It’s intensely sought after to be loved and nurtured, but is this only limited to romance, or can sisterly-brotherly love exist?
Love is among the multitude of human desires people seek to experience.
It’s a complex and multifaceted emotion that takes on numerous forms, given and experienced across different identities. However, as much as love seems like a straightforward and all-consuming feeling, its complexities make it difficult to distinguish.
Love is a widely-encompassing emotion.
But within its space, there exist tinier specks of separate sentiments that are relatively similar yet different simultaneously. In fact, in some cases, this confusion becomes severe enough for people to perceive and identify their desires mistakenly.
Within Intimacy, There Exists Sisterly-Brotherly Love
In one of the chapters of Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature by Chet Shupe, the author discusses the changes that human connections have undergone through time. Unlike in the past, he posits that modern relationships have become more complex and problematic. A factor that massively influenced this progress has been attributed to what Chet labels as sisterhood.
According to him, sisterhood is equivalent to people’s natural obligation of serving one another and taking care of life, which includes taking care of each other. People express their innate desire to nurture and be included without requiring a romantic trade-off. In modern-day society, its equivalent can be associated with the so-called sisterly-brotherly love, which people practice not for physical intimacy or proximity. Instead, it’s love expressed because people identify with each other and enjoy the pureness of their interactions and connection.
Sisterhood is the connection people label as purely friendship. It’s a giving and taking of time, effort, and resources without any romantic factors blurring the lines. However, despite its importance as the supposed foundation of romantic love, Chet Shupe mentions that this sisterly-brotherly love has, unfortunately, gradually ceased in the modern world. This is said to be the reason why people have become very rarely content in relationships.
It’s because they’ve forgotten to value this sisterly-brotherly love. The supposed core that once held human relationships together has become absent in humanity.
The Need for Love Precedes Understanding It
Humans have the natural desire to love and receive the love they deserve. It’s a fundamental need that must be satisfied for their contentment. However, in seeking one form of love, people can easily overlook how the other manifestations may have already blessed their lives, causing them to lose these connections. People give importance to fulfilling this desire to feel loved. They actively seek to be a part of a romantic relationship that anything else outside it may not suffice.
In heavily seeking romance and experiencing this intimate type of love, people mistakenly interpret the gestures of another. They twist behaviors to fit their narratives, putting more romantic values over them. This makes a mess out of a possibly stable sisterly-brotherly love. Instead of receiving a love so pure it doesn’t require any physical intimacy, people veer toward the one that does.
This results in friendships getting broken because of the imbalance between what both parties seek and value. While one side forms a connection with a platonic value in mind, the other seeks more and gets disappointed when their needs aren’t met. This imbalance between the needs of both creates chaos within the relationship. It creates a disconnect because one side demands more from what the other is willing and can provide. With the absence of sisterhood, humans have become incapable of perceiving and accepting different types of love as their eyes have been locked toward romantic satisfaction.
Hence, this massive imbalance exists between what people give and expect to receive.
Humans have gradually become incapable of loving each other purely and platonically as the sisterly-brotherly love. And while there’s nothing wrong in desiring something more, they shouldn’t also shut their doors to love that feels a little less.
