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and marriage. Romanticist perception was based in this break in thought, molded by it, so much
so that both types of love were entirely independent of each other.

Interestingly, neither marriage nor courtly romance ever mastered the complexities of
love. Denis de Rougemont asserts that love, “misses no opportunity of disparaging the social
institution of marriage and of humiliating husbands... as well as of glorifying the virtue of men
and women who do love outside, and in despite of, marriage... it is opposed to the ‘satisfaction’
of love as much as to marriage” (34). Those who loved with a courtly love were destined to
never achieve their love in full, and those who married were destined to a loveless life. Love in
those days was a useless affair, but that never stopped troubadours from spreading tales of epic
romance and chivalry, nor did it stop the people of the courts from yearning after duchesses,
earls, knights, and even queens.

It was this very yearning with which the church found fault. While courtly love
encourages love regardless of marital boundaries, the church condemns this action as adultery,
and therefore cannot condone courtly love (Rougemont 275). Nor could courtly love truly
function within the confines of marriage. If one did not truly love their spouse, courtly love quite
frankly encouraged extramarital actions, in order to satisfy the passions of the heart. This type of
lifestyle, if allowed to run rampant, would destroy the reputation and power of the church.
According to Rougemont, marriage, “makes no allowance for temperamental vagaries,
alterations of character, and changes in taste and external circumstances, such as every couple
must expect to experience” (279). Courtly love does this by quite simply eliminating any and all
true commitment in regards to the relationship. Rather than basing love on mutual trust and
respect, courtly love was based in the passion and desire that comes from separation and
jealousy. Only in these two emotional extremes could true courtly love be found, and it is in