Platonic relationship

“ Several young women who have graduated from college within ten years vouch for the statement that many thoughtful students are strong in the belief that ideal marriage is platonic friendship and that it is a sad fact of life that husband and wife must lay aside their high ideals in order to become parents. ”

“ The truth is that the attraction which draws a man and a woman together in what they call platonic friendship always has something of the physical in it—on one side or the other. Or on both sides. Women will not admit this, but it is true. They talk about the intellectual bond that joins them to a man—what a precious interchange of thoughts! Or the spiritual bond—such a soulful and inspiring companionship—nothing else, my dear! I used to talk that way myself about Jimsy Brooks before my husband died. ”

“ If it turned out to be an uncongenial marriage, a separate life would be the result, and, while still absolutely ignorant of the world, those young married women would fall prey to the charms of young gallants or men of quality, and a liaison would follow.
The difference between a liaison of the seventeenth century and one of the eighteenth led to one essential difference in the standards of social and moral etiquette; in the former period, a liaison meant nothing more censurable than an intimate friendship, a purely platonic love; the lover simply paid homage to the lady of his choice ”

“ Handsome, intellectual young men of at least twenty years, who must be of my own social station, seem to me to be suited rather for platonic love; but with them I satisfy myself completely with a straightforward, though ideal, friendship, which seldom goes beyond a few kisses. ”

“ I have no sympathy with free love, if it means that people should take up with each other although they presume they will tire of one another. It seems to me that even to break an ordinary platonic engagement is a slight stain on the one who breaks it. ”

“ Then you propose a platonic friendship?
He. I want a woman who will be my friend, to whom I can talk freely. There are words a man has no power or wish to say to a man, yet which must be spoken or they fester in his mind. ”

“ CHARLES READE AND LAURA SEYMOUR
The instances of distinguished men, or of notable women, who have broken through convention in order to find a fitting mate, are very numerous. A few of these instances may, perhaps, represent what is usually called a Platonic union. But the evidence is always doubtful. The world is not possessed of abundant charity, nor does human experience lead one to believe that intimate relations between a man and a woman are compatible with Platonic friendship. ”

“ Certain slow-going men are able to maintain for life a strong but strictly platonic attachment for certain women. If any warmer impulse or more powerful feeling give threatening notice of arising, it is kept in due subjection and a wholesome state of coolness, perhaps by its very hopelessness even if returned, perhaps by the fear or the knowledge that it would be ill-received, and that the only passport to the pleasant friendship so delighted in is in this calm and sober platonism. ”

“ Since we are here speaking of marriage, it is self-evident that friendship can be understood only as one of the forms or modifications of love. It is love without the passion of love; it is love without sensuality; it is benevolence, confidence, and attachment ushered in and confirmed by sexual devotion and union. It combines, therefore, I might say, at the same time the greatest absence of egoism with the satisfaction of egoism, and is thus perfectly adapted to establish a relationship for the whole life. ”

“ And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. ”

“ As long as a man may become a suitor for the hand of his cousin he should, both for the sake of his own love-drama and in justice to a possible rival, be debarred from this privilege. Imagine the feelings of a lover who knows that his rival has been permitted to steal the virgin kiss from the lips of his adored one simply because his father happens to be her uncle! Family kisses should, therefore, be allowed only within that degree of relationship which precludes the idea of Love and marriage. ”

“ This is in too many cases, the seamy side of a platonic love affair, when one or both of the mates is not naturally unsexed but unsexes himself thru what he or she calls will-power and which analysis reveals to be conscious or unconscious fear. ”

“ That refined degree of Platonic affection which is absolutely detached from the flesh, and is, indeed, entirely and purely spiritual, is a gift confined to the female part of the creation; many of whom I have heard declare (and, doubtless, with great truth) , that they would, with the utmost readiness, resign a lover to a rival, when such resignation was proved to be necessary for the temporal interest of such lover. ”

“ Family ties have their own particular sancity, and the marriage relation, its omnipotent, heaven-inspiring, all-embracing love; but friendship, independent of family ties, recognizing no external bond of union,—the spontaneous out-gushing of kindred spirits towards each other, breathes in an atmosphere peculiarly its own. ”

“ She gets to know her husband’s every word, every mood, every gesture by heart. To call his presence companionship, or the boon that comes with friendship, would be to cast a slur on all companionship and friendship for ever. ”

“ Bound to each other by the most intricate ties of relationship and by a still more potent one, the eternal bond conferred by the title compadre or godfather, they share their troubles and shield each other as though they belonged to one great family. ”

“ The practice of sympathy may mean the cultivation of similar tastes, though that will almost naturally follow from the fellowship. But to cultivate similar tastes does not imply either absorption of one of the partners, or the identity of both. Rather, part of the charm of the intercourse lies in the difference, which exists in the midst of agreement. What is essential is that there should be a real desire and a genuine effort to understand each other. It is well worth while taking pains to preserve a relationship so full of blessing to both. ”

“ We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe, dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other, without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you, by our mutual happiness, with simple truth—Do you not love another? ”

“ The truly monogamic couple, where the man and the woman go chaste to the marriage-bed, and go through life in mutual love and respect, these feelings growing stronger as the years go by, finding full satisfaction in each other, without any desire for any other man or woman – what nobler, what more appealing ideal can one conjure up? ”

