How, then, can we, who have a
home to start with and some of us even have servants to work for us, venture to
say that marriage is a handicap for philosophy?
Now the philosopher is indeed the
teacher and leader of men in all the things that are appropriate for men
according to Nature, and marriage, if anything, is manifestly in accord with Nature.
For, to what other purpose did
the Creator of mankind first divide our human race into two sexes, male and female,
then implant in each a strong desire for association and union with the other,
instilling in both a powerful longing each for the other, the male for the
female and the female for the male?
Crates and Hipparchia could find love in marriage,
because they understood what was necessary, and they were quite willing to
dispense with anything that was merely a supplement, however preferable it
might have seemed.
I constantly remind myself that a Stoic Turn is not
some cosmetic change in life, and that my priorities will have to be modified to
the core. If Crates and Hipparchia can pull it off, then I can do so as well, and so
can the rest of us, who usually have at least some property to our names.
They could do it with nothing outside of
themselves, precisely because they knew what was going on inside of themselves.
I may be tempted to renounce the world entirely so
that I can live a philosophical life, but that would be a terrible mistake. I
may not be of the world, but I am most certainly
in the world. Where is the merit of any
thinking without the presence of any doing?
What could be more natural, more in harmony with my
very humanity, than learning to care for another without conditions? What
greater teacher could there be than one who lives out all of those noble
ideals, and actually manages to put them into practice?
If I only look closely and honestly, I will see
that Nature does nothing in vain, and that everything is intended for a deeper order.
Male and female are, by their very definition at the level of both body and
soul, made for one another. The love they can share between themselves is then
also the very origin of new life, the passing on of that gift of love.
Aren’t male and female, in a certain sense,
opposites? Yes, but like all contraries their interaction can lead to something
greater, and each is thereby a complement to the other. I only become fully myself
when I embrace something quite different than myself, recognizing that who I am
is balanced by and with another.
I suppose I have always been a sentimental fool, and
even years of steeling myself, and of honing my reason, have not removed that basic
disposition. I realize, however, that it does not need to be removed at all,
only tempered. It is part of who I am to feel, yet how I feel can only be given
meaning and purpose by the guidance of my judgments.
Do I wish to be “in love”? There is no shame in
that. There is only shame in making it a circumstance instead of a choice, something
that happens to me instead of something that I choose to do. Above all else,
none of my passions will make any sense without an informed conscience.
I am no Crates, and though she is by far the better
half, my wife is no Hipparchia. We stumble through life, while it is only examples
like Crates and Hipparchia that give us direction. Intense feeling alone will
destroy; guided by intense conviction it redeems.
Written in 1/2000
IMAGE: Crispijn van den Queborn, Hipparchia and Crates (1643)
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