[ 'What these people don’t seem to understand," said the lady, "is that marriage without love isn’t marriage at all; love is the only thing that can sanctify a marriage, and the only true marriages are those that are sanctified by love."
"Yes, but what’s true love?"
"Everybody knows what love is...!"
"I don’t," he said. "You’d have to define what you mean…"
"Love? Love is the exclusive preference for one man or one woman above all others,"she said.
"A preference lasting how long? A month? Two days, half an hour?"
"No, not that kind of preference, you’re talking about something else."]
These are the lines I picked up while reading the book "The Kreutzer Sonata" by Leo Toltoystoy.
Certainly, for the sake of the argument, which can be implied for the both parties, the mutual understanding for affection can be perhaps socially and individually be theorized, but if you discard the congregated ideology of the marriage to be so sane and holy and peek into the liberty of conjugation of marriage, I must say it is fairly impossible to think tow person can stay together for more than 2 decades without being worn out of affinity or love itself.
They say, in french culture, both men and women, very expressively keep a lover aside from their respective married partner, which both parties even though do not avow to be fact but do acknowledge each other with an extramarital affair.
Indeed, not that I possess any personal level exposure to express a substantiate claim that, however, as the saying goes and several other representations in books and cinemas, there at least is a fine certainty of that concept.
Though I am not a great fan of "statistics" in everything unlike many individuals who find solace and confidence in statistical data, mind my word friends, not everything "statistics" represents authentic status, at least things which are not materialistic! Yet, to gain a better understanding of my gathered perspectives and ideas from various cinemas, books, or other relevant contexts, I looked for some statistical point of view, which showed that three-quarter of couples these days support extramarital affairs! I mean could have done some thesis or perform some data collection if I could as I am quite enthusiastic of this context.
Though you must comprend, mes amies, I am yet to express my opinion and none of these I have said so far should support either of the sides of this notion or context.
Anyhow I am sort of intrigued by his question as well, for my failure to test the delicacy of love, not to mention being in love for a longer time to draw a conclusion. Morphing from the biased conception of "calculation of actions and interpretations by logical argument" about love, I, though, find it is possible these days, to be in love for a long time if you, as an individual, can achieve SOLIDARITY within!
I mean truly, a love lasting for how long, which cannot possibly sustain nevertheless with its all charm and pleasantness for decades. However, it can morphed into the idea of co-existing together, tolerating each other out of habit and comfort of knowingness regarding the spirits, the sheer compromise and understanding to stay together if not like parasitic existence but perhaps a symbiotic one!
All the contents are mine until mentioned otherwise.
It is a fascinating debate and one that does not have a simple answer. Personally, I am inclined to think that love, as defined by the lady, is something that can be possible, but that requires constant work and commitment on the part of the couple. Very good contribution!