Is pure and honorable love between a young man and a young woman considered forbidden? And why?
Between the Magazine and the Readers
Question:
Is pure and honorable love between a young man and a young woman considered forbidden? And why?
Answer:
Before we answer this question, we must first know: what is love? And how can it be pure and honorable?
True, pure love for a person is to love the salvation of his or her soul, and to love that the soul be holy and acceptable before God. Thus, love is spiritual.
But if the bodily, lustful, or sexual element enters into the love between a young man and a young woman who are not bound by marriage, then this love is no longer pure, but has turned from love into lust.
Therefore, if a young man loves a young woman with a pure love, he must be keen that she remain pure in heart, thought, and body.
If she departs from this purity, or if he departs from it, then he has caused her to stumble or she has caused him to stumble, and woe to the one through whom offenses come.
Therefore, if a young man loves a young woman, it is not right for him to push her into deceiving her family and lying to her father and mother in arranging to go out to meet him. Nor is it right for her to meet him without their knowledge. Otherwise, he would also have made her depart from obedience to them and from their guidance, and she would not be honoring them.
Thus, pure love is a love that is not deceitful, that works in the light and not in darkness and secrecy. This love resembles the love of a brother for his sister. And if there is bodily desire in it, then the young man should step forward and ask for the young woman from her parents, and his position should be clear and straightforward.
But if his age and circumstances do not allow this, then it is better for him to keep away and not entangle himself in a relationship without result.
Likewise, if a person loves a young woman with a pure love, he must preserve her reputation. Keeping company with her in a suspicious manner will harm her reputation. Society does not forgive a girl for her mistakes, and damaging her reputation from a moral standpoint is a destruction of her future. How then can a young man who loves a young woman accept to destroy her future?!
It is also not right for a young man to occupy the thoughts or emotions of a young woman, or to promise her hopes that will not be fulfilled, because this young woman is a trust on his neck. If he loves her, it is not permissible for him to attach her heart or inflame her emotions and then leave her like that.
He must ask himself: if she were my sister, would I accept that a young man treat her in this way?!
Likewise, the young man must care for his own spiritual life and his future, and not preoccupy himself with emotions before their time, or when he is not qualified to fulfill them. Many such emotions have destroyed the academic and professional future of talented young men who wasted their time in thoughts, lusts, meetings, and emotions that ruined them spiritually, practically, familially, and socially.
Such emotions need to be mixed with reason, wisdom, and farsightedness.
Likewise, a person must realize that his heart belongs to God, and God has asked it from him saying, “My son, give Me your heart.” It is not right for him to make a partner with God in his heart. Rather, he may allow himself a love that does not deprive him of the love of God.
If he is able to combine his love for this young woman with his complete love for God, without deficiency, without breaking any commandment, and without any reproach from his conscience, then at that point this love is innocent and blameless.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Fifth Year – Issue Five – 2 November 1974
For better translation support, please contact the center.
