Sean Dorsey – Till We Have Faces - The Stunted “Eros (?)” Between the King and and His Second Wife

During the discussion in our ‘final’ class I thought that perhaps the first and worst example of Eros in ‘Till We Have Faces’ is the one seen between the King of Glome and his abhorrently (of course by virtue of his age, not her youth) young second wife. It is a forcible Eros at best (can this even really be called Eros or is it outside the boundaries of the Four Loves described by Lewis?), a one sided Eros in medium, and the Eros is nonexistent or situational (except for perhaps the feelings created by the sexuality of the relationship) at worst. As with many things of this nature (marriage, rape, general sexuality issues) it was a common occurrence in ancient societies and was also by no means one-sided – but of course it was predominantly older males paired with younger females as opposed to vice-versa. There was no talk (that I’m aware of) of pedophilia in those days, and it was a perfectly acceptable practice to take very young wives. I wanted to propose the situation that a king or any man would be as nice and accommodating as possible in these situations and then ask whether or not it is then acceptable for such practices but I know the answer already: it is not, it is never acceptable. It seems the idea that this was an example of Eros was ultimately a mistaken notion based on a misunderstanding of the Loves. Can there ever be any justification for it? Should such a justification even be attempted?