in one-self, on the one hand, and of projecting an unrealistic ideal image onto the other
person, on the other, which can easily lead to disappointments. Often, Eros also promises the
lovers a beatitude such as is unattainable in this age between the Fall and the Day of Judgment.
Even if Eros as an emotional sexual love is not connected with the sexual drive at first,
especially among girls, the state of being in love normally urges one towards it. Here it is to
be observed that, since it is a lively one, this urge does not come to a standstill, but tends towards
becoming more intimate. Among many young people today, 'love' is not much more
47 W Morgenthaler in Die Psychohygiene (Bern, 1949), 124.
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