On a midsummer’s morning, a close friend and I met for coffee. Anne is married, retired, and the mother of four and grandmother of several. Although we talk often by phone, nearly two years had passed since we’d last seen each other, and we’d both, well, softened with age.

For a while, we sipped our coffee and talked of family, faith, and books. Then Anne began describing an article on men she’d read by Peter Boghossian, a philosopher I knew only by name. I remember little from our conversation, but her concluding statement floored me: “I think women basically want a man to worship them.”

For a few long moments, I mulled over this bold assertion, then replied, “Well, I think men want a woman to worship.”

We both laughed a bit. We sounded more like two Victorians than a male and female living in our present age with its strange brew of “anything goes” laced with puritanical political correctness.

But I think Anne hit on something profound.

For several years, the news media and online cultural commentators have announced the collapse of dating and the decline of marriage, the death of romance, and the increasing inability of young men and women to connect with one another. Causes put forth for the demise in this natural attraction between the sexes range from radical feminism to toxic masculinity.

Yet suppose Anne’s remark unearthed a more fundamental explanation for this divide. Suppose women truly, albeit covertly given today’s penchant for a snickering cynicism, do in fact harbor the desire for such adoration? Suppose in turn that men silently wish for a woman on whom they might lavish their full affection and admiration – in short, horror of horrors, to place her on a pedestal?

Pondering our conversation, I suddenly realized that these revelations were nothing new, that in fact they dated back to the Middle Ages. Arthurian legends, medieval romances, and the fairy tales of a beautiful lady and a knight in shining armor are shot through with this type of mutual love and need. The princess longs for a good man who adores her, the knight for a lady worthy of such worship.

Now suppose that those age-old twin desires, so dated and even offensive in the minds of many progressives and others in our present-day culture of gender studies and alphabetized sexual categories, are actually the girders supporting the bridge of romance between male and female. Invented by the poets of courtly love 900 years ago, and refined through the centuries, suppose these yearnings to adore and to be adored are real, and are the missing link in all our talk about relationships between men and women.

If that is the case, then clearly those who search for such devotion must attempt to make themselves worthy vessels of love. If Anne is correct, then the woman seeking the worship of a man must strive to become a fit object of adoration. Her appearance, her demeanor, her heart, and her character: all blend together to make her so.

And the man who craves a woman to worship must make himself deserving of such a gift. Like his female counterpart, his virtues, words, deeds, and behavior must be forged to match that ambition. Logic demands that if he wishes for a lady, he must become a knight on a quest. Rather than carrying a shield and lance, he might start with flowers and a box of chocolates.

In other words, romance of this sort builds character and makes for better men and women.

“If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man,” C. S. Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity.”

Maybe the time has come for all of us to be progressives by the lights of Lewis, to reverse direction, recollect some of those truths embedded in fairy tales, and revive romance.

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Edmund Leighton, Public Domain