Husbands are so bad-guy evildoers. No, really. It's in all the lais. I've been reading Marie du France stuff out of sheer boredeom. Why? Because introductory level poetry is coyote ugly. That, and I'm feeling the intimidation from Elie Weisel. I think I spelled it right.

Courtly love, ah, that vaunted, romantic adulation for the gentle...love thing. Right. One of the rules of courtly love is that one cannot love one's husband. It's just not possible. It's not that it's not done, it's that it can't be done. The tales of King Arthur are set in the Courtly Love theoretical perspective. Guinevere and Lancelot love affair isn't some love triangle between a man, his wife, and his best friend, it's about how Guinevere and Lancelot loved each other, even though her husband kept sticking his nose in. After all, he couldn't love her and she couldn't love him. Even so, it doesn't stop the mean evil-doer husbands from locking their wives up and killing off the ardent lover. People are so weird.

I'm not big into Luuuuuuuuurve myself. I love, like everyone else does, but I think "impractical", like the dictionary does, not "Romeo and Juliet" like everyone else seems to, when it comes to romantic. I can do romantic gestures, but when it comes down to it, DeBeers so aren't my best friend. They enslave people and artificially hikes the price of diamonds with their little global monopoly. When you think about it, roses are a sucky metaphor for love. You stick them in water and watch them wilt, die, and then you throw them away before they molder. Is that like trading up for a younger model when mid-life hits? I prefer ammo. You can reload it.

There's real meaning of life stuff out there, without pretty ribbons and velvet bows. It's stuff like trust, respect, and honor. But I love him. Marie du France is just a previous life for modern romance, ya know? Men are still supposed to rush in on their firey steeds and sweep the damsel off of her feet into a whirlwind of happily ever after. Like courtly love, people set themselves up for failure. You can't be happy ever after, happy is a transient state. You can be content, at peace, or satisfied, but happy?

Funny, then how I believe in the sappy, romantic notion of Love at First Sight. It exists. The juices get flowing and the happy ever after choir is in full throated arias. I just don't believe that Love is the be all end all, the over-arching prize of the human condition. I don't believe in trust at first sight, though I think trust is one of those be all, end all, over-arching prizes of the human condition. Love is okay, but trust is a precious gift. Marie du France's heroines never really bothered with trust in their relationships, either with their evil-doer husbands or with the lovers that snuck in to get their rocks off. Courtly love was just as transient as happiness, apparently. Romantic love doesn't appear to be much more enduring, even if Romeo did kill himself for it.