Philosophy in the modern world a new history of western philosophy, volume 4 (new history of western philosophy) ( PDFDrive ) (1) 294
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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
wrong to portray love as a quest that surmounts obstacles and trials to
achieve its goal in marriage: a wedding is the beginning, not the end, of
truly romantic love. The essay takes the form of a letter to a romantic
correspondent who has fundamental objections to the whole idea of a
church marriage.
Kierkegaard imagines the objector saying:
The girl before whom I could fall down and worship, whose love I feel could
snatch me out of all confusion and give me new birth, it is she I am to lead to the
Lord’s altar, she who is to stand there like a sinner, of whom and to whom it shall
be said that it was Eve who seduced Adam. To her before whom my proud soul
bows down, the only one to whom it has bowed down, to her it shall be said that
I am to be her master and she subservient to her husband. The moment has come,
the Church is already reaching out its arms for her and before giving her back to
me it will first press a bridal kiss upon her lips, not that bridal kiss I gave the whole
world for; it is already reaching out its arms to embrace her, but this embrace will
cause all her beauty to fade, and then it will toss her over to me and say ‘Be fruitful
and multiply’. What kind of power is it that dares intrude between me and my
bride, the bride I myself have chosen and who has chosen me? And this power
would command her to be true to me; does she then need to be commanded? And
is she to be true to me only because a third party commands it, one whom she
therefore loves more than me? And it bids me be true to her; must I be bidden to
that, I who belong to her with my whole soul? And this power decides our relation
to each other; it says I am to ask and she is to obey; but suppose I do not want to
ask, suppose I feel myself too inferior for that? (E/O 408)
Judge Vilhelm, whom Kierkegaard sets up as the defender of traditional
marriage, urges his correspondent to accept that in marriage he cannot but
be master, that his wife is no more a sinner than any other woman, and
that accepting a third power means only thanking God for the love
between bride and groom. At marriage the husband comes to understand
that real love is daily possession throughout a lifetime, not the preternatural power of a brief infatuation; and his taking her as a gift from God,
rather than as a conquest of his own, enables the wife ‘to put the loved one
at just enough distance for her to be able to draw breath’ (E/O 411).
Vilhelm is emphatic that the only worthy motive for entering on
marriage is love for the spouse. He lists, and rejects, other reasons why
people marry or are urged to marry: that marriage is a school for character,
that one has a duty to propagate the human race, that one needs a home.
None of these motives are adequate, from either an aesthetic or an ethical
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