Many say, and rightly, that parents should have control in the love affairs of their children, for whose sake they have borne so many troubles and difficulties. And who could enumerate the sacrifices that parents willingly undergo to support their children and to protect them from all hardship? It is undoubtedly hard for any parent to find that the child who was once so helpless and dependent is no sooner grown than he wishes to take a step quite independently of anyone, and a step that will influence his whole future happiness. Besides, as they say in the East, youth is blind, and especially blind when love rises in the heart, covering reason with clouds of emotions, and sweeping away discretion in a storm of feeling. At such a moment it is a third person who can judge of the real state of affairs. Shall the place of this third person be denied to the parents who, in the majority of cases, live their youthful lives again in the youth of their children?

At the same time parents who separate their child from the beloved, whether by force or by influence, are in danger either of driving the child who is courageous and independent away from them altogether, or of crushing the heart of the weak one in such a way as to leave a pain there that is never forgotten. Many a girl comes in her disappointment to look upon her parents, once her friends, as her bitterest enemies. Parents and children live in such different worlds; the temperament, the outlook of the old is so strange to the young.

And is it really possible for any one being to take over the responsibility of the life of another? Can it really be thought that any soul has the right to control another soul by power or force? There is one control: affection, which is the only legitimate deterrent; but affection loses all happiness once it disregards freedom. Freedom of the self and freedom of the loved one, true affection can never lose sight of either. And whether it be through love of mother or father, or of the one who loves in courtship, once the freedom of the beloved has been hindered, a fault against love has been committed.

Where the attentions of love are not acceptable they should be withdrawn; where the lover finds that the beloved is troubled by the expression of his love, or that the heart of the beloved is changed and bent in a new direction, so that his power is no longer able to keep it in the direction he wishes, then instead of causing harm to the beloved, let the lover (whether father, or mother, or whoever it be) cease to demand a response. He may perhaps become indifferent and erase his love; if so, good. But the real lover accepts the bowl of bitterness from the hands of the beloved as a draught that purifies and strengthens for life, knowing that crucifixion alone is the source of resurrection.

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

9. Courtship

ii

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

9. Courtship

ii