at any point along the way.
“With the sea hawk that has a nest up on a crag, it’s a different story. She broods her eggs, and when they hatch she must begin the task of finding and bringing them prey, and tearing it into bits they can swallow. That continues until at long last, after endless squawking and clamoring, the chicks have grown wings that are strong enough for them to leave the nest, mature, find mates, and build nests of their own.”
Ian spoke up. “I don’t know how it is with sea hawks, but in some bird species the male partner, having done his part to fertilize the eggs as they were forming, stays around and helps to feed and protect the chicks.”
Beth joined in, “That’s the preferable kind of mate. We mammals have it harder, though. With us, the evolutionary process heaps the whole primary burden on the female. She has to carry the progeny in her body until it can live on its own.”
“Until hatched, that is?” Ian put in, with a laugh.
“No,” Beth countered. “The mammalian hatchling, if you want to call it that, can’t manage outside food. It has to nurse from its mother, or a surrogate mother, until it’s more developed. The male may help by foraging for the female, but she has to provide the critical nourishment for the offspring. So instinct varies here. In some mammalian species, the male stays around for protection. In others, he isn’t there, not for the birth, nor afterward.”
“A human parable.” That was Luc, with his dry humor. “Ours is by far the most intelligent and resourceful of the mammalian species, but not the most dependable. Instinct, in us, has been plastered over by layers of civilization. That deadening appears to produce among us a lot of deadbeat dads.”
“Sad, but true,” Jen rejoined to that, “which shows that for our species, and at the present stage of evolution of our society, the female should take special care in choosing a mate.”
She gave that comment whimsical emphasis, with a smile at us three men, so I picked up the thread.
“The choice isn’t always so freely made. Even the most primitive society introduces limits and taboos. Generally, less is left to choice and more to custom and tradition. We all know about societies in which marriages are arranged for children, sometimes almost before they learn to walk. And then, there was the era of royal families, in which marriage was a political tool. Now, that seems passé, although the ‘marriage of convenience’ certainly is still around.”
“But how much is really choice?” Jen asked. “Any sizeable group of youthful people sorts itself, by and large, into couples. Is this by ancient evolutionary instinct? It’s naturally hormonal for the sexes to gravitate toward each other, but what prompts specific, individual selection? That seems mysterious. To be sure, it doesn’t always work. There is the triangle—a framework for sagas of reality as well as fiction—when two members of one sex pursue the same one of the other. And there are other problems, tragedies small and large; but to a remarkable degree, as it seems, when social custom permits it, a spontaneous pairing occurs.”
“Right,” said Luc, “and that’s instinct, left free to operate.”
“Well, now,” Ian came in, “this could be getting personal. What Beth and I announced the other evening wasn’t just a gurgling of hormonal instinct. I hope we see each other as more than that!”
There was a ripple of laughter, with a touch of embarrassment. I felt that I could offer a comment on that.
“Certainly,” I said, “here are two highly complex people. Sexual urges are present, and, no doubt, other instinctual promptings. I dare say we’ve all experienced such. But for human marriage at its best there needs to be a fitting together of two complex beings in many ways.
“Here enters Shakespeare’s theme of ‘the marriage of true minds,’ in his Sonnet 116. Two minds may be very different in their interests, their knowledge, and their skill of thought; but each one needs to bring to their shared life her or his special focus and gifts, and needs to have a full appreciation of what the other brings. Which is to say that neither partner should try to shape the other. Let her be herself, and him be himself. They are unique, even while, living together, they will be building up a single, central home and life.”
“I agree with that,” Luc said. “But the structure of a shared home and life has to have common ground on which it can be built. The two people need to share a bedrock foundation of life, a basic set of ideas and ideals about living. If they don’t have that, they can find themselves pulling in different directions. And if there are children, and Mom is saying, Do this, try to be this; while Dad says, No, not that way, what I’m telling you is better; the kids won’t know which way to go. Marriage partners are different—fine—but they must have a common ground to build on.”
“The sum of it all,” I proposed, “is that these two rich, complex personalities choose to work at fitting themselves together. That’s love—conscious, purposeful love.”
“Thanks, Don,” Beth said, “and Dad, too. That’s how Ian and I see it, as we’ve talked about it. We don’t try to be the same. He compensates for me, and I for him. How boring it would be, if we were too much alike! He isn’t the dominant male, either. Neither of us intends to dominate, but rather to recognize the qualities that each of us lacks, and that the other brings to our being together. At least, that’s how we’ve said we want it to be. Let’s hope we can make it work.”
“Well put!” Jen said. “You are two people with similar viewpoints, so that finding the common ground that Luc speaks of probably is natural enough. But at the same time, you are two different people, and there will be moments—crises, perhaps—in which your differences will stand out, stark and plain. You didn’t go out to look for and to choose a mate who is different, but your love made the choice. Be able to recognize that—even be glad for it. Make of your differences something to cherish in one another, two quite distinct halves of one complete whole.
“That, I’d say, is love. Eros is part of it, the strong, basic urge. But it is also the human spirit at its finest.”
The early winter evening was coming on. Our talk had reached a natural end point, a time for us to rise, find our coats, and, with hearty thanks to our hostess, go out into the brisk, gathering darkness.
Dialogue II
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Ian.
“Don, my uncle has a cabin in the Poconos. I was telling him about our conversation at Jen’s place, and he said, ‘If your group wants to get together again, where you can think and talk and not be disturbed, why don’t you use my cabin? It’s quiet enough up there, and the woods are beautiful, even at this time of year.’ I thanked him and said I would consult you.”
We worked it out for a Sunday a couple of weeks later, in mid-November. Ian’s uncle also offered his van, and we five rode together, in a festive mood. The Poconos, on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, opposite north central New Jersey, are not large mountains, but the land rises enough for a distinct change in the air. It grew clear and crisp. The November sky, beyond bare, white-birch branches, was steel blue. Before we reached the cabin, we came into a region where there had been a light, early snow.
I wondered how comfortable the cabin might be; but didn’t need to. Ian had seen to that. When we went in, after stamping some snow off our shoes, there was a fire laid in the fireplace. Ian soon had it crackling cheerfully, throwing warm flickers on our faces. And within minutes, while Jen and I were still admiring the snug cabin and its graceful setting on the