“ The spirit that cemented our hearts was friendship, not love; but the holiness of marriage has consecrated that friendship into affection, which the sweet intercourse of domestic life has softened into something still more agreeable and tender. My girl's marriage, my dear Lucy, is the only painful thought that throws its shadow across our happiness. ”

“ However much he may conceal it under assumed cynicism, worldliness, or self-seeking, the heart of every young man yearns with a great longing for the fulfilment of the beautiful dream of a life-long union with a mate. Each heart knows instinctively that it is only one's mate who can give full comprehension of all the potential greatness in one's soul, and have tender laughter for all the child-like wonder that lingers so enchantingly even in the white-haired. ”

“ Few are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once to recognize in each other’s voices the partner intended for them by Providence, and to fly into a reciprocal and perfectly harmonious embrace. With most of us the courtship is of long duration. ”

“ A strong attachment sprung up between them, and long before they reached the age of manhood, they were united to each other by a bond as strong as that of fraternal love; there was no feeling of superiority on the one hand, no shade of envy on the other, but hand in hand with each other, life seemed one long dream of happiness. ”

“ Like a chaste vestal, she made an irrevocable vow to persist through life in her virgin closeness of heart; and to answer no inquiry of a wooer, either with her eyes, or her gestures, or her lips; yet reserving to herself, as a just indemnification, the right of platonising to any length she liked. ”

“ Look at a young couple in the glowing morning of their union, how warm love is then; how it penetrates and beautifies everything; how it glows and speaks in glance and word, and agreeable action; how its glory changes the whole of life into poetry! 'Thou, thou!' is the one thought of the young people then. But observe the same couple a few years later—'I, I!' and 'my pleasure,' is the phrase now. The adoring all-resigning lover is then become the exacting married man, who will be waited on and obeyed. ”

“ But there are other circumstances which aid the will in its struggle with t polygamous instinct. When the union of two persons, who gave evidence of their natures being harmoniously attuned Leach other to a certain degree, by loving for a brief period, has lasted a while it becomes a habit, which sustains fidelity most wonderfully. They perhaps, after time, cease to experience the slightest love or even friendship for each other, but their companionship is still kept up, and kept up as a matter of course. ”

“ As years pass, and their knowledge of each other becomes more intimate, their union will become closer and closer, until affection and thought become so blended, that they will act in all their mutual life-relations as one. ”

“ But if you listen to me, in the first place, I, in my intercourse with you, shall not merely regard present enjoyment, but also future advantage, being not mastered by love, but my own master; nor for small causes taking violent dislikes, but even when the cause is great, slowly laying up little wrath—unintentional offences I shall forgive, and intentional ones I shall try to prevent; and these are the marks of a friendship which will last. Do you think that a lover only can be a firm friend? ”

“ And this congenial platonism is sometimes so intense, that offers of magnetic marriage are made by the ecstatic ladies to their magnetizers, even though it may not be leap-year, on the plea that the loneliness of magnetic widowhood distressed them, and that the possession of a sleeping partner was better than sleeping alone. ”

“ Alone of the two friends, you remain in your maiden independence; and I beseech you, dearest, do not risk the irrevocable step of marriage without some guarantee. It happens sometimes, when two are talking together, apart from the world, their souls stripped of social disguise, that a gesture, a word, a look lights up, as by a flash, some dark abyss. You have courage and strength to tread boldly in paths where others would be lost. ”

“ But because true love is impossible between husband and wife, and because everything good which happens in this world has its origin in love, I am of opinion that I should seek an alliance of love outside my married life. ”

“ In our early days the progress from acquaintance to intimacy, and from intimacy to friendship is proverbially rapid; and young O'Connor and I became, in less than a month, close and confidential companions—an intercourse which ripened gradually into an attachment ardent, deep, and devoted—such as I believe young hearts only are capable of forming. ”

“ If love is extinguished between a married couple, cannot friendship and confidence still survive? Are we not two companions united in making the same journey? Can it be said that during the journey the one must never hold out his hand to the other to raise up a comrade or to prevent a comrade's fall? ”

“ Unbound by long-continued custom or legal and ceremonial restriction, the primitive couple were free to separate if they pleased, but the instinctive feeling that they belonged to each other, the habits of association, adaptation, and co-operation, and jealousy at any attention shown by another tended to preserve the relationship. The presence of offspring sealed the bond as long as the children were dependent, and strengthened the sense of mutual responsibility. ”

“ Truly understood, the Platonic sentiment does not denote love, in the distinctive significance of that word, but a pure and fervent friendship. Ideal love is ordinary love taken up, out of material organs and relations, into pure mentality, with the preserved correspondence of all it had on that lower plane where it naturally lives. Platonic love is a high personal passion, like the former, with the exception that no physical influence of sex enters into it; imagination exalting the soul, instead of inflaming the senses. ”

“ I am incessantly haunted by the idea that the companion of to-day may to-morrow expire under the Guillotine, that the common acts of social intercourse may be explained into intimacy, intimacy into the participation of imputed treasons, and the fate of those with whom we are associated become our own. ”

“ But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility. ”

“ As mutual love is the only substantial basis of the union, where that does not exist, the union ought not to be consummated; and though some evils generally result from a dissolution of the mutual pledge, yet they are fewer and less awful and destructive than those which follow a marriage without affection—or when the affection of one has to struggle against the cool indifference or positive dislike of the other. ”