When reading True to Our Feelings by Robert Solomon, I could not help but to be grabbed by the idea of a romantic couple coming to form a shared identity. This is by no means a new concept. In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes himself spoke of creatures roaming the world helplessly until they were reunited with their other half. Once these creatures found each other, they would come together, physically, as a perfect match. In other words, they made each other whole. While this conception of love is the kind of thing that makes butterflies erupt within the bellies of hopeless romantics, it seems to be too good to be true. In this blog, I will be exploring this idea of a shared identity and pointing out one of its potential pitfalls.
Before delving deeply into the topic of a shared identity, it is important to nail down what we mean when we say identity. The standard view of identity is probably something along the lines of ‘how we view ourselves within the world’. This encompasses traits — both physical and mental — which we value about ourselves. On the same hand, it could include the traits which we tend to dislike. This is certainly a good starting point, but surely, identity is more than simple things like height, weight, and personality. According to Harry Frankfurt, what is vital to one’s identity are the things that one cares about (260). This could cover a wide variety of topics, but it seems to me that the important things to consider would be topics such as religion or familial relationships. Frankfurt defines these things as those which make one “vulnerable to losses and susceptible to benefits depending upon whether what one cares about is diminished enhanced” (260).
Now that we have defined identity, we are able to look into the ways in which romantic love ties into the identity of the lover. According to Solomon, romantic love is “coming to see another person as sharing an identity with oneself” (61). This seems to mean that the couple would pool their interests. For example, if one of the lovers has a passion for hockey, the other lover might begin to learn the rules of the sport and perhaps put great effort into buying tickets and planning trips so that the couple may attend the games. Now, hockey has become a shared interest for the couple — something that they may both enjoy together. In this way, their identities have begun to merge. Additionally, another key aspect of a shared identity seems to be the idea of an intertwining of the lovers’ well-beings. In other words, if something bad happens to your lover, it is as if something bad has happened to you (Nozick, 70.) It may seem odd that so many people would be willing to risk their own well-being in the name of love, but it is important to consider that this intertwining also means that good things which happen to your lover have a positive effect on your well-being. Nozick describes this connection as beneficial because it provides “a floor under your well-being”, “insurance in the face of fate’s blows” (71). However, Nozick notes another important aspect of a shared identity — what he refers to in his writing as a “we”. He states that “people who form a we not only pool their well-being but also their autonomy” (Nozick, 71). This pooling of autonomy is the aspect of a shared identity which seems to hold the potential to be the most problematic.
Though Solomon himself seems to be supporting — perhaps even romanticizing — the idea of a shared identity, he admits that “it is rarely the case that two people, often from different backgrounds, simply fit together as two halves of an original whole” (61). It leaves room to think about the ways in which lovers bend or change to suit the needs of the beloved. The idea that people rarely come together as two halves begs the question of how people do manage to come together. It would seem that rather than a 50/50 relationship (two halves), couples tend to come together in more varying degrees. This might sound confusing, but what I am trying to say is that there are most likely more couples whose relationship is 60/40 or even 80/20. In other words, to form this shared identity, one lover is doing more bending or changing than the other. This brings up the question of which of the lovers is tasked with or takes on the greater amount of giving.
Because we are social creatures, practically every aspect of human life is affected in some way by society. Romantic relationships are no exception. They are influenced “by tradition, practices, and social and political institutions”, and they are “guided by norms and stereotypes” (Friedman, 173). This means that women, who are often taught to “marry-up” are more likely to find themselves in an inferior position within a romantic relationship (Friedman, 173). Additionally, women are often socialized to understand themselves as being either more responsible or better equipped to carry the emotional burden of a relationship. The point I am trying to make here is that when this merging takes place (within heterosexual relationships), women are likely to be the ones who give up more of their autonomy. This is to say that while a woman may give up parts of herself (i.e. her career, hobbies, etc.) in order to incorporate parts of her lover’s identity, “little or nothing of her lover changes to incorporate elements of her” (Friedman, 170). Because the couple’s shared identity is more composed of or controlled by him, the man tends to have more power and to be more autonomous within the relationship. For example, the woman’s reduced position within the relationship “leaves her less capable of setting the agenda for their shared future” (Friedman, 171). Real world examples of this kind of situation are easy to conjure up. Perhaps, it was an important aspect of the man’s identity to be the breadwinner of the family. For this reason, the wife gave up her job in order to stay home and take care of the children and the house. Because her position within the relationship is generally perceived as being less important, she will likely have less say in decisions such as moving to a different state for the purpose of furthering the husband’s career.
As Friedman brings up in her own paper, a woman choosing to give up some of her autonomy in the name of her relationship could actually be a powerful example of exercising her autonomy (178). While appears to be counterintuitive, it does seem to hold some merit. Friedman asserts that the key takeaway from situations such as this one is “that someone can be autonomous without self-consciously seeking or even caring about autonomy itself as a value” (178). However, in response to this I would assert that lovers within a healthy romantic relationship should place a high value on their lover’s autonomy. Surely, if one’s well-being is truly tied up with that of their beloved, they would view his or her autonomy with extreme importance.
While the idea of a shared identity is sentimental and dreamy on the surface, it is perhaps idealistic to a fault. It seems to be that in more cases than not, the lovers within a couple will vary in the amounts that they are giving to the relationship. As discussed, it seems that this would diminish the autonomy of at least one member of the couple. Because of social influences and norms, the woman in the relationship is likely to be the one who is negatively affected.
Resources
Frankfurt, Harry. “The Importance of What We Care About.” Synthese, vol. 53, no. 2, 1982, pp. 257–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20115802.
Friedman, M. (1998), Romantic Love and Personal Autonomy. Midwest Studies In Philosophy, 22: 162-181. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1998.tb00336.x
Nozick, Robert. “Love’s Bond.” The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations. N.p.: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 68-86. Print.
Solomon, Robert C. “Lessons of Love (And Plato’s Symposium).” True to Our Feelings What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. 51-62. Print.
Shared by: Emma