Hegel on love as true union

This podcast episode, part of the "Intimate Relationships course," features Professor Ellie Anderson discussing Hegel's "Fragment on Love," an early, unpublished work. Anderson explains Hegel's "union view of love," which he defines as "true union," drawing parallels to Aristophanes' myth and contrasting it with a Christian perspective on marriage from Genesis and Matthew. She elaborates on Hegel's concept of love as a total dissolution of self-other boundaries, where lovers become like organs in a single living body, with the child embodying this physical union. The discussion highlights that love, for Hegel, is life itself, only separable by death, and requires equality between lovers, leading to an abandonment of "giving and taking" distinctions, as illustrated by a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.