Beware of what you call love

Yesterday I was scrolling through Facebook, not looking for anything in particular, smiling at silly memes and being secretly jealous of exotic travel pictures, when I saw an article that made my heart sink: a 73 years old man from Sardinia travelled all the way to Romania, where his ex-wife lived with her new partner, just to find her, shoot her in the head leaving her dead, and try to kill himself.

Another case, another tragedy, another life lost atrociously.

It's called feminicide, and it means "the intentional killing of women because they are females".

There have been too many (even one would be too many, to be honest), and every time I hear of another case, I feel Overwhelming sadness.

But straight after sadness comes anger, because unless we change the way we describe these murders and the reasons behind them, we are all responsible as a society.

On the 8th of January 2017, a 22 years old young woman in Sicily was set on fire by her boyfriend. She was "lucky" enough to escape with her life intact. After a few days in the hospital, she recovered completely.

She was invited to a very famous Italian talk show, to speak about the terrible experience she had gone through.

I don't watch that show, but I wanted to listen to Ylenia's story as if I could comfort her somehow just by being there, behind a screen, while she told it.

But Ylenia wasn't there to tell us how she felt. She was there to explain that her boyfriend was not a bad person and never meant to hurt her. "Ok, the shock," I thought. I can understand, trauma can be tough to deal with; maybe it was a reaction.

But there was one thing that I wasn't prepared for: the host's comments. A woman. Considered the queen of Italian TV. I had to listen to her say, "there are men that, because of too much love, do things that they shouldn't do".

Excuse me, what was that? Too much love? Did I hear that right? Yes, I did. She really said it.

Unfortunately, this unhealthy idea that violence could be somehow caused by too much love is something that has always surrounded us.

There are examples in literature, art, you name it.

In the seventeenth century, Shakespeare told us the tragedy of Othello, the Morish General in Venice, who was "tricked" into killing his wife, Desdemona.

Othello was maliciously led to believe, by one of his soldiers, Iago, that his wife was cheating on him with his lieutenant, Cassio.

Desdemona had always been loyal to her husband. Still, Othello wouldn't believe her and, after verbally abusing her in various ways, he finally kills her by smothering her with pillows in their bed.

After the murder, Othello learns that his wife was telling the truth and kills himself. He can't live with the fact that he has murdered an innocent. Before taking his life, he refers to himself as one that loved not wisely but too well

He is not sorry for the violence in itself; he is sorry because he wasn't wise enough to realise that she was faithful. However, even if not wisely, he does love her "too well", meaning with extreme passion and devotion. Too much love, as we were saying.

In contemporary society, what Othello did, would be labelled as "honour killing", defined by Human Rights Watch as acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members who are perceived to have brought dishonour upon the family

And guess what? Honour killing, in patriarchal societies, is considered a mitigating factor. Even more shocking: in Italy, the law on honour killing was repealed only in 1981, because until then, a man accused of killing their wife would be given a reduced sentence (3 to 7 years, instead of 21) if the murder was perpetrated because the adulterer had been caught in the act.

This is proof that this idea of love as possessivity (especially of women) is so "normal" that in some Countries has even influenced the law until recently. My partner is perceived as my property, and it is possible that if I am faced with the possibility of losing them or if they are "stolen" from me, I would do anything to keep them, even resort to violence, to stop them from leaving.

But is it love that drives us to this extreme desire of possession? According to Descartes, in the "Passions of the soul, we condemn a man who is jealous of his wife because this shows that •he doesn't love her as he should. Properly speaking, what he loves is not her but only the good he imagines to consist in his having sole possession of her. And he wouldn't be scared of losing this good if he didn't think himself to be unworthy of it.

So, according to the philosopher, we become extreme not because we are very much in love, but because we mistake the desire of owning someone with love for them.

Would it be correct to define love both as the practice of a human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as the result of a compulsion as Erich Fromm says, and obsession that drives us crazy? Are we talking about two different aspects of the same emotion? Or are we mistaking possessivity for love?

A beautiful answer is given by Plato in the "Phaedrus". The story begins when Phaedrus, a young student of rhetorics, runs into Socrates outside the Athens city walls.

Phaedrus tells Socrates that he spent the morning listening to Lysia, the famous orator, who gave a speech on love. Socrates asks Phaedrus to repeat the speech, but Phaedrus can do even better: he can read it since he is carrying a copy.

