Does romantic love have a purpose?

Many philosophers in the past have attempted to answer the meaning behind the vexing topic of love. Some ending up with satisfying theories, others obscure ones. Reading these theories made me want to know more about this abstract and impossibly difficult “thing” we call love. Who knew such a small word could hold so much power. The simple sentence “I love you” can engulf the brain and body with neurochemicals and dopamine, which has pretty much the same effect as cocaine. The power of lust, deep and intoxicating, chemicals in your body take over and you can genuinely be “blinded by love”. So why do we have these all-consuming feelings? Do they serve a higher purpose as Plato suggests in his Symposium, do we unnecessarily put ourselves through the torment and perplexity of love or is love the life force of this world as Dante portrays in his Divina Comedia? The British philosopher Bertrand Russell illustrated how love is an escape from our loneliness; believing that love had the power to make us overcome our fear of the cruel world and engage in the “joie de vivre”. Adding to this pessimistic perspective on love, the German philosopher Arthur Shopenhaur believed that love was a voluptuous illusion, tricking us into procriating and then dragging us back into our tormented existences. Plato took a different outlook on the matter. He believed romantic love makes us whole, as we love in order to become complete. Plato’s answer is not so simple as we see in his famous “Symposium” which illustrates different views on the matter of love, the main one being “the ladder of love”. “The ladder of love” In Plato’s Symposium is used in attempting to define love. His character Diotima, explains how the body is not the whole picture as it is relativised. Infatuation or erotic desire with a beautiful body is just the starting point for climbing this metaphorical ladder. As we climb the ladder we are to be led to deeper and bigger feelings. For example, finding love of beauty in people (being the second step), as well as intellectual beauty where we learn to appreciate a beautiful mind. Thus an interest in beauty is not shallow, but instead the starting point in experiencing a deeper love. Beauty exists beyond one person, one form, one idea – the physical. This “quantum leap” which one must take to appreciate the beauty of the soul requires strength in searching for a beautiful soul. Diotima believes that in order to move away from solely looking at the physical body, we must encounter beautiful souls to appreciate and acknowledge a beautiful mind. However, romantic love, or infatuation, is not a complete definition of love. Plato refers to the love for laws and institutions (i.e. arrangements), which effects a whole community or society. This very political beauty shapes the souls that live under these laws, offering a greater beauty and symbolic umbrella which creates the individuals under it. A greater degree of beauty can be known as forms of knowledge (virtues), which finally lead to “the beautiful” or “all things good”. This abstract concept of beauty is the final revelation which we all seem to search for. The driving force behind this ascent through “the ladder of love” is eros (love); and with each inclining step there is a liberation and a universal understanding of participation which we must join in to achieve “the beautiful”. So can this be the purpose for romantic love? Do we all strive to reach “the beautiful”, a concept so pure, so good that it takes a ladder of eros to get to? It is said that when/if we fall in love, we feel a strong euphoria of romance, to enjoy pleasure, to bond and even to procreate. With neurochemicals and dopamine flooding the brain and body at the start of infatuation and lust for another. Deeper feelings then evolve with oxytocin, which is released during orgasm. The psychology of love also plays a big factor in who we fall in love with, as we rely on our self-esteem, mental and emotional health, life experiences, and family relations. When we fall in love, we acknowledge a person for everything that they are: good and bad. Love also brings out parts of our personality that were dormant before, which could bring out the best…or the worst of us. Romantic love can open different feelings and experiences where you find out something new about yourself. Getting to understand yourself better, what you expect or want to discover from life. Can love can ultimately be seen as selfish then? As we use it to satisfy ourselves through others, I suppose we could even call it utilitarian, making the most of the situation/partnership. Dante Alighieri provides us with a similar answer to Plato, placing love as the ultimate fuel and energy in everything and everyone. La Divina Comedia,being one of the most important works from medieval literature, outlines an imaginary journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso; exploring ideas of the afterlife in medieval Christian belief. In his Inferno, an encounter with Francesca da Rimini makes us understand how love is a “compulsive force that cannot be resisted”, a doctrine that effectively deprives us of free will. The psychology of desire in this poem suggests that a passion so contradictory cannot be love, yet the same word holds both meanings. Dante explains how we confuse these feelings and may even be so bold as to call what is really lust, love: “chiamando amore appetito di fera” (143). Can it be that romantic love causes the elimination of our free-will? Can an obstacle seemingly so pure be so bitter-sweet? In Inferno 5 he shows us how the word “amore”, when wrongly construed, leads to death: “Amor condusse noi ad una morte” (Inf. 5.106). According to Dante, passion and love are two very different things but are often (if not always) confused as one: love. Dante is ultimately interested in understanding and negotiating with the “self’s desire”, explaining how if we make reason dominate desire, it would mean maintaining free will. However, he sees a force in love when the word “amore” is first encountered (Inferno 1) as the divine love that moves the stars, holding a life force: the force that solely binds and moves the universe. So, is love a just the start of a long journey which we all seek for? Or is it a force so strong and so unforgiving to make us give up our free-will? Romantic love starts with infatuation and lust, evolving into admiration, beauty and understanding. Love for someone else is different for love for one’s self and the love for ourselves is the hardest love to find. We will always be searching for “the beautiful”, as Plato put it, whether it be something concrete, an energy, ourselves or something we are yet (or every will) comprehend. In my opinion, looking for love from someone else means looking for love within our souls, in order to gain a higher understanding of life.