Dating in the 21st century is a nightmare, and the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation to the point where going out on a date can be a death sentence.
That being said, romantic love is important and revolutionary – a crucial rebellion when it is genuine and causes no pain.
Considering an interpersonal phenomenon such as love as revolutionary is unusual. Yet, when we consider historical events that politicised love and still have an impact on the way we live, we realise that love is one of the most important, relatively accessible acts of rebellion needed to undo some of the injustices of the past.
The beauty of love is that it is within our reach as individuals. Grander revolutionary actions such as free education and land expropriation require big policy shifts, mass action from citizens and even the involvement of state and judiciary structures.
Yet love as a revolution does not rely on the slow bureaucracies of institutions, which are unwilling to address injustices. Love just requires individuals to make an active choice to be together and to care for each other in ways that empower the individual and the collective.
But, easy as this sounds, many struggle to find it. Even those who have it struggle to enjoy the transformation that should come with the bond that love should create.
I want to argue that this is in part because of the historical politicisation of love which, even though we enjoy relatively more freedoms today, has not been unlearned. The politicisation of love has, in some ways, become cultural norms that we blindly and unquestioningly follow, even to our own detriment.
Discourse on love and family finally gained dominance in the 1960s through the rise of radical feminism, which challenged family values – particularly the nuclear family structure that perpetuated the oppression, and at times abuse, of women and children in the family. ) Nombulelo Shange is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Free State (UFS) and chairperson of the UFS Women’s Forum.
