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"I can't mate in captivity." Gloria Steinem on why she had never married (later, she did get married).
The feeling of being in captivity is common to many (some argue, most) people who are in a committed romantic framework. How can people cope with this feeling? Is such captivity so horrible? The answers to these questions are complex.
Romantic captivity arises when people do not want to stay within a certain relationship because of romantic reasons, but nevertheless do so for non-romantic reasons. The romantic urges of these people are restrained because of non-romantic circumstances.
The chains of romantic captivity in modern liberal society are objectively more limited than those in traditional societies, but having to bear such chains and remain in such captivity is subjectively much harder in more liberal societies. The main difficulty of this captivity in more liberal societies is not so much in the "objective" hardship of the captivity, but in the subjective suffering of giving up more attractive and feasible alternatives while still yearning for them. Doing so constitutes making a serious romantic compromise.
The process of having to take reality into account, which is important in understanding love and romantic compromises, is also significant in understanding the related experience of coupling in captivity.
Ideal love refuses to take account of reality by making compromises. Ideal love transcends reality and therefore the lovers often feel that it is reality that should change in accordance with their love and not vice versa. Indeed, people often say that love has shown them a new world that was previously closed to them. Lovers describe their situation as feeling as if they can touch the sky when they are with their beloved. In believing that they can fly and touch heaven's gates, lovers express their profound wish to overcome human limitations, and they try to do so by disregarding reality.
Unlike ideal love, romantic compromises are closely connected to reality while taking into account human limitations. People desire much more than they can get and they have to compromise with what they have. Such lovers feel that they and their beloveds can reach for the moon every day, while many of us barely manage to go to a movie with our beloved once a month. We find it hard to curb our dreams, but we must cope with our inability to implement most of them. Our cognitive capacities, such as thinking, imagining, and remembering, take us to places we cannot be, at least not for the time being. When we make romantic compromises, we are aware of the Promised Land, and like Moses, we cannot be part of it.
When people are in a state of romantic captivity, they are fully aware of their unsatisfactory reality. Their romantic desires are curbed as they are incompatible with reality and attempting to fulfill them could prove very costly. People in romantic captivity keep yearning for the perfect (or at least better) lover to appear and make their heart beat faster and longer.
I have distinguished between the objective and subjective romantic chains of captivity. The objective chains concern limitations that are by and large independent of the subject. The subjective chains are easier to escape as overcoming them depends to a greater extent on the subject's characteristics.
In many traditional societies, marriages have been closer to the objective type as they have constituted a life-long imprisonment with no leniency due to the partner bad behavior (or the agent good behavior. The reality concerning the quality of the marriage and the value of the alternative have no place here. Nowadays, when there is "no-cause divorce" (divorce granted with no need to justify its reasons) and the alternative to romantic captivity is quite accessible, the captivity tends to be more of the subjective type.
When the objective chains are heavy, there is hardly any sense in speaking about romantic compromises, since there is almost no way of changing the situation. Feeling romantically compromised is more prominent in the subjective type. Accordingly, the problem of romantic compromises is greater and more painful in our times.
Romantic captivity is certainly not the best of all worlds, but it is not the worst. Captivity can make life a bit more comfortable and reduce the uncertainties that accompany the search for alternatives, but such a life is often unsatisfactory. Romantic captivity protects people, and at the same time prevents them from enjoying the excitement of the outside world. For some people, being in romantic captivity safer as being free involves not merely excitement but also risks.
It is not immediately evident how people should treat romantic captivity. For those who have found their perfect prince, this issue is of no concern as they do not feel themselves in captivity. Consider, however, the following true cases of women who have encountered romantic captivity in different ways.
Rebecca is a married woman who feels her captivity acutely-in her words, "My life story is that of living in a cage." She does not have affairs as she is afraid that once she does, she will never return to that cage.
Adele is a single woman in her late forties who has had many romantic relationships but has never married because she is afraid to wake up one morning bound to a man she does not love. Deep down, she feels very lonely and wishes she could reach a harbor; she regrets that she did not have the courage to compromise.
Yelena is married to her first boyfriend who she married at a young age. She suffers a lot from her captivity and compensates herself with an extramarital affair. Although she envies her friend Adele, she still considers herself better off since she derives immense satisfaction from her children.
Anastasia's first marriage was a kind of unpleasant captivity for her, so she got divorced and married another man with whom she was in love. After a while she realized that the feeling of captivity was persisting, but this time she decided not to change her husband, but merely to take a lover. She compensated herself with her interesting work and with having a lover. This did not completely abolish her negative emotions associated with captivity.
Veronica was married for twenty years and had four children; the feeling of captivity was so hard for her that she got divorced; her married lover who had three children also divorced his wife. Now, ten years later, she still feels in heaven and blesses the day she moved out of captivity.
There are of course many other ways in which to cope with romantic captivity. But for some, captivity is not that bad when they become accustomed to it, are unaware of a better alternative, or believe that they would have to pay too high a price for any better alternative. In these circumstances, people have a greater chance of being happy with their lot, even if this lot constitutes a kind of captivity.
To sum up, romantic captivity is not easy situation to bear, but there are various ways in which, with different degrees of success in different circumstances, to deal with it. Romantic captivity is not a lethal disease; people can live with it for a long time, but it often gives rise to varying levels of distress.
The above considerations can be encapsulated in the following statement that a lover might express: "Darling, being with you is like being in a cage; if I could escape the cage from time to time, life would be much better. But if I did so, I am not sure I would want to return to the cage."
