Sheila said:

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Unfortunately, however much Lois protests that she loves Clark, I don't believe her. "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things." She may be in love with him, but I don't think she loves him. Her focus is so totally on herself--how she feels, what she needs and wants--that there's no room to love anyone else.
I have to partly agree with you. Lois wants Clark for herself, but so far, we haven't seen a lot of evidence that she loves him in the biblical sense that you refer to. In other words, she doesn't love him completely unselfishly and altruistically. But it's not as if she isn't thinking of his feelings at all. One reason for her misery is that she is so unhappy about the fact that her marriage to Clark is preventing Clark from being with his true love, Lana. And in one of the previous chapters - I haven't got the strength to find it now, sorry - Lois asked Clark if he was happy. And when he told her that he was, she was thinking to herself that she was happy that he was happy. Doesn't that imply some measure of unselfishness and caring?

What about Clark? Never once has he asked himself if Lois's unhappiness has anything to do with his plans to leave her. Yes, she is the one who keeps bringing up their coming divorce, because the thought of it is killing her. But he has never even asked himself if his plans to leave her bother her - much less has he asked her.

Sheila, you seem to put all or most of the blame on Lois here. Is that really fair? Aren't you sort of saying that we must have patience with Clark, because he is a man, and we must not ask as much from a man as we must ask from a woman? So it's all right for Clark to be totally dense when it comes to Lois's feelings. But we should blame Lois for not loving the man who plans to leave her with divine, altruistic love?

It seems to me that you ask women to be some sort of patient Griseldas. Whatever their husbands put them through, they should obey them meekly and do everything to make them pleased, because that is a woman's lot:

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The character Patient Griselda is based on the wife in "Clerks Tale" of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Griselda is a poor peasant who is chosen to the wife of the Marquis if she promised to obey him always. They are married, and have a baby girl. However, when the baby was only six weeks old, the Marquis made her give it up. Griselda was tested again four years later when she had a son. The Marquis had their son taken away after two years when the people became angry about it. Twelve years after that, she was forced to go home. She did all this obediently, and even planned his other wedding for him, only to be rewarded by a reunion with her children and a place back at his side.
Griselda married the Marquis and had his daughter, but the Marquis made her send her daughter away. Griselda obeyed meekly, because she had to do what her husband asked her to.

Remember that Lois is worried that Clark will take Christopher away from her.

The Marquis sent Griselda's second child away, too. Lois may well be worried that Clark might take both of her children away.

The Marquis sent Griselda away from his castle and made her return, dressed in rags, to her poor peasant home. Well, Lois has a much more opulent home than Clark and she will not be sent away from it, but he may well leave her.

And the Marquis asked Griselda to be present as a servant during his wedding to another woman. And isn't Lois terribly worried that Clark will divorce her so that he can marry another woman?

All the time Griselda loved her husband with utter devotion. He took her children away from her, sent her away from his home, made her wear rags and asked her to be a lowly servant at his wedding to another woman, and she did all of it gladly, for that is a woman's lot, isn't it?

Isn't Lois a bit like Patient Griselda, Sheila? Except that she isn't as meekly happy about her husband's plans to leave her as Griselda was. Is that why you complain about her?

Sheila, you quoted the Bible, so let me quote the Bible, too. This is Mark 10:2-9:

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Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

3"What did Moses command you?" he replied.

4They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."

5"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. 6"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'[a] 7'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[b] 8and the two will become one flesh.'[c] So they are no longer two, but one. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

10When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.
Also hear what Paul the Apostle said in his letter to the Ephesians (5:28-31):

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28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
A man must not divorce his wife, said Jesus, and he should love his wife as his own body. Has Clark done that?

Yet you only find fault with Lois. Do you believe, unlike Jesus, that we should be thankful for whatever little bit of love that a man shows his wife, but a wife should love her husband with a love that asks for nothing and endures everything?

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Patient Griselda-Lois?

Ann