Of Cougars & Knights

The principles of courtly love genuinely surprised me when I read about how men under the age of 18 supposedly cannot love.  Yes, I’m sure we’ve all had our fair share of 13 year-old selves believing they are in love (especially with Justin Timberlake, or is that just me?), but who’s to say that we cannot learn from those dark, selfie filled times?  However, age does not equate to maturity and I find that the reading uses maturity as a necessity for love.  “Love” in this passage seems to be defined as a broader term as opposed to what we would find “true love” from typical fairytales.  Placing these conditions into the mind-set of people in the 21^st century is like hearing your grandparents tell you about “the good ole days” as they quake with despair as they watch “teens these days” treat love as something disposable like lust. 

Courtly love is similar to our society’s ideals in the differentiation between passion, lust and love.  There is a recognition that passion and lust are pieces in the great puzzle of love, but do not correlate to the phenomenon itself.  The idea in courtly love that if one becomes impoverished, it can only damage the love is a complete 180 flip from the fictional ideals of “for richer or for poorer”.  Love being unconditional is an all-known fictional ideal that has wormed its way into the vows of married couples for years.  However, the courtly love idea rings true for most couples, leading to numerous divorces and fights.

The original audience for tales of courtly love was women.  These tales gave men a set of guidelines to courtly love to prevent them from roaming the lands and raping women.  It taught chivalry with the proper romantic tricks.  It gave power to the women (the beloved) over whom they chose to love.  The implications are more than a sexual response to another human, it is a mental one.  Courtly love focuses on what we would call ‘genuine connection’ between two individuals.  It cannot be neither forced nor feigned nor denied.  The concreteness of feelings is explored in depth for lovers near and far with courtly love, as well as the women’s ability to muster a form of power over the men.   

Fairy tales of romance written about couples that are not married is a foreign subject.  During the time period, most people didn’t marry for love, but for practicality - which isn’t as foreign as romance stories for unmarried couples.  It was a creative, entertaining outlet that taught young men ways to woo a woman and to extend future marriages to greater heights.  Also, I find it laughable that the stories include Cougars and Sugar Mommas.  I find that the power that comes from money and prestige is still a part of these tales despite the attention on mental wooing methods.  Evidently, love appeals to most people despite the lack of it in peoples’ real lives.  It’s nice to see how women took the reigns on the horse of love and managed to drag it out of muddied pits to polish and present to us all.