Love Is Not Like Merchandise

This is a prevalent misconception in many people's minds--that love,like merchandise,can be"stolen". Numerous states,in fact,have enacted laws allowing damages for"alienation of affection." But love is not a commodity;the real thing cannot be bought,sold,traded or stolen. It is an act of the will,a turning of the emotions, a change in the chimate of the personality. When a husband or wife is "stolen"by another person,that …

…out their own destinies for good or for ill. But the refected lover or mate cannot afford to believe that his beloved has freely turned away from him--and so he ascribes sinister or magical properties to the interloper. He calls him a hypnotist or a thief of a homebreaker. In the vast mafority of cases, however, when a home is broken, the breaking has begun olng vefore any "third party" has appeared on the scene.