Lysia's argument is that it is wiser to seek a relationship with someone we don't love and who doesn't love us because if there isn't emotional engagement, feelings cannot suddenly change, creating jealousy and conflict. Love is a passion; it's violent and overwhelming. So a "non-lover" will be more rational, more agreeable, less suspicious, being a much more convenient choice.

According to Lysia, people in love are not in their right mind and act under the compulsion of madness.

Socrates is not very impressed and, prompted by Phaedrus, accepts to give another speech in response. This will be built on the same premise as Lysia's one, that love is a negative emotion, a form of madness in which our desire for beauty overwhelms our sense of morality and control; it's just a rhetorical exercise, where Socrates wants to prove that Lysia's speech can be structured better.

When he is done, Socrates is about to return to Athens, but he stops as, he says, he felt a divine sign, which he interprets as having offended the Gods, specifically Eros, son of Aphrodites. So he must give another speech, this time not just a mere showing off of his rhetorical talents, but an explanation of the real nature of love.

He starts by explaining what the soul is, which can be understood by men only through myth.

Souls are like a chariot pulled by two winged horses and driven by a charioteer.

There is a black horse, deformed and obstinate, and a white horse, noble and well behaved.

The charioteer is tasked with guiding the horses towards the Hyperuranion, a place beyond heaven, the perfect realm of Forms, which are the essences of things like Beauty, Wisdom, Courage, Justice, Goodness — everlasting Truth and absolute Knowledge. These essences nourish the horses' wings, keeping the chariot in flight.

The white horse pulls towards the Hyperuranion, while the black towards the earth and bodily pleasures.

If the charioteer manages to keep the horses in sync, reach the realm of the Forms and see them, he gets another trip around the heavens; otherwise, the horses lose their wings, and the soul is incarnated into a person.

Eventually, all souls fall to Earth; however, what type of person they become depends on how much truth they were able to see in the Hyperuranion: those who have seen the most become philosophers or someone with a loving nature.

During their life in the sensible world, the souls are reminded of the Truth that they saw in their pre-existence, through people and experiences.

So, when a lover looks upon their beloved, he is reminded of the Beauty that was among the most radiant Forms that he saw among the heavens. Therefore, the black horse leaps violently, trying to obtain sexual pleasure.

The less enlightened souls will succumb to the black horse, the others will remember the true Form of Beauty and be able to tame it and restrain it, until the soul of the lover follows the beloved in reverence and awe, and the wings of the soul begin to grow back, which is why the immortals call it "winged love".

Everyone chooses their love according to their own character, and when they find him, they want to make him and themselves, similar to the God they honour, so they will encourage him to be educated in the manner of a God for no feelings of envy or jealousy are entertained by them towards their beloved.

After this their happiness depends upon their self-control; if the better elements of the mind which lead to order and philosophy prevail, then they pass their life here in happiness and harmony-masters of themselves and orderly-enslaving the vicious and emancipating the virtuous elements of the soul; and when the end comes, they are light and winged for flight.

Of course, the black horse represents our instincts, the white horse represents our morals, and the charioteer represents our reason.

The black horse is not all bad: lust, turmoil, passion, when properly directed, lead a man to love, but real love flourishes only when it has been tamed. The masterful charioteer doesn't let his horses run free.

So, going back to our question: is it possible that someone loves us so much that they would end up harming us because they couldn't bear losing us?

No. There's no place in love for disordered emotions, for brutal instincts, for indomitable appetites.

What is that feeling that shatters and devastates the soul, like wind through oaks, that Sappho is talking about, then?

In my opinion, it's infatuation, lust, desire that can turn into love when tamed or, if it doesn't and is mistaken for love, in one way or another, will end up in disaster.

Someone who loves you will find happiness in watching you smile. Someone who loves you will want you to feel safe in their arms, comfortable in their presence. They will gently encourage you to be the best version of yourself. They will be in awe of you and put up with your flaws. They will embrace your imperfections with empathy and understanding. And ultimately, they will accept to watch you leave them if this is what you want, even if that means that their heart will be broken beyond repair and their world shattered.

So beware of what you call love, as you might be letting your black horse mislead you.

If you want to read the Phaedrus, here's a link

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