Women and Love: What is True Love?

By John D. Meehan
9/13/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Contending views on the truth of love continue to struggle for public attention

Women must cease narrowing down their everyday existence. If they do not, and, if they continue to view their femininity as nothing but a compilation of instincts aroused by external stimuli, there can and will be no such thing as love in the world. Without women understanding themselves correctly, human love will continue to be packaged - academically and commercially - as a biological impulse, that is, a mere sexual drive.

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PEMBROKE, NH (Catholic Online) - Women must cease narrowing down their everyday existence. If they do not, and, if they continue to view their femininity as nothing but a compilation of instincts aroused by external stimuli, there can and will be no such thing as love in the world.

Indeed, without women understanding themselves correctly, human love will continue to be packaged - academically and commercially - as a biological impulse, that is, a mere sexual drive.

Listen to what a male behavioral scientist has to say about sex: "Losing our faculties over a matter like sex ought not to make much sense for a species like ours that relies on its wits. A savanna full of predators, after all, is not a place to get distracted. But, the lure of losing our faculties is one of the things that makes sex thrilling-and one of the very things that keeps the species going. As far as your genes are concerned, your principal job, while you are alive, is to conceive offspring, bring them to adulthood, and then obligingly die so you don't consume resources better spent on the young. Anything that encourages you to breed now and breed plenty gets that job done" (Jeffrey Kluger).

Nevertheless, contending views on the truth of love continue to struggle for public attention. There is the song Love is a Many Splendored Thing from a Hollywood movie with the same title. There is the definition of love offered in the book, Love Story, by Eric Segal: "Love is never having to say you're sorry."

There is the universal appeal of the Beatles: All You Need is Love. There is the rawness of Playboy and Hustler magazines: Love is sex. There is the lamentable cry of the J. Giels Band: Love Stinks.

There is the poetry of Saint Paul: "Without love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging symbol," a person who, "is nothing and gain[s] nothing" (1 Co 13:2,3).

Then, there is the statement made by Pope Benedict XVI, who said this about love: "Love promises infinity, eternity - a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence. Yet, we have also seen that the way to attain this goal is not simply by submitting to [sexual] instinct."

Persistent questions concerning the nature and reality of human love abound: "Humans, after all, have offered any number of ultimate characterizations of reality, from a swirl of atoms to a struggle for survival, from a war between matter and spirit to the search for pleasure and release, from the slow march of rationality to a cloud of illusion" (Peter Steinfels).

In fact, inquiries into and statements on the truth of love do not go away easily. A sociologist, Helen Fisher, asks the question: "People compose poetry, novels, and sitcoms for love. They live for love, die for love, and kill for love. What makes human beings go loony over love?

Since so many opposing views on human love are offered these days, a woman must consider the question of Helen Fisher seriously: "What makes human beings go loony over love?"

Before an answer is given, every female questioner must acknowledge that there is a difference between genuine love and counterfeit love.

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John D. Meehan has been involved in the lay apostolate of the Catholic Church since the close of the Second Vatican Council. He resides in New Hampshire with his lovely wife Elizabeth.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: women, women issues, family life, marriage, feminism, john d. meehan

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Jenny
7 months ago
I agree with Dave that love is God, but I also believe (now know?) that God is love - which is unconditional selfless, all of which God is. The theme of existence is to be cooperative and loving all of which God is - you can see the biological reason for why I think this way here: http://www.worldtransformation.com/what-is-love/
dave
8 months ago
What makes human beings go loony over love?
i think because GOd is LOVe..Thats why we have so many crisis..because many of us are trying to be like a GoD.But who cares????Do you????
Paula Powers-Traverzo
8 months ago
Being female, I have to agree with Annie. What rational person would believe that women are the sole propagators of "counterfeit love"? Really! Where did this writer emerge from?!
Martha
8 months ago
Annie, women have ALWAYS been the keepers of culture and morality. It is OUR role to safeguard authentic human love. Every woman who gives out sex without any demand of authentic devotion, respect, or love brings our whole culture down. It is a shame that most women no longer "demand" a real man, who respects and honors her womanhood. I am outraged for both my 11 year old daughter who already thinks looking sexy is what she needs to be, and my 7 year old son who may not have a worthy woman to dedicate himself to. BTW we do not watch tv, The poison is everywhere. pray for our kids.
Spiritus Gladius
8 months ago
Without this society that has turned its back on the Lord, this wouldn't even be an issue. I actually think woman's TRUE natural impulses are far contradicting to those that this culture suggests. The biological impulse of woman IS for love. "Your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you" (Gen 3:16). THIS is what women are created to long for. THIS is their impulse. Raised in a world far removed from this society, THIS is what women actually DO long for. It is only because of the lies from the vast numbers of pagans and evildoers in this world that this is denied! Women are lied to, they are brainwashed so thoroughly and extensively by our culture that they refuse to accept their true longings and replace them with a lie that appeals purely to pride and empowerment. "In the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God" (Gen 3:5). Satan is not very creative. He tricked woman once before and is using the exact same tactics he used before to allure her into his clutches: the appeal of empowerment. The men of this world need to put on their armor, take up their swords, and fight against these evils. Woman is soon to be extinct, and replaced by this culture with a counterfeit. She cannot save herself. Paul told man, that it is the husband who must give his life for his wife. John says there is no greater love than this. How pertinent this is to these times. Arise Christian men, you are the warriors of God, and together with chariots of angels you will rescue woman.
Juneau Alaska
8 months ago
Jeffrey Kluger will find no support amongst evolutionary biologists that one must "obligingly die so you don't consume resources better spent on the young." In fact, that exact view is what started a young George C. Williams to resoundingly reject all the nonsense that was being taught about evolution in the 1940s and led him to writing his masterpiece, Adaptation and Natural Selection. George Williams is arguably America's finest successor to Charles Darwin. It would be good if "male behaviorists" would actually read up on the science before writing about it. This isn't a small error. -Cheers! Mike
Jim
8 months ago
Another article this month about women, love, and family. Sounds like a political tide of the times. Annie makes a good point above! Male and female sexuality cannot be discussed separately because they don't make sense as separate entities.
Annie
8 months ago
I must have missed part one. I will scroll through the archives to fInd the article about men's roles in pacakaging love, and women, to suit their sexual fantasies. I am sure it must be there. Or maybe it's coming tomorrow. Surely Catholic Online would not post the article above so completely out of such a context and suggest that women alone are responsible for the current and future condition of human love. Surely.

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