There are men and women who were being in love and when finally get married, they find love is already gone. As a result of getting married, love vanished. That’s what we see on the surface.
Schopenhauer believes that the purpose of love is to get married and the purpose of marriage is to have children. Therefore, love basically is a method and so is the marriage; when the goal is achieved, the method can naturally be ignored. What Schopenhauer wanted to say is “the child is love’s grave”. Schopenhauer tried to see the essence, but he wasn’t able to fully see through the surface and he was on the halfway.
Why is marriage love’s grave? One theory believes when people get married, the spatial distance is shortened and the husband and wife will expose their shortcomings hidden before. The notice of the other one’s shortcomings makes love vanished. Therefore the marriage is love’s grave.
Another theory reveals that two person’s different custom caused the failure of the marriage. Before marriage, the couple was not living together, even if they sometimes stay together. Their habits and custom will not conflict with each other too much. However, when they get married, this difference will possibly conflict with each other, until love finally withers away.
The third theory was called as “Boring”. It believes that people in love are so romantic, but when get married, they have to worry about the daily necessities. Train train quotidian is how so boring. Love is suffered from this kind of boring daily life.
Apart from the “Shortcoming Exposure”, “Custom Conflict” as well as “Boring” theories, there might be other explanations to answer why marriage is love’s grave. Nevertheless, these explanations are surface and they don’t reflect the essence of the problem. The “Custom”, “Shortcomings” and “Boring” are all superficial phenomena and what we can see; there is deeper reason hidden behind.
Why do these explanations only see the superficial phenomenon? This is because men and women in love will possibly fall in love with the other one’s shortcomings, therefore, the “Shortcoming Exposure” will be essentially unsustainable; Similarly, men and women in love will possibly be together because of the different custom and will continue to love each other, which also explains that the “Custom Conflict” will not be tenable; there are also many examples that people love each other in boring environments and love makes the boring life so charming.
Actually the very reason that love vanished is the vanishing of the feeling to respect love. Marriage directly caused the vanishing of this feeling. The vanishing of this feeling can start from one side, or both sides at the same time. The feeling to respect love refers to the feeling that one side “respects” the other one; this “Respect” is not a formula, but an affirmation of the other one’s “Love Value”.
The immediate consequence of marriage is the vanishing of the feeling to respect love. When living together, a couple find it unnecessary to surfacely respect the other one. The politeness is not necessary, the “Appreciation” (this feeling is from heart, but not surface) will therefore also vanish and so will the sacred feeling; this finally causes the vanishing of the feeling to respect love.
What perhaps needs to explain is that, the vanishing of the feeling to respect love might be brought by different “blasting fuses” in different families. In some family it might be due to the “Shortcoming Exposure”, in another family it might be the “Custom Conflict”, or in another family it might be “Monotonous and Boring”. Although in different families the “blasting fuses” might be totally different, they will lead to the vanishing of the feeling to respect love.
Without the feeling to respect love, love no longer exists. As for the “Shortcoming Exposure”, “Personality and Custom’s Differences”, “Life’s Boredom” or so on, it is rather an excuse than a kind of “blasting fuse” to lead to the vanishing of love, an excuse found to explain the cause of the vanishing of love in order to deceive oneself and others.
