My assertion that there are no cases of romantic love recorded in the
Bible naturally aroused opposition, and not a few critics lifted up
their voices in loud protest against such ignorant audacity. The case
for the defence was well summed up in the Rochester _Post-Express:_
"The ordinary reader will find many love-stories in the
Scriptures, What are we to think, for instance, of this
passage from the twenty-ninth chapter of Genesis: 'And
Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was
Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was
tender-eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored.
And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee
seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban
said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I
should give her to another man: abide with me. And
Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed
unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her,'
It may be said that after marriage Jacob's love was not
of the modern conjugal type; but certainly his
pre-matrimonial passion was self-sacrificing, enduring,
and hopeful enough for a mediaeval romance. The
courtship of Ruth and Boaz is a bold and pretty
love-story, which details the scheme of an old widow
and a young widow for the capture of a wealthy kinsman.
The Song of Solomon is, on the surface, a wonderful
love-poem. But it is needless to multiply illustrations
from this source."
A Chicago critic declared that it would be easy to show that from the
moment when Adam said,
"This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of
man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one
flesh"
--from that moment unto this day "that which it pleases our author to
call romantic love has been substantially one and the same thing....
Has this writer never heard of Isaac and Rebekah; of Jacob and
Rachel?" A Philadelphia reviewer doubted whether I believed in my own
theory because I ignored in my chapter on love among the Hebrews "the
story of Jacob and Rachel and other similar instances of what deserves
to be called romantic love among the Hebrews." Professor H.O. Trumbull
emphatically repudiates my theory in his _Studies in Oriental Social
Life_ (62-63); proceeding:
"Yet in the very first book of the Old Testament
narrative there appears the story of young Jacob's
romantic love for Rachel, a love which was inspired by
their first meeting [Gen. 29: 10-18] and which was
afresh and tender memory in the patriarch Jacob's mind
when long years after he had buried her in Canaan [Gen.
35: 16-20] he was on his deathbed in Egypt [Gen. 48:
1-7]. In all the literature of romantic love in all the
ages there can be found no more touching exhibit of the
true-hearted fidelity of a romantic lover than that
which is given of Jacob in the words: 'And Jacob served
seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a
few days for the love he had to her.' And the entire
story confirms the abiding force of that sentiment.
There are, certainly, gleams of romantic love from out
of the clouds of degraded human passion in the ancient
East, in the Bible stories of Shechem and Dinah [Gen.
34: 1-31], of Samson and the damsel of Timnath [Judg.
14: 1-3], of David and Abigail [I. Sam. 25: 1-42], of
Adonijah and Abishag [I. Kings 2: 13-17], and other men
and women of whom the Scriptures tell us."
Cénac Moncaut, who begins his _Histoire de l'Amour dans l'Antiquité_
with Adam and Eve, declares (28-31) that the episode of Jacob and
Rachel marks the birth of perfect love in the world, the beginning of
its triumph, followed, however, by relapses in days of darkness and
degradation. If all these writers are correct then my theory falls to
the ground and romantic love must be conceded to be at least four
thousand years old, instead of less than one thousand. But let us look
at the facts in detail and see whether there is really no difference
between ancient Hebrew and modern Christian love.
The Rev. Stopford Brooke has remarked:
"Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph may have existed as real
men, and played their part in the founding of the Jewish
race, but their stories, as we have them, are as entirely
legendary as those of Arthur or Siegfried, of Agamemnon or
Charlemagne."
This consideration would bring the date of the story
from the time when Jacob is supposed to have lived down to the much
later time when the legend was elaborated. I have no desire, however,
to seek refuge behind such chronological uncertainties, nor to
reassert that my theory is a question of evolution rather than of
dates, and that, therefore, if Jacob and Rachel, during their
prolonged courtship, had the qualities of mind and character to feel
the exalted sentiment of romantic love, we might concede in their case
an exception which, by its striking isolation, would only prove the
rule. I need no such refuge, for I can see no reason whatever for
accepting the story of Jacob and Rachel as an exceptional instance of
romantic love.