One criticism I have heard of people who fall in love is that their actions negatively affect the social whole. I seek to contend with that view.

When people fall in love across cultural or social boundaries, they bring into contact the societies in which they reside. This can have both positive and negative results. It has positive results when the cultures involved intermingle and work with each other. It has negative results when they fight each other. Both can happen.

In my case, I have put in a lot of effort into reaching out to Australian people and in contributing to Australia. I cannot be accused of selfishness or anything of the sort. I’ve raised a daughter here, and she is doing well in school and is in no kind of trouble. I am no longer with her mother. But I have remained good to her, and she and I remain on good terms.

That people will fall in love across social and cultural boundaries, is a given. This issue is treated differently by Shakespeare and Mark Twain. In Shakespeare, the lovers – Rome and Juliet – get sacrificed so that their families end their pointless feud and come together on building a civilization. In Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the lovers swim the river to build a life for themselves while the families kill each other off. Both are partial solutions. In the first solution the lovers get sacrificed; in the second the families do. We can do better. We can have lovers building a life for themselves while bringing families and cultures together to work on building a civilization that works for all.

People will not stop having families, and people will not stop falling in love. Both realities need to be provided for and anticipated. Love across cultural obstacles can be a source of contention; it can also be a source of collaboration and peace. If you are involved in a situation like this, do what you can to reach out to the people in the other culture. Then the effect of the romantic love is a positive one, and you are doing as much the right thing by society as you are by love.