Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back; lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins.
Interpretation
Healthy relationships thrive on freedom and individuality, promoting personal growth and interest.
This quote by Germaine Greer emphasizes the idea that in romantic relationships, maintaining a sense of freedom and individuality is crucial. When partners are not overly dependent on each other and are allowed to explore their own interests and changes, it fosters a dynamic connection that keeps the relationship vibrant. Greer contrasts this with the damaging effects of unhealthy dependencies, metaphorically referencing 'Siamese twins' to illustrate how entwined relationships can lead to bitterness, ultimately suggesting that both partners should embrace change for the relationship to flourish.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a couple’s therapy session to emphasize the importance of individuality.
It is often falsely assumed, even by feminists, that sexuality is the enemy of the female who really wants to develop these aspects of her personality, and this is perhaps the most misleading aspect of movements like the National Organization of Women. It was not the insistence upon her sex that weakened the American woman student's desire to make something of her education, but the insistence upon a passive sexual role
A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.
The only perfect love to be found on earth is not sexual love, which is riddled with hostility and insecurity, but the wordless commitment of families, which takes as its model mother-love. This is not to say that fathers have no place, for father-love, with its driving for self-improvement and discipline, is also essential to survival, but that uncorrected father-love, father-love as it were practiced by both parents, is a way to annihilation.
Women live lives of continual apology. They are born and raised to take the blame for other people's behavior. If they are treated without respect, they tell themselves that they have failed to earn respect. If their husbands do not fancy them, it is because they are unattractive.
The wedding is the chief ceremony of the middle-class mythology, and it functions as the official entrée of the spouses to their middle-class status. This is the real meaning of saving up to get married. The young couple struggles to set up an image of comfortable life which they will be forced to live up to in the years that follow.
Guilt is one side of a nasty triangle; the other two are shame and stigma. This grim coalition combines to inculpate women themselves of the crimes committed against them.
Because there is nothing here than invites us to cherish unhappy lovers. Nothing is more vain than to die for love. What we ought to do is live.
Love is contagious. When I share love, it comes back to me multiplied. Love opens every door.
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
Forgive me for startling you with the impetuosity of my sentiments, my dear Scarlett—I mean, my dear Mrs. Kennedy. It cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past the friendship I have had in my heart for you has ripened into a deeper feeling, a feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it you? Ah! It is love which makes me so bold!
Real men stay faithful. They don't have time to look for other women because they're too busy looking for new ways to love their own.
I never yet did hear, That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear
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