Four Loves: Another Version

I have long found C.S. Lewis's famous four loves (affection, friendship, agape and eros) a rich source of illumination into the unfathomable, inexhaustible and fascinating Mystery of Love. Lately, however, I have been considering a different model, rooted in the logos or structure of the family, which always entails four quite distinct, if interrelated loves: filial, paternal/maternal, fraternal-sororial, and spousal. For us as creatures, the primal love is filial: receptive, trusting, respectful, obedient and grateful. This is the love of child for father and mother, and of course for God. It is love as needy, poor, endearing and precious. This love, also known as piety or pietas, expresses itself as loyalty and affection to country, Church, family, the boss, older friends and siblings, priests and a variety of superiors and communities. The obverse of this love is paternal or maternal love as: generous, delighted, nurturing, protective, and tender. This is love as gentle strength. It finds expression far beyond biological parenthood in a myriad of spiritual, emotional and social relationships: boss, teacher, coach, priest, leader, and so forth. This love can be understood as a fusion of elements of what Lewis called affection and agape. Fraternal love is thelove of equals, brothers and sisters, who share the bond of blood and family, and cooperate and compete with each other accordingly. Normally, of course, one sibling is older and therefore a filial and parental dimension presents itself. But this love is essentially "philia" or friendship as understood by Lewis and entails a sharing of interests, values, and intentions and essentially an equality of status before the shared good. Lastly, spousal love as the love of husband and wife includes but is not exhausted by eros, desire for intimate union with the beloved. Spousal love, alone among these familial loves, includes sexual communion, but is much more also. As faithful and loyal love it is informed by agape as sacrificial and generous love. Spousal love is at once agape and eros: without agape it is fickle and self-destructing, without eros is becomes dry, sterile and joyless. Every love relationship is a mix of all four in an infinitely delightful diversity of surprise and delight. For example, the spousal relationship needs to be friendship more than eros, but at times either husband or wife properly become filial or parental towards the other. Likewise, every rich and thrilling friendship will partake, at times, of the filial, parental or spousal. Clearly, however there is an abiding structure to the family as it arises (as God intended) from the sexual union of the spouses and all other relationships are preserved in uncompromising chastity. These loves, in contrast to those of Lewis, are more real, concrete and less abstract. In this year of the Synod of the Family and the Supreme Court's deconstruction of family, these loves deserve our deepest reflection.