Chivalry's End

Does this image not represent what every true woman in her heart desires; i.e. to find that unknown love whom she has always known though has never met? Oh, for a girl to find a man to satisfy that hunger that tortures her heart is most difficult in our day. For a woman's heart craves a union of persons, not just the flesh. Yet how many men seek to attain that higher love? How beauteous it is to imagine having a love where the heart needn't fear to forfeit itself to its beloved. Where the soul can bloom as the lilies in spring and pour forth its chaste love to the one whom it desires.
I post this picture because in it I see much of what real women desire. Let me first lay out what it is I see within the fibers of this canvas. First, I see a virgin maid arrayed in the fine garments of modest purity. She seems to have been waiting for her true love to come and take her heart for his own. And there too is he whom her heart longeth to behold, the chaste and noble knight who kneels wearily after having suffered great trials to finally meet and beg her for her love and thus exchange his heart and soul for hers. Though the picture is a still shot, I imagine he further asks that she permit him to escort her to his humble kingdom where they can joyously share their love together until the end of their days. She brightly smiles and graciously permits his request. He then gently takes her hand and with the purest affection, kisses her softly to thus consecrate himself to that love which she alone will claim.
This image, this dream, this love...must women only hope for such love in the tales of romantic chivalry? My heart tells me no. Yes, the hearts of men and women are different, but not so much so that they both do not desire the aforementioned love. I argue that the problem of today is that neither men and women care to listen to their hearts long enough to hear it tell them that indeed, it does want this ideal. It does want the higher love which suffers in waiting for that spouse and which loves not the flesh but the virtue found shining through the instrument of the body. If the media didn't drown the consciences' of people with its deluge of immorality seen at every turn, then I believe that the expectations from of old would eventually return to us. Chivalry's ideal should not be for the antiquarian, but for the contemporarian. To return to this however, society must fight like the knight to protect itself from the enemy which slips quietly into the soul through sin. Watch and pray for we do not the hour when he will approach, we must forever be vigil. Once this is accomplished in us, then we can rid this world of the lie that sin is good and good is whatever you want it to be. And then will the voice of true and pure love shout again to call those who will hear her voice.
In closing, some thoughts for my fellow maidens and knights.
Dear maidens, do not sell yourselves for less than you're worth. Listen not to the lie of the traitorous demon who flatters you with his vile, venomous tongue. Forget not what he did to our first mother Eve. He still desires to seduce our minds, for he knows the power of a virtuous woman and the influence she has in molding the hearts of men and from men the world. Hold close then your pearls, they are priceless and can never be regained once lost. Live as the virtuous maiden for you will receive that reward if you suffer to possess it. You will find that knight and you can attain that love.
Dear knights, though few women today know their worth and choose to squander their pearls, you must aspire to become the virtuous knight she truly seeks. Not enough women know that men can be more than a handsome face, strong arms and lustful lips. But you can be and you should be. To find a man who wants that nobler love is few and far between. How priceless you would be if found by her and she by you. The rewards of such a life satisfy more than the flesh, which even you may at times confess to desire. Be our protector, be our strength. You were made the stronger and wiser of the two sexes. Do not let your natural gifts fall upon vain activities when there are so many women who need you to guide them in their weakness and vulnerability. Take your natural right and use it for the purpose it was meant for and satisfy that nobler self.
Do knights still exist? Do holy virgins dwell in our adulterated land? Yes they do, they are in you and me, but we have to make them live, we need to make them known. Their voices are hard to be heard and but if we listen long enough we will hear them cry to us. Let us then join them and make ourselves into the persons we were made to be. Thus will we preserve our race by preserving that holy love which waits pure and chaste from afar and verily will we come to find that one love who will take us to that higher love in that humble kingdom. To chivalry's end we go...