Pity and Romantic Love

I recently finished Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. I rarely cry, even when genuinely moved by a book, so I was astonished to find myself tearing up on the subway (where I do my leisure reading these days) at the bittersweet beauty of the story. Lest this gushing make you suspect that you are in for Oprah Book-of-the-Month-type chaff, I appeal to authority: Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In other words it's in the same class as To Kill a Mocking Bird and Grapes of Wrath. You should read it; savor it.                                     

                                            

One passage in particular struck me: 

It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike.

I was struck by this because I have previously had occasion to ponder the relationship between pity and love. I have never been in love, but I dated someone who I pitied, and that emotion had a strong effect on me which I think was similar to love and could have grown into love. I was never blind to his faults, but he became more dear to me as I watched him struggle with his weaknesses. I was well aware all the tropes about women being hurt in by broken men who they intend to fix, but I chose to date him (in part) on the conviction that true, Christ-like love does not mean being blind to flaws or expecting perfection but having compassion for weakness. But when the relationship ended, it made me wonder whether I had been right about the role that pity ought to play in love.

Shortly after that I reread Lord of the Rings and was surprised to find pity in the love story of Faramir and Éowyn. Here pity is mentioned in the description of Faramir and Éowyn's first meeting and conversation in which Éowyn wishes Faramir to release her from the Houses of Healing:

The Lord Faramir was walking alone in the garden of the Houses of Healing, and the sunlight warmed him, and he felt life run new in his veins, but his heart was heavy, and he looked out over the walls eastward. And coming, the Warden spoke his name, and he turned and saw the Lady Éowyn of Rohan; and he was moved with pity, for he saw that she was hurt, and his clear sight perceived her sorrow and unrest."

... 

'What would you have me do, lady?' said Faramir. 'I also am a prisoner of the healers.' He looked at her, and being a man whom pity deeply stirred, it seemed to him that her loveliness amid her grief would pierce his heart. And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark would outmatch in battle. 

...

'Then quietly,  more as if speaking to herself than to him; 'But the healers would have me lie abed seven days yet,' she said. 'And my window does not look eastward.' Her voice was now that of a maiden young and sad. 

Faramir smiled, though his heart was filled with pity.   

When I read this passage it seemed to me that Tolkien was using the word pity in a broader way than its modern, primarily negative usage, which, given Tolkien's philology background, made me suspect an archaic definition of pity. This deserves a far more thorough investigation, but the entry in the OED seems to confirm this hunch. The OED records a transition in the word from a meaning that is more similar to a deeply felt compassion (with religious undertones, given its etymological relationship to 'piety') to a modern usage that implies "disdain or mild contempt for a person as intellectually or morally inferior." Clearly the latter type of pity would be a very poor foundation for romantic love, but the former might actually be a solid one. Does not love (in the long term) require one to be able to smile with a sort of fond pity on the foolishness of one's spouse?

In Faramir's case we see that he is a virtuous man (Peter Jackson's slanderous depiction notwithstanding) and that being "a man whom pity deeply stirred" is a positive attribute. Indeed, earlier in the book this characteristic is revealed in his interaction with Frodo and Sam; his sensitivity towards others stands in stark contrast his father's callous nature. However, as Éowyn perceives, this tenderness does not mean Faramir is weak, pity is a virtue which is compatible with his warrior identity. To summarize, Faramir's pity is a laudable emotional response to suffering which seems to prime him to act with compassion towards others. In other words, to love them.

Going on the evidence of this first meeting of Faramir and Éowyn, it would seem that love and pity (of the archaic definition, of course!) are very closely related: at the very least pity grows into love and perhaps at points is not even distinguishable from love. It seems that there are other examples of this in literature. At the moment I'm in the middle of Anna Karenina and pity comes up quite a bit. For example, Karenin, the jilted husband, is recorded to feel pity towards his wife, son, his wife's lover, but towards his newborn daughter (the product of his wife's affair) he had "a sort of special feeling, not only of pity but of also of tenderness. At first it was only his feeling of pity that made him turn his attention to the delicate little girl, who was not his child and had been so badly neglected during her mother's illness that she would certainly have died had he not taken care of her, and he did not notice himself how he grew to love her."

But this sort of simple model (pity --> love or pity = love) doesn't explain what the risk is in loving someone who you pity. If pity and love can/should be so naturally allied, then why the problem that Robinson mentions and that I experienced? Is it simply that it's normally okay to love some you pity but that sometimes people get unlucky and pity undeserving people who hurt them? Or is there something that is inherently wrong dangerous (because I agree with Robinson that it's not wrong) about loving where you pity?

For a solution to this I think we need to return to Faramir and Éowyn since a couple pages later Tolkien complicates things by using pity in what would seem to be a more modern sense. In this scene Faramir and Éowyn are having a little DTR in which starts off with the fun fact that that Éowyn was very recently in love with Aragorn. 

 

'I wished to be loved by another,' She answered. 'But I desire no man's pity.'

Eowyn, Shield Maiden

'That I know,' he said. 'You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. Because he was high and puissant, and you wished to have renown and glory and to be lifted far above the mean things that crawl on the earth. And as great a captain may to a young soldier he seemed to you admirable. For so he is, a lord among men, the greatest that now is. But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle. Look at me, Éowyn!'

And Éowyn looked at Faramir long and steadily; and Faramir said: 'Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn! But I do not offer you my pity. For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without any fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn, do you not love me?'

I think it's not a stretch to say that this conversation is a contest between two competing views of pity. Éowyn's, which pridefully rejects pity as demeaning, and Faramir's, which categorizes the sort of pity he and Aragorn offer her as "the gift of a gentle heart." So far so good, since Éowyn's view and Faramir's view nicely map onto the modern and archaic definitions of pity that we have been discussing. 

But Faramir, although he defends pity, makes a clear distinction between his pity and his love. He esteems and would love Éowyn even were there no cause to pity her. His love for her would not be diminished by the fact that he would not be needed by her and could not pity her were she completely well and happy as queen.

This, I think, is the key to the puzzle. Everyone has elements of brokenness and sinfulness that they will never be able to escape. Loving where one pities is indeed essential to the Christian calling, and a part of romantic love. Waiting for someone who you will never have to pity is unrealistic in the extreme and being unable or unwilling to pity weakness in a partner is an unwholesome state of affairs that is unlikely to lead to marital bliss.   

But it is perilous to love where you pity because feelings of pity can be easily confused for love. They can cloak the fact that you do not actually admire the person, and would feel deprived of your role as healer/savior/enabler were the person completely healed of whatever spiritual or emotional afflictions they have. Faramir's test is a good one. Would you still love this person even were they completely whole and well, and did not need you to become so?

Even with the risk, I believe in loving where you pity, because in the real world we cannot jump to healing on our own. Ultimate healing is unattainable in this world, yet even human love has a capacity for healing, and two broken people can be a source of healing for each other. I think Tolkien agrees with me because this is how the story of Faramir and Éowyn ends (post DTR and post kissing):

And to the Warden of the Houses Faramir said: 'Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.'

P.S. 
In case this post was too serious:

If you don't get the joke then it's time for a little JRR read/reread!