Love: You're Doing it Wrong

The following are quotes from an antebellum Southerner, in 1854, in a book describing the ideal Southern society:

"A man loves his children because they are weak, helpless, and dependent; he loves his wife for similar reasons. ... He ceases to love his wife when she becomes masculine or rebellious."

"So long as she is nervous, fickle, capricious, delicate, diffident, and dependent, man will worship and adore her ... If she be obedient, she is in little danger of mal-treatment; if she stands upon her rights, is coarse and masculine, man loathes and despises her, and ends by abusing her. Law, however well-intended, can do little in her behalf."

There's a lot to say about that, or perhaps not so much a lot to say as a very little bit to say very emphatically, but my particular observation is that this guy clearly has a strange concept of love. Weakness, helplessness, and dependency are things which naturally inspire pity, and maybe perhaps a feeling of protectiveness. Love is not pity and protectiveness; it may include these things, if a loved one is, you know, weak, helpless, and dependent, although in its best forms it should also probably include a desire to help change those circumstances. I think what this guy really means is that, so long as his wife is properly submissive in the way described, a man will "love" the feeling he gets from his dominion over her. But, uh, "I love having dominion over you" is very different from "I love you." You're doing it wrong, antebellum Southerners.