Kalyee Srithnam: Love and the Government
The state is generating love. They are making it too easy to love. Love is seductive, it is good to love, but you have to learn about it, you have to be careful. Are there too many people getting hurt?
The government cannot control love, they can only facilitate it and make sure that it is as pure as possible. They are the shepherds of love, making sure that it does not get corrupted. But even the shepherds can be corrupted. And when they are, people get hurt.
Love is a powerful thing. It should not be taken lightly. Love can make or break a person. It is the most important emotion that a person can experience.
Love is something that needs to be nurtured. The government understands this, and that is why they put so much effort into making sure that love is pure. They want people to be able to love freely, without any ulterior motives.
The government cannot control love, but they can certainly help it along. By ensuring that love is pure, they are helping us to experience the best possible version of it. And that is something that we should, theoretically, all be grateful for.
I have had powerful experiences in my own life, as a young woman. For example, I remember the first time I fell in love. It was a very intense and beautiful feeling. But it didn’t last, because we were too young and immature to understand what love really meant.
Now that I am older, I am troubled by the way the government tries to control us, by making it too easy to fall in love. Here is why this is a problem: love is a very personal experience, and it should be up to each individual to decide who they want to love, and how. The government should not be able to dictate these things for us.
I think that the government’s interference in our love lives can actually have negative consequences. For example, it can lead to unhappy marriages, or relationships that are not based on love, but on convenience. For example, if the government makes it too easy for us to get married, we might marry someone because it is convenient, rather than because we are truly in love with them.
Here is a very specific example of something the government does that worries me: In the United States, if you are married and your spouse dies, you automatically become the legal guardian of their children. This means that if you are in a relationship with someone who has kids, and they die, you would automatically become the legal guardian of those kids, whether or not you wanted to be. That seems like a lot of responsibility to put on someone who might not be ready for it, or who might not even like children.
Here is another way the government interferes with whom we love: It can be really hard to get a visa if your partner is not from the same country as you. This means that, even if you are in a long-term, committed relationship with someone who is not from your home country, you might not be able to move to their country or they might not be able to move to yours. What if you are in a relationship with someone who is not allowed to be in your country? For example, what if you are an American and your partner is from Iran? The US government might not let them into the country. This can cause a lot of problems for couples who are forced to live apart or who have to travel back and forth
Another problem with the government’s control over our love lives has implications specifically for young people: the legal age of marriage. The government decides how old you have to be before you can legally get married. In some places, like Iran, the age is as young as nine! Nine! That’s way too young for someone to be making a lifelong commitment. Many people think that the government should not control our love lives at all. For example, here in the United States, the government doesn’t regulate marriage at all. Some people say that this is a good thing, because it leaves the decision up to the couple themselves. Others say that it’s bad, because there’s no guarantee that two young people are ready for marriage just because they say they are.
I am not dispassionate about this. Let me tell you something that happened to me, which is very personal: When I was 20 years old, I got married. It was not a happy marriage, and after just six months, my husband and I decided to get divorced. We both agreed that it wasn’t working out, and so we went our separate ways. Now, some people might say that we were too young to get married in the first place. But I say that the government “generated” our love, because of one specific government action. You see, in order to get married, we had to go through the government. We had to get a marriage license from the state. And that’s when it hit me:
The government was telling us that our love was legitimate. That it was real. And so we believed them. Does the government really have any right to legitimize someone’s love? I don’t think so. Who are they to say what is and isn’t love?
I believe that the government should stay out of our love lives, and let us make our own choices about who we want to love. We are the best judges of our own happiness.
That’s my opinion. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for reading. đ
Xoxo,
Kalyee
^^^
Kalyee Srithnam is a 24-year-old writer, columnist, sometime-model and erudite chocolate fiend, who loves unicorns and writing content that helps people feel seen. Her column appears each Monday and Thursday. Follow her on Twitter.
Cover image: Pexels. Image of Kalyee, courtesy of the author.
