Abstract

This chapter substantiates romantic love as not only a _moral_ phenomenon but also a _spiritual_ one. Demonstrating how the healing from despair, which amounts to the highest relationship with God, is dependent upon loving correctly, and given (as was demonstrated in previous chapters) that romantic love _can_ be correct and hence moral, it becomes clear that moral romantic love is a sufficient condition for spiritual existence. Further, the chapter explicates the correspondence between lovers in terms of helping each other to become the selves they are intended to be, and clarifies the specific nature of romantic love as involving erotic joy. Finally, it uses one of the most paradigmatic tales of romantic love—Charlotte Brontë’s _Jane Eyre_—as a test case by which to tie all the threads presented throughout the book together. Reading this story, the thesis of romantic love as a meeting of essences is vividly portrayed.