“Yet in the very first book of the Old Testament narrative there appears the story of young Jacob’s romantic love for Rachel, a love which was inspired by their first meeting [Gen. 29:  10-18] and which was afresh and tender memory in the patriarch Jacob’s mind when long years after he had buried her in Canaan [Gen. 35:  16-20] he was on his deathbed in Egypt [Gen. 48:  1-7].  In all the literature of romantic love in all the ages there can be found no more touching exhibit of the true-hearted fidelity of a romantic lover than that which is given of Jacob in the words:  ’And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her.’  And the entire story confirms the abiding force of that sentiment.  There are, certainly, gleams of romantic love from out of the clouds of degraded human passion in the ancient East, in the Bible stories of Shechem and Dinah [Gen. 34:  1-31], of Samson and the damsel of Timnath [Judg. 14:  1-3], of David and Abigail [I.  Sam. 25:  1-42], of Adonijah and Abishag [I.  Kings 2:  13-17], and other men and women of whom the Scriptures tell us.”

Cenac Moncaut, who begins his Histoire de l’Amour dans l’Antiquite with Adam and Eve, declares (28-31) that the episode of Jacob and Rachel marks the birth of perfect love in the world, the beginning of its triumph, followed, however, by relapses in days of darkness and degradation.  If all these writers are correct then my theory falls to the ground and romantic love must be conceded to be at least four thousand years old, instead of less than one thousand.  But let us look at the facts in detail and see whether there is really no difference between ancient Hebrew and modern Christian love.

The Rev. Stopford Brooke has remarked: 

“Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph may have existed as real men, and played their part in the founding of the Jewish race, but their stories, as we have them, are as entirely legendary as those of Arthur or Siegfried, of Agamemnon or Charlemagne.”

This consideration would bring the date of the story from the time when Jacob is supposed to have lived down to the much later time when the legend was elaborated.  I have no desire, however, to seek refuge behind such chronological uncertainties, nor to reassert that my theory is a question of evolution rather than of dates, and that, therefore, if Jacob and Rachel, during their prolonged courtship, had the qualities of mind and character to feel the exalted sentiment of romantic love, we might concede in their case an exception which, by its striking isolation, would only prove the rule.  I need no such refuge, for I can see no reason whatever for accepting the story of Jacob and Rachel as an exceptional instance of romantic love.

THE STORY OF JACOB AND RACHEL