Q&A: What Is Love Between Spouses in the Haredi World
What Is Love Between Spouses in the Haredi World
Question
We find many couples who marry through matchmaking arrangements (and this is true among secular people too) who love each other, respect each other, appreciate each other, devote themselves to one another, and have compassion for one another. But a spark of infatuation, yearning for the one and only, emotional turmoil, and unceasing thoughts about the beloved… (romantic love) seem less present.
When you read Song of Songs, you see love of God described as that kind of love, and it is compared to a man’s love for a woman. Seemingly, that was the conception at that time.
But apparently in our Haredi world, and already for hundreds and thousands of years, this does not seem to be the conception or the way. Marriage is more of a family matter: to build a home, bring children into the world, love one’s wife more than oneself—but you don’t see that there is an ideal of intense passion.
Is that true? And what is the proper view?
A second question: is romantic love a lasting love that continues and grows, or as a rule is it supposed to fade away?
Answer
I don’t think there is a right and wrong here. If it exists—good, and if not—that’s also good.
The second question should be directed to a psychologist. But I don’t think there is one answer for everyone.
Discussion on Answer
There is a difference between requiring that she not become repulsive to him and requiring that there be desire.
There is a Talmudic passage in tractate Kiddushin 41a: Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: It is forbidden for a man to betroth a woman until he sees her, lest he see something unseemly in her and she become repulsive to him, and the Merciful One said, “Love your fellow as yourself.”
That seems to imply that there is some importance to the husband having some degree of desire toward the wife, for otherwise there would be a deficiency in “Love your fellow as yourself.”