The whole idea of love was a painful yearning for the lover. Something that could not be maintained in marriage, even if marriage had been based on love (which back then it wasn't). But the lover was an object of obsession. And that's what we find with the affairs, that the love is a different kind of love. Maybe back then when servants tended to the children and all the menial tasks a man and a woman could keep the illusion of love going in a marriage, but today, with all the stress, it's impossible.
