Arthur Schopenhauer's view on love has strong biological underpinning. He reasoned that our biological nature is the reason why love exist. It only has one singular purpose: procreation. The will to life is the driving force behind our understanding of what love is. Below is some extract of his words:
"The only true purpose, the real purpose of every communion in love is the procreation, the birth of a child, although people who are in love are unable to conceive the nature's treacherous way, casting over the actual act a shining veil ".
"The pleasure, the voluptuousness of mutual sexual possession, is nothing but a trap. Nature is filling the gaps with new individuals. Examine two beings who are seeking to satisfy this imperative instinct called love. One could see in their eyes, filled with lust, a new being taking shape; in their sexual joining, after which they crave, is the union of two beings into one."
Schopenhauer concludes: "Love is only the species' will for survival, the need to propagate de species and it's detrimental to illusions and passing joys the human feels ".
Therefore, according to Schopenhauer, the reason why you fall in love with the person you are in love with and not someone else is because of the fact that he/she possess physical attributes that would complement you to produce the perfect-balanced child. Hence, a short woman would date a tall man so that their child would have an 'ideal' height.
Typical style of Schopenhauer's belief: pessimistic and gloomy.
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If we are all prisoners of our nature, then it would be impossible to find married couple making the choice not to have children albeit they are biologically-healthy enough to procreate. Nature is but one partial factor in love; to believe that it is the main force is inaccurate. But he is right only in the sense that love cast a shining veil to mask a true intention.
So what is the true intention of love? What is it masking?
Yunhaier defines the true intention of love as fulfillment of cosmic lessons, driven by what I termed as effect from relationship that are primarily karmic by nature. Therefore, to understand relationship, we first need to understand what is "Karmic" and how it is imbedded by nature and skillfully disguised as love.
Once, an homeless woman confided with me about her previous marriage and how much abuse she has sustained all these years. Eventually, she made the choice to leave him only to meet another man, who end up abusing her. My training in social work would have easily understood it as a cycle of violence and she is more likely to end up with another mate who would repeat this cycle. Interestingly, especially in the case of family violence, victims are often drawn to mates who originally appears to provide protection and safety due to a variety of reasons, but end up transforming into an abuser themselves.
There are a few reasons why people stayed in abusive relationship. Sometimes, it is for practical reason (e.g. financial, accommodation, etc), while others might be for emotional reasons - even if it is ineffective (e.g. he abuse me but he is a nice guy, he is the only person that cared as my family abandoned me, etc). Regardless of reasons, what's certain is the effect and the choice to remain in the relationship promised much misery and challenges until real intervention sets in.
And if "Karmic" is about the manifestation in varying degree of elements and conditions of misery, sadness, hurt, disappointment, anger, bitterness or resentment in the course of the relationship, virtually no relationship is absolutely spared from the above experience. Even the best of relationship, leading to marriage with zero experience of arguments whatsoever, would experience some level of sadness upon the passing of their spouse.
Therefore, all relationship are karmic by nature.
Grace asked me "then does it mean that we need to avoid relationship?" Of course not; in fact, relationship can be one of the most meaningful/beautiful things in life.
You see, if all relationship are karmic by nature, then if one could find the partner that has less karmic manifestation, these people tends to have happier relationship. Much of it is also due to the individual's ability to evolve when they are leading the relationship (I won't go into details here though). Then you might ask again, how do we know which is 'more' or 'less' karmic in nature?
Ah! This is where the logic stops. Because we generally do not know what our cosmic lesson in love is and what it wants us to learn in this lifetime.
For example: if the perpetrator is abusive due to a root cause say 'possessiveness' - until the possessiveness is adequately resolved, the danger of abusing is likely to return. Surely, the perpetrator would not realize that he is possessive until he ends up with relationships that work simultaneously to spark this off. However, what is driving behind the formation of this relationship and the initial unconscious choice to be with their chosen partner is the teleological result or final cause of him needing to overcome the lessons of 'possessiveness' that life presents. He would then be attracted to a partner that would provide the condition and opportunity to learn this particular lesson in love - which I called it cosmic lesson.
Love is not a will of life; it is a struggle to understand our cosmic lessons in love and how to overcome them to achieve a greater self.
"It is absurd to suppose that ends are not present [in nature] because we do not see an agent deliberating." - Aristotle
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