The Lovers Card - Love or Choice?

Hi everyone, this is something i've been wondering about for a little while now, have had the lovers card come up a lot recently....but dont think this is in terms of a relationship- does the lovers card always mean an actual relationship/love coming to the questioner or can this also be a card meaning choice? I know the meaning looks obvious.....but is it?The book interpretation says the other meaning is choice.....what does everyone else think?

Alice x

All in how you look at it.

There is a very wide spread movement that has been promoted by many church denominations for some 25 or 30 years called Marriage Encounter. This program starts with a retreat weekend and follows up with weekly and/or monthly meetings. One of the key teachings of this program is that "love is a decision." If so, this might suggest to some that the Lovers card represents choices more than just a relationship.

I have always seen this card as representing the time or need to make a choice. Dave.

I see it as a choice that's involves a commitment, perhaps not to a person at all, perhaps to a project, a career, a school, an avocation. Something you love, or want to love, and the commitment will change your life in a significant way.

This meaning is why I dislike the cards that have 2 women, the guy and the cupid--they seem to lock the card into a lovers-only approach.

when first laying out the cards for a reading, i will say a short one or two word "description", of the meaning, for this card (unless i feel a pull in another direction), i usually just say "a union". i also think of bringing two or more things together in harmony. for instance this card could mean the bringing together of your work life and your home life, in a way that is harmonious to the two. this is just the first example i thought of, not necessarily what i think it means. but, i think you get the idea. of course this is done by the choices you make. you have to decide to do what is necessary, for the things concerned to exist in harmony. it does not matter if it is two people, different aspects of your life, a business deal (another good example, if you have a job where contracts are signed regularly), or whatever. and yes love is sometimes a choice.

contradiction

I second everything! I was always turned off by the "choice" meaning since it was symbolized by a man choosing between two women. Very politically incorrect! Then I recently read an interpretation similar to dadsnook's post. It's a choice, as in marriage is a choice that you make that changes your life forever. So I agree that the meaning can expand to mean any conscious choice or commitment that will have a great effect on you.

I think a lot of get confused by the "choice" option given for the Lovers card.
In the early tarots, like the Marseille, the card pictures a man choosing between 2 women. But the meaning is not what it looks like, to our modern eyes. We love where we will, we choose the work or study we love, we marry where we please--we exercise individual freedon, as a 'right' that we all have.

Back in those days, when this image was first created, Love and marrage did not go together usually. You married for your family, for property, for money, for allieance, for property, for advantage. Marriages were essentially arrainged. Forced marrages were not uncommon. So one of the women in the picture would represent the person (or choice) you should, out of duty, choose. the other woman--(and on a lot of old decks, she's younger and prettier than the other) represents the thing or person that you actually love or want for yourself as an individual. In the middle ages love was considered a personal disaster. It had the power to overthrow all the carefull arraingements that families and peole had made fo themselves. Look at 'Romero and Juliet'- even if he hadn't killed her brother they would not have been allowed to marry unless the two heds of family decided that they wanted to unite for some very practical reason.

When the picture on the Lovers card changed in more modern decks (and I think that was around the turn of the 20th century---I could be wrong) it reflected the change in attitude towards Love, and choosing one's own partner, or one's own dream.

Given all that, it seems to me that the Lovers card speaks of both choice and commitment very well. Hope this was helpfull.

I think even the RWS Lovers indicates choice as well as love. It shows Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They really are lovers/partners, but there's also that snake twining up the tree. Choose ignorance and bliss or knowledge with pain? Once you've attained some knowledge, do you share with your lover? Just some thoughts.

I never did notice that snake until I got the International Icon. That deck made me notice background details like never before.

Also, as others pointed out, love is a choice. You have to make compromises all the time to be with someone, though if you're with the right person/project, the choice should be easy.

Kes

magpie9 said:

Back in those days, when this image was first created, Love and marrage did not go together usually. You married for your family, for property, for money, for allieance, for property, for advantage. Marriages were essentially arrainged. Forced marrages were not uncommon. So one of the women in the picture would represent the person (or choice) you should, out of duty, choose. the other woman--(and on a lot of old decks, she's younger and prettier than the other) represents the thing or person that you actually love or want for yourself as an individual. In the middle ages love was considered a personal disaster. It had the power to overthrow all the carefull arraingements that families and peole had made fo themselves. Look at 'Romero and Juliet'- even if he hadn't killed her brother they would not have been allowed to marry unless the two heds of family decided that they wanted to unite for some very practical reason.

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I never knew that about the Marseilles Lovers card, thanks for telling us that becuase I learnt something new about the Tarot today and that's why I joined AT, to learn.

Personally I have felt the Lovers is about Choice, but also to me it's a Major, so for it to deal with a relationship in a physical sense doesn't gel with me. Sometimes we have to look at relationships on a higher level. Does that make sense? Not about us and what we want, more of a connection in a Universal sense. And not just love relationships, but all relationships: families, friends etc. I think it is about the bigger picture per say.

I hope my warbling makes sense....

TemperanceAngel said:

I hope my warbling makes sense....

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Works for me.

I'd like to add that we make choices all the time in our relationships with everyone and everything around us.
I think it's important to recognize that we love where we love. We don't get to choose to fall in love with a person or a thing or an activity. we just do. BAM! That's it! I'm in Love.......now what do I do? That's where the choice-making comes in, --will I go with this feeling, or wil I walk away? and then, if you go with it, comes, --will I commit to this, or leave my options open?
So much of it is connections, as TemperanceAngel points out--we have the connectedness, now what do we do with it? We make a choice.

I think this is in the symbolism on the RWS deck, too...there is that snake, there is that apple tree, (and a flaming tree, and a mountain, what's up with that?) of course, if you don't know the Judeo-Christian Creation myth, figureing it out just from the picture is going to take some work. And there is the Angel--the man looks at the woman, the woman looks at the Angel...interesting...perhaps a note on the different approach to love that men and woman have?

magpie9 said:

I'd like to add that we make choices all the time in our relationships with everyone and everything around us.
I think it's important to recognize that we love where we love. We don't get to choose to fall in love with a person or a thing or an activity. we just do. BAM! That's it! I'm in Love.......now what do I do? That's where the choice-making comes in, --will I go with this feeling, or wil I walk away? and then, if you go with it, comes, --will I commit to this, or leave my options open?

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Totally, this is a real life situation that is a great example:

When I re-met my husband after many years and I lived on the other side of the world he was coming over to be with me and wrote me a letter stating that he was unsure what to do?

Come over and be with me and love me or love me and not come as I was a very free and independant spirit and he did not want to encage the butterfly, is kinda how his analogy went and it was very beautiful.

In a sense he was saying that he loved me for who I was and didn't want to fall into the trap of posing constrictions on me. That was his Choice he had to make.

Love would have to be one of the hardest things to make a choice about because it engulfs us and consumes us, and sometimes it's hard to deal with it on the Universal level of unconditional love....

In the RWS I think, at times, the angel is trying to get us to look at our Choice from many perspectives that are outside of ourselves.

I must find an image of the Marseilles Lovers that magpie spoke of, if anyone has a link then please post it!

Also it might be interesting to look at different Lovers cards from different decks for comparisions and contrasts?