In some cultures, marriages are arranged by a third party of elders in families or communities in order to ensure couples are advantageously matched (the advantage being coming from the same community, financial reasons, to strengthen family connections and offspring, and more).
I think in the U.S. and in the West, we look at that as some weird, antiquated, patriarchal, anti-feminist shit. And we’re mostly influenced by pop culture depictions of arranged marriages when the girl escapes from her oppressive family pressures and unites with the one true love that she choses for herself.
Fairy tale propaganda and racially biased assumptions about arranged marriages aside, I’m starting to think there may be something to letting people who know a bit more about life choose our partners for us. Follow me.
As a woman dating in the 21st century and mostly dating cis-het men (the ghetto), loving and being loved is… hard. Even outside of amorous relationships, properly caring and being there for friends and for my community is difficult and filled with so much pressure and outside expectations.
At this point, I know one thing for sure about love and that is that I don’t know what I’m doing. Even writing my affirmation was hard because I don’t feel like I know enough about love to affirm myself in that area. And with that in mind, wouldn’t it be nice to have some elders in my life who could just tell me what love is supposed to look like?
As a Black woman, I feel strongly connected to my ancestors. The people who came before me, who struggled and sacrificed and made a way for my life to be what it is today, the human beings who had to exist for me to exist, I carry them in my heart and mind all the time. Even the ones I don’t know or who aren’t personally related to me, I still consider them ancestors and I consider our life journeys intertwined. I’m inspired by ancestors, I study them, I learn from them, I strive to make them proud.
And I’m realizing, that in my connection with my ancestorsI already have a group of elders with a plethora of knowledge about love and life that I can glean and learn from.
So below, are some of my favorite quotes about love that I have gathered from studying the lives of those who lived before me (and those who are still living). Who inspire me and motivate me and who I have so much to learn from. Maybe one day I’ll compile some quotes about love from my real family that future generations can learn from when I, myself, am someone’s elder and later, ancestor.
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“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love-whether we call it friendship or family or romance-is the mirroring and magnifying of each other’s light” -James Baldwin
This is one of my all-time favorite quotes about love from one of my all-time favorite writers and thinkers. James Baldwin reminds me that love comes with a responsibility. It’s not just about how I feel, it’s about how I make others feel. And we should all be feeling like our best selves if we say we’re in love.
“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”― Zora Neale Hurston
This has been one of the most impactful quotes about self-love I’ve ever read in my life. It astonished me that someone could see themselves as worthy, all by themselves, without other people’s validation or compliment or acceptance. This lesson from the remarkable Zora Neale Hurston made me realize, probably for the first time, that I was doing self love all wrong and I needed to look at myself a little differently outside of what others thought.
“Go where the love is” -Shanti Mayers (co-host of Around the Way Curls)
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Around The Way Curls, when I heard one of the co-hosts say these words. I don’t remember the context but it stayed with me ever since then. It was a necessary reminder to not stay stuck. In a bad relationship, a bad job, a bad home, a bad headspace. Love does not mean that we don’t grow or change. If the love is gone, it’s time to go.
“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions
The ultimate definition of love from the GAWD, bell hooks. In her seminal text, All About Love: New Visions, hooks walks us through what love means (and what it doesn’t) and how we can but a more efficient effort into truly loving others as well as ourselves. Her book and this quote has been a litmus test for all of my relationships. Am I experiencing (and showing) these seven characteristics with the people I claim to love?
“Don’t you respect nobody who don’t respect you.” -Assata Shakur (from “Assata, an autobiography)
There are lots of quotes about unrequited love that I have committed to memory about how we should never love someone who treats us as ordinary (Oscar Wilde) and how love and abuse cannot coexist (bell hooks) but no one has summed up the importance of mutual care and respect like Assata Shakur. I don’t owe anybody shit! Especially if they treat me like I’m not the shit.
“We love because He first loved us.” - 1 John 4:19
Someone once asked me why I was in love with some boy I was dating as a teen. And I said, “because he loves me.” And that’s how I fall in love with people! When someone shows me love, it’s very easy for me to fall for them. I call it Jesus love, haha! And it doesn’t just apply to my romantic relationships. I believe care and concern in all ways deserves to be reciprocated. Love is so powerful. Loving others has increased my love for myself and I have learned to love others by the way people in my life have loved me.
“The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.’” - Jeremiah 31:3
Speaking of Jesus love, I grew up learning in church that love is unconditional. God loves us not because of what we do or because we don’t sin, but because we just are. And I spent a lot of my 20s feeling like love had to be unconditional, I should love people no matter what forever and ever. Nowadays, I don’t think that’s true. I think what I really needed to learn to expect and to show is a love that I can feel secure in, without feeling like if I fuck up I’m going to lose someone or be abandoned or rejected. But unconditional love is not a carte blanche to fuck up for eternity. Love requires respect.
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” –Prentis Hemphill
As a (recovering) people pleaser, I’ve always tried to avoid rejection and abandonment. Not just feeling it, but causing others to feel rejected or abandoned by my actions. The most important thing to me was being liked and loved by others. Saying “no” could hurt someone’s feelings or cause them to be disappointed in me. But never advocating for my own needs was hurting me. This quote from Prentis Hemphill is one of my favorites and has helped me realize that boundaries are an act of love, boundaries are good for both of us. Boundaries are what keeps love (and me) safe.
“Love is a choice, love is a verb.” - unknown
This is one of those things everybody says and has said for generations. Love isn’t just something you feel, it’s something you do. While I don’t necessarily think we choose who we love, – I’ve certainly fallen against my better judgment and enjoyed the ride – I do think staying in love, loving someone properly and asserting your right to be loved properly is an active choice we have to make consistently. We have to choose love, even when we’re angry, even when we’re tired, bored, annoyed, or disappointed. We have to choose to love that other person, using all that we know about what love is supposed to look like. All that we’ve learned
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My affirmation for the day is two-fold. “Love comes easily to me” means that not only do I receive love easily, but I understand it. In love and relationships, I’ve often felt… stupid. I’ve let others take the lead and it’s led me to really unloving places. However I feel empowered to be reminded that everything I need to know about love is within me, within my mind. And when I need reminders about what I already know, I know where I can go.
This journal entry was written for DAY 3 of the Finding the Right Words September Affirmation Challenge. Follow Finding The Right Words on Instagram for more prompts and affirmations. Write your own journal entry and share it with me!
There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!