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It is true that sometimes people say (and believe) they love somebody, when they really just care deeply about the other person and don't want to break up to avoid hurting themselves and the other. It is also true that some people say they love somebody only for the sake of having sex. And yet another type of people profess their love for another person, when what they really feel is love for that person's possessions - money, luxury goods, social position, etc. Despite all that, I think that true love does exist and it is worth it. The tricky part about our outlook on love is keeping an open mind.

For example, one of my favorite Russian poets - Fyodor Tutchev - was a polyamorous man, meaning he was capable of loving two women with equal passion at the same time. So much so, that neither of the women he was involved with could find it in her to blame him for loving someone else, because at the same time there was no question in their mind that he loved them as well. And not loved as in, "I only want you to be happy, so I am not going to leave you because I care about you," but LOVED as in, "I'll drop dead if you want me to." A lot of people would say, "God, what a bastard - he screwed around and took advantage of all those women." Well, perhaps he did, although it doesn't appear that was either from his own writings or from the notes of his friends and family, who knew him really well. In fact, when Tutchev's young mistress died of tuberculosis, his legitimate wife and daughters not only expressed their condolences but agreed that the three children he had with the mistress should be adopted into the family. I don't think a woman who felt she was being taken advantage of would have acted that way.

Another example of polyamorous love is described by Jack London of all people - in 'The Little Lady of the Big House'. Here we have a beautiful intelligent woman who loves two men - so much so that she cannot choose between them and kills herself to remove herself as an element from their lives and let them move on. Again, most people would say, eww... gross - but is that not love?

Science fiction writer Ursula LeGuin described an amazingly interesting family system in her anthology 'Fisherman of the Earth Sea'. Each family consists of four adults - two wives (Morning and Evening) and two husbands (Day and Night), who are all allowed to have sex with each other. Because this fictional society considers it vitally important to have harmonious households, there are no spur-of-the-moment marriages (that plague our own society) - some people take years to find the right "quartet" of partners. Because the children have four possible combinations of parents in every family (Evening and Night, Morning and Day, Morning and Night, Evening and Day), the gene pool remains very rich, so it's good for the society's physical health. In addition, the children have the benefit of receiving their upbringing from twice as many parents, plus other relatives (four sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) So there is never a situation, when there is nobody to look after the children when they come home from school or when they are going out to play.

I've read the description of this fascinating family system and felt jealous, because I wished our society could discipline itself into something like that. Yes, I did say "discipline", because creation of such a family would require a lot more love, respect and consideration for everyone involved - spouses, parents, children - than appears to be necessary for a modern marriage, let alone what passes for a relationship these days.. Maybe someday...

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