Love as an act means that “ love must be invented- reinvented- by each generation and by each couple”(Solomon, pg.16). This stresses the idea that love is not an emotion that is static in feeling. Instead, love is an emotion that evolves over time. Love comes not from the initial excitement stages of infatuation, but from the bond and relationship built with the other person over time. In attempting to change the current regime we can follow through with hooks proposal that couples be honest with one another, as that is at the core of a healthy and happy relationship. She believes that males learn to lie as form of obtaining power, while females do the same, but also lie to pretend powerlessness further displaying the patriarchal characteristics that permeate in …show more content…
In defining love as the self, Solomon meant that love is the experience of reconceiving oneself with and through another. This is always a process, not a state. Love, therefore is dialectic and acts as a force that only makes sense against the pull of another. This translates to love always having to be balanced by the appreciation of the importance of that individual identity and autonomy that is the presupposition to romantic love. Suggesting that love is reciprocal and acts only to its full capacity and potential when it is reflected back. Because love as the self requires reciprocity, it requires equality and therefore assumes that patriarchy be non-existent in order to see the other as an equal. For these reasons, hooks suggest in the fourth chapter of her book that self-acceptance and self-love are necessary to have a happy and healthy relationship. In defining love as the self, we would be freed what Gilligan refers to as the “core self” (Gilligan, pg. 22). We would be freeing out “ natural voice”: the voice that carries rather than covers a person's interest in the world”(Gilligan, pg.22), and when we loved them we would love the real them. Romantic love is the most beautiful thing in the