Valentine's Day is coming closer and closer and many people ask themselves if they are in love, if love does exist. What is love and how do you know when your in love? You see commercials for jewelry stores, and chocolate. The cards and flowers begin to become more prominent in grocery stores. The United States has an idea of love, but is love universal? Can we truly understand using Cultural Relativism?
I know that I'm in love, but I don't want to be very "gushy." I can only use my experiences to understand love. I feel that when you love someone you would do anything for them. You have a respect for one another and admire everything about them and how they treat you. You are perfectly content with them and do not need anything more. Butterflies never go away. The American culture, I believe, would agree with me on this. I did grow up in it, and would have to get my ideas from somewhere. But what if we were to go to the Middle East? Would their idea of love be the same? If it even existed?
In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam is forced into a marriage. Her husband is harsh, stern, but considerate for the first week. His idea is that the woman should make the man happy. Now maybe the woman wants to make the man happy by being at his every command. That could make a women feel helpful and efficient. However Mariam did not get satisfaction and gratitude. Yet she feels jealousy towards his porn magazines when she find them in his dresser. At the moment she feels that she is not good enough. With that being said she lives for her husband and lost all sense of herself. Is our idea of love found in their house? No. There idea could be: Love is when a man wants a woman to make him happy, and a woman wants to make him happy. Using cultural relativism it is difficult to understand and decide if our idea of love is universal.
I believe it is universal. It is our instincts. However I think what you expect to feel and the goals for relationships are different. People are taught ways to feel, depending on the society you grow up in. That is all they know, and in their minds, "the way it is." Mariam is in a culture where she knows what is expected of her. Does she like it? She might not, but that is how her society works. However most Americans, including myself think "the way is it" in a relationship is love. That is the goal.
