A BOOK ON U.S. APPLICABLE LAW
Deacon San Nguyen
THE PRICE OF UNREQUITED LOVE: JAIL
There is a joke about marriage: marrying a girl is like receiving a life imprisonment. It is true if a nice man marries a witchy girl. Practically, if anyone wants to have a long lasting love, he must not buy it by money but by sweat, patience, sacrifice, and suffer.
Love is a complex issue, sometimes it becomes a dead end road. Mr. A love Ms. B, Ms. B loves Mr. C, but Mr. C only loves Ms. A. If there is no solution for this complex love, a person may feel hopeless and then may attempt suicide or do something harmful to the girl whom he loves.
However, in the case below, a male student was madly in love with a girl classmate. Never he threatened or did anything harmful to the girl he loves, but he was detained by law anyway.
David, a nice young student, almost finished the fourth year in a private college. He fell in love with a pretty young girl, Eleanor, who was in the same class with him for over 3 years. One day, about few months before the graduation, he insisted the girl to stay after class for him to say something important to her. Then, when seeing her after class, David nicely proposed to her. He also promised her a very beautiful wedding if she agreed to marry him.
The girl was very emotional but she refused his proposal. She told him that she already had a lover. Also, Eleanor advised him not to follow her anymore. Realizing that Eleanor told him the truth but David still had hope that someday the girl would understand him and then love him. To pursue his love, every day, David drove his car following Eleanor home until his lover walked into the house. Being so embarrassed with David’s doing, Eleanor called the police and report to them that she did not want David to follow her anymore. One evening, when David’s car nearly arrived at Eleanor’s house, a police car stopped him and gave him a warning that he was not allowed to follow Eleanor anymore. If he did, police would arrest him. Being so sad, the young man left his lover’s house, and drove home. Nevertheless, his love to Eleanor did not fade away. The young man phoned to Eleanor’s house and tried to talk to the girl. Eleanor was very angry with this crazy man. She reported the incident to police. Therefore, when David called to Eleanor’s home again, police went to his home and arrested him.
As stated clearly in State Laws of many States, sexual harassment is prohibited. No soliciting for love ever. Anyone causes a stress to someone because of a love will be sentenced in jail or in probation plus a fine. In this case, because of his mad love, David had caused a depression on the girl whom he loved. Thus, he was sentenced to 1 year in jail, plus 5 years in probation without paying a fine. However, in the term of probation, if he violated the probation term, he would be paying from $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 and would be in jail from 5 years to 10 years.
During the time in prison, whenever seeing me, David always confirmed that he did not regret what he had done to his lover because he loved her so much that he hoped that he could convince her to change her ideas about him. On the other hand, he felt grateful for being in jail! Through the time he spent in prison, he had chance to recall his life and his love. He was sure that he really loved her and would not do anything that was harmful to her. In such emotional moment, he recited for me a piece of poem that he wrote:
Love you the most of all.
A beautiful flower, you are. A detainee, I am.
Through the walls of a prison, l love you.
David told me that although he still loved her, he would never look for her anymore. In spite of all the bad luck that came to him, David still missed her very much. He might devote himself to God in order to pray for her for all his life. Then, four years after being released, David wrote for me a letter telling me that he was studying Theology at a Protestant School to be a Minister. After inauguration, he would go to Africa for helping the patients with AIDS. That was a beautiful end.
By the way, I remembered another story that was similar to the above story. Two years ago, a nice tall, charming young man, Mr. An, fell in love with Mary, a girl who was my student at my “Marriage Preparation” class. At a wedding ceremony of a friend, An saw Mary and fell in love with her passionately. An wanted to show her his love, although another friend reminded An that Mary already engaged to a man. Regardless all advice, An still proposed to her. Realizing that was a mad love, Mary refused him with her very nice words hoping that An would forget her. However, once being in a mad love, An did not intend to forfeit his love. An sent flowers to the office where Mary works twice. Knowing the story, Mary’s boss advised her to call police to stop An. The boss also said that there were many sexual harassment cases ended with terrible dead ends.
Before calling police, Mary sought for my advice. I told her to hold off that intention and let me talk to him first. If he did not stop his crazy doing, then, she could do what she needed to do. The very next day, I met An and told him what I heard about his love. An admitted that was true. He also asked me for counseling. Telling him the above Mad Love story, I advised him that he should stop following Mary if he wanted to avoid the bad consequences like what David had experienced. I also said that in Love, giving was better than receiving. Sometimes, receiving a Love might not bring happiness to the receiver. Furthermore, marriage might be a burden if one marries a person whose heart already had another love. I also told him a story:
There was a young man passionately loved his classmate. He proposed to the girl who told him to wait for another year, until she graduated from school. During waiting time, the man did all his best to make his lover happy. When the time came, a solemn marriage wedding was organized at a church with the presence of all relatives of both parties.
Nevertheless, three years later, when meeting me accidentally, the man lamented that: “My dear deacon!” he said, “I am very sad when knowing that my wife had another love before she married me. Although we had a child already and her body belonged to me, but her soul was not mine. I don’t know how to solve this problem. I cannot divorce her because we are Catholics. In the meantime, I feel that I am living with a robot that has no heart at all.”
Listening to my story, Mr. An promised with me that he would not follow Mary anymore.
He might find another way to live better and to forget his hopeless love. Before leaving him, I reminded him: “Time was the best medicine to help people forget sad memories in the past, especially when a man could use his time to do something useful to other people such as voluntary to charity work or to church.
One year later, I met Mr. An again and knowing that he had voluntarily served the church in some social work. He helped bring food to seniors who lived by themselves without any care from relatives. He also collected old clothes, furniture for needed people. Consequently, he had no time for thinking of his sad love. If so, he only prayed God to give her happiness by the side of her husband and children. Strangely enough, Mr. An was grateful to God when he had peace in his heart so that he could deliver some kinds of benefits to others and to himself, of course.
Truly, with Love, giving is more valuable than receiving. Love is the precious food for both spirit and body of human-beings. There are many famous songs that praise Love as the Colorful Subject that always stays in the heart of all living things. Generally speaking, although the colors of Love will be faded away along with Time, Love still delivers happiness to all people. However, similarly to rose that had sharp thorns, Love often causes sadness and bitterness when Love is not answered as someone expected. Therefore, the most admirable Love is the Love of Giving, Love of Acceptance, and Love of Toleration in order to make the Beloved happy.
There is one thing I need to mention here: Pursuing a Love in a persistent way is not punished by Vietnam Law. In Vietnam, young girls felt very happy when receiving love letters from boys. Generally, girls like to have love letters as many as possible. They were proud if there were some guys following them home after school. Others were glad if a guy stood in front of their houses watching them day or night. Girls might unintentionally received flowers sent from followers but not reply to the senders because they might not have any feeling for the senders. They took flowers just to show off to their friends. On the contrary, in America, people need to respect privacy of others. Nobody could poke his nose into other’s private life although there is no harm at all.
For a conclusion, love pursuance is a normal phenomenon happening at all times and everywhere in the world. However, lovers must be careful with local laws. There is a limit in showing off a love. Try not to violate rules or regulations at your state so that you will not confront problems just because of your genuine love.
