Marriage and Morals

Russell opens the chapter with a blunt thesis: with the triumph of Christianity and the barbarians, relations between men and women sank into a brutality unknown to antiquity. The Church held sex to be unclean, yet this did not stop medieval immorality — the author cites documented cases of bishops' illegitimate children from the historian Lea. The conclusion becomes a bridge to the chapter's main idea: since the Church did nothing to beautify love, that task fell to those outside the clergy — the aristocracy and the poets.

The most interesting part of the chapter is its definition of romantic love. For Russell its essence is seeing the beloved as extremely precious and hard to attain; a man's feelings for a woman he wins easily never take the form of romantic love. Medieval troubadours usually directed their love at married, exalted ladies, and that love had to remain platonic. The author reads Dante's love for Beatrice in this light and warns that it was not merely a literary convention but a far more passionate feeling than modern readers imagine.

Here Russell quotes at length from Huizinga's «The Waning of the Middle Ages» to show that the Provençal troubadours of the 12th century, by placing 'unsatisfied desire' at the centre of poetry, created a turning point in the history of civilisation. The line then runs on to the Renaissance, to the sonnets of Sidney and Shakespeare, to Don Quixote's Dulcinea. This historical tour is brief but rich; Russell's gift for combining cultural history with philosophy is on show here at its best.

The chapter's central argument unfolds through Shelley: romantic love flourishes in an 'unstable equilibrium' where obstacles exist but are not insurmountable. Had Emilia Viviani not been shut up in a convent, Shelley would not have written «Epipsychidion». Conversely, love poetry is not born in the old Chinese system, where families arranged everything, nor under complete freedom. This is both a sharp literary observation and the foundation of the view Russell defends throughout the book: excessively strict morality and a total vacuum alike weaken our most valuable feelings.

The chapter's ending is perhaps unexpected: Russell, known as a champion of free love, argues against making romantic love the sole basis of marriage. In romantic love, he writes, the beloved is seen 'through a glamorous mist', and when that mist lifts in marriage, disappointment begins; he links America's high divorce rate to this. Marriage, in his view, is something far more serious than two people enjoying each other's company — a social institution that exists for the sake of children, and once children arrive, husband and wife must stop treating their own feelings as the most important thing. This is a much more measured position than the book's reputation as a 'permissive' text would suggest.

The Turkish translation conveys the meaning well, but the language is old-fashioned, with many parenthetical glosses and printing errors. Some generalisations (for example, the whole Middle Ages being 'brutal') are now regarded by historians as simplifications. Even so, the chapter shows very well why the book counts as a classic: Russell talks about love as a historian, a philosopher and a slightly mischievous friend all at once.

• Historical examples, literary quotations and philosophical argument woven together
• Extensive references to Huizinga, Lea and Lecky
• Russell's trademark irony and short, pointed judgements
• Each chapter can be read as a standalone essay