Introducing the Love is War Metaphor

The metaphor "Love is War" seems to be one of the most popular examples of metaphors in our culture. It looks like there are several different angles of interpretation for this metaphor. First is to see the love relationship as being made up of the conqueror and the conquered. As an example take the metaphor "she conquered my heart." If we take a quick look at history we discover that this manner of speaking did not appear until the age of medieval chivalry, with the start of courtly love. There the bard or noble knight is smitten by the love of his life, usually some other woman of noble birth who was almost impossible for him to physically possess. This may be because of her terribly high social status, or the fact that she is already married to someone else. But this only allows the lover to put his lady up on a pedestal and idealize her. Also, this idealized relationship encouraged the lover to fight battles, slay dangerous creatures, and compose songs of praise for his beloved. In the course of his adventures, he might be able to then reverse the relational metaphor into ""he finally won her love."

However there is also a negative way of looking at this metaphor. There is that sense where the lovers are engaged in a struggle for dominion over the other, until one finally succumbs. Such as in "she fled/resisted his sexual advances", or "he violently pursued her." I agree that originally there was something very noble and traditional in the sense of courtship and wooing the lover, unfortunately nowadays it is manifested more in the way that the depressing French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre described it, where the romantic relationship inevitably ends in failure because the lovers only want to make their partner into an object they can possess and manipulate. This kind of war is one with no happy ending in sight, except the devaluation of persons into possessions. It is questionable whether a love that seeks to tyrannize the other person, and completely control every move he or she makes, is still love.

The last way of viewing this metaphor is to see the war as coming from outside the relationship, as an opposing army besieging a beautiful castle. So we have phrases like "You and me against the world", or "We have to fight for our relationship." This can be seen as a more protective kind of love, and other people and circumstances which would seek to divide the lovers are seen as enemy forces which must be defeated or repelled. I suppose this too is a beneficial way of looking at the metaphor so long as it is not taken too extremely. There are many things in the world which can divide a relationship by causing jealousy, but there are also many things which can certainly enrich the relationship.

If you're looking for more metaphors for love, and especially less popular ones, you can check out the examples of metaphors enumerated by Kövecses in his "Metaphor and Emotion. There are also good resources recommended in the website below.