Before going into a discussion of the art of love, it is necessary that we understand the basic foundation on which love rests. There is only one kind of love and that is the love of a man for a woman or vice versa. Mother love, brother love, sister love, Platonic love, even the "unspeakable loves" of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas and Lesbia and her charming girls on the isle of Paphos, none of these is true love.
Man and woman He created them.
Man was created strong. Woman was created weak. Therefore, it is up to
man to protect his woman. Woman is so physically constituted that she
needs man's strong protection. it is she who has the onus of bearing
children. While in this condition, she naturally is unable to protect herself. That is one of the parts that man plays in the creation of life. Even
the supposed unthinking animals realize this.
With this as a basis, we can readily understand the differences between man and woman. For instance there is the difference in the attitude of man and woman toward the culmination of love. Woman, although she is just as anxious for love as man, must never betray her anxiety. She must always be passive. Man, it is, who must be the active partner. It is he who makes love to woman. He chases the woman who was made to be chased. The success of love depends entirely on
the understanding of this basic relationship.
Therefore, it is because man is the active half in an affair of love that this book is directed mostly to him. But woman should also understand these principles that make for the success of love and, wither her cooperation, aid her man in making this active-passive, chaser-chased, strong-weak relationship possible. That accounts for woman's coyness, her shyness. That also accounts for her sometimes illogical habits of putting her man off. She realizes intuitively that, in order to make herself more desirable to her man, she must make herself less accessible. She must, in other words, establish the chaser-chased relationship between them. She knows as Meade, the writer, knew that "a lover is like a hunter — if the game begot with too much ease he cares not for't." In plain English, the easier it is to get the less we want a thing.
The time when Sir Walter Raleigh laid his fine cloak into the mud for Queen Elizabeth was more a gesture of love than it was a gesture of loyalty from a subject to his queen. He was merely exhibiting his regard for the welfare of the woman he loves. Nowadays, a man would seize hold of his girlfriend and carry her over the muddy pond and he would, in this way, demonstrate his strength and the use he makes of it to take care of his weaker mate. The old custom of a bridegroom's carrying his bride across the threshold of their new home is another example of this display of strength on the part of the male as it evidences itself with his wife who might be, in reality, a buxom wench as strong, perhaps, as her bridegroom. But the custom realizes
the basic necessity of establishing this strong-weak relationship as soon as possible, therefore the continuation of it.
If the strong-weak relationship is kept up throughout the entire period of lovemaking, courtship, and marriage, the result will be a happy marriage that will bear fruit in love, children, and marital bliss.
