I dearly enjoy analogies.
They provide a canvas on which you can surprise yourself with new understanding about life.
"If the fork in the road actually represents a decision, then the trees beside it could represent reassuring authority figures in our lives who watch but do not micromanage our lives."
Eh? Anyway, moving on...
I reflected on the subject of traditional courtship, emphasizing a male pursuing a female.
It is definitely not unheard of for relationship-educators to compare such a pursuit to a hunter chasing after a deer: earnest prose about a man as hunter, pursuing a woman with attentive patience and determination and passion, and she might, well, "rustle the leaves" a bit so he knows where she is, though she plays (or is actually) hard to get. And of course, if he gets her, how proud he is of his "prize"! How consummate shall be their love when at last she is his and how well they shall understand each other for having played the appropriate parts in romantic comedy.
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| Dear, deer! image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
However, there may be some tests of analogies by which caring individuals can gauge some outer limits of analogy.
First, there's what I would call a "back translation".
Think through the story in the inverse, but with the same details-- for, why not? If an analogy is ardently used, let it not be a one-way street.
So, a hunter chases a deer because he wants it as his bride. And so on. This quickly turns sour. Why? Why can't the analogy be a two-way street?
Because it's a buck that pursues a doe with 'romantic' intentions, not a hunter with a gun. Whether animal relationships should be a model analogy for human relationships is a different question I won't comment on here. Anyway, the simple back translation doesn't work.
Second, a double inversion: "back translate" an image of hunting as it is. Say you have hunters rallying together and pep talking each other about the hunt for a deer. Suppose a veteran hunter wants to educate the new guys about the patience and skill it takes to get the kill. The men chuckle and lick their lips as they think of an upcoming venison steak.
The back translation then takes what is true of hunting and imposes it on courtship. If you ask the question, "What is true of courtship? Well, look at a hunter...." you have a man who will cunningly pursue a prey until it cannot escape anymore. He has no meaningful communication with the prey. The prey has nothing to offer him but a satisfied belly and a trophy to brag about, and increased cunning. What does he have to offer the prey? Maybe in some situation a life in captivity, but realistically, the end of life. Anyway, I hardly need go on. The analogy is just weak and casts a pallor on the intentions of men who insist strongly on their role as pursuer. To espouse strongly a view that man's role is to be the hunter, it makes woman the hunted, and when the two have been united, there really is no future in their relationship but for him to digest her and be done with her.
In taking the analogy to its extreme, I in no way suggest that earnest Christian men treat their wives that way. What is known is that there are men out there, claiming or not claiming Christianity, who do have exactly so low an attitude toward their future wives. And my question is, if the analogy falls apart so miserably in back translation, should it be used?
