Here’s the book review that serendipitously addresses Stephanie’s Inquiry Question:
Romantic love is a myth. You don’t choose a partner because you love him. You love that partner because you chose him. Which explains the plague of our time. Too many choices, too many channels, too many potential hookups — it’s made it just about impossible to choose, and if it’s just about impossible to choose, it’s just about impossible to love, and if it’s just about impossible to love, then, according to “The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us,” by Bruce Feiler, it’s just about impossible to be fully human. Why were Adam and Eve able to love each other so fiercely? Because those lucky bastards had no choice.
The closing lines of Paradise Lost we read in class:
Som natural tears they drop’d, but wip’d them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.
