Marriage & Love in the western world?

[Terrance Flaherty]

The Greeks and Romans were not unfamiliar  with romantic love, yet
for them  it was the exception  rather  than the rule  and they looked
upon it as an illness.  Plutarch  called  love "a frenzy": "Some  have
believed  it was a madness....  Those who are in love must be forgiven
as though  ill."  Then  how we have come  to cherish  this  frenzy  so
highly?  If  salvation  through  romantic  love  is  an  historically-
conditioned  myth, what were its origins  and why did it arise  at the
time it did?

    Many  of the answers  are found  in Denis  de Rougemont's  classic
study Love in the Western World. It traces the myth back to the legend
of Tristan  and Iseult, a tale  whose  origins  are unknown  but which
became widespread  in the twelfth century, about that time of the late
Middle Ages singled  out by Burckhardt  and Aries as the turning-point
in  man's  increasing  awareness  of  death  --   in  Buddhist  terms,
increasing  awareness of lack.  De Rougemont's  analysis of the legend
demonstrates that Tristan and Iseult do not love one another. They say
they don't, and everything  goes to prove  it.  What they love is love
and being  in love....Their  need  of one  another  is in order  to be
aflame, and they do not need one another  as they are.  What they need
is not one another's presence, but one

http://pears2.lib.ohio-state.edu/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/loy9.htm