The self-preservation instinct

One has proposed to me a match with a pretty girl. Not exactly “girl”, actually: a divorcee, even if still young, whose first marriage ended in spectacular failure when her husband, a recovering drug addict whom she had met as her patient in a hospital, turned out resistant to treatment after all. In short, she had fallen in love and decided to sacrifice herself in hope of effecting thereby her lover’s cure and transformation. How very noble, and how foolishly self-destructive, and therefore – ill. He was ill, of course – drug addiction is a form of illness; but so was she – the kind of mercy upon others which flirts with self-destruction is also an illness. “Nothing for me, oh lord” is held up of course as a expression of moral superiority; but the truth is that the outcome of the famous prayer in Gethsemane –“may not mine but your will happen” – is crucifixion. It is also a morally simplistic attitude: if all human life deserves respect, then so does our own; we disrespect it when we fail to give it its due. The real moral challenge is a much more difficult one than that proposed by the Gethsemane prayer: to give unto others their due without compromising that which is due to us.

But why would lack of sufficient self-preservation instinct be sufficient cause to reject a proposed match outright? Well, if the husband and the wife are one soul and one body; then, as a result, wives prepared to sacrifice themselves invariably end up sacrificing their husbands, too. In any case, people inclined to sacrifice themselves are rarely happy as a result; and unhappy people render their partners unhappy. Their unhappiness is a burden to them and all theirs alike.