Love, Laws, Education

I was thinking about Laura again this morning. And about helping her financially. Even though we weren't "married" in the legal sense, I still feel a desire to help her. I still care about her. It hurts me to think of her suffering.

Now let's contrast this with marriage and divorce laws.

When two people get married and divorced it is common for them to hate each other and want to hurt each other. It is common for them to try to punish one another. One of the ways they do this is financially. It may be a man who lies to the court so he can pay his ex-wife less alimony. Or it may be the wife who lies to the court to try to get as much money out of her ex-husband as possible, partially, if not principally, motivated by a desire to hurt him.

So let's think about why divorce laws were created.

If everyone acted as Laura and I are acting, divorce laws would be unnecessary. I have no doubt, by the way, that Laura would also want to help me as much as possible, not hurt me, even though we were not able to live together under the circumstances we were in.

Laws are based on the use of fear, force and punishment. Love is based on desire, compassion and caring.

Laws force someone to obey. Love forces no one to do anything.

So I was just wondering, what if we taught young people how to love instead of how to obey?

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Laura

This article also appears on education, love, and questions pages.

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Steve Hein
April 4, 2006
Salta, Argentina