The Love of Kