IX: Concerning Love explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Love and Human Relationships

  Explores the transformation of love and marriage in the new society, emphasizing sincerity, freedom from coercion, and the absence of legal or social contracts of sentiment.

• Politics and Governance

  Discusses the absence of law courts and conventional public opinion in regulating personal relationships, highlighting a shift from external authority to personal integrity.

Characters to notice

• Guest

  The narrator accompanies Dick to visit Old Hammond and listens to his discourse on love.

• Dick

  Brings the Guest to Old Hammond; is reunited with Clara, his former wife.

• Clara

  Enters the room and is reunited with Dick, blushing with happiness.

• Old Hammond

  The elderly host who explains the modern views on love and relationships, and facilitates the reunion of Dick and Clara.

Key passages

• “we have ceased to be commercial in our love-matters, so also we have ceased to be artificially foolish.”

  Love is no longer treated as a transaction, and people no longer pretend to feelings they don't have.

  Old Hammond explains the shift away from mercenary or hypocritical relationships.

• “there is no unvarying conventional set of rules by which people are judged; no bed of Procrustes to stretch or cramp their minds and lives”

  There are no rigid social codes that force people to conform in matters of love and sentiment.

  Old Hammond describes the freedom from conventional moral judgment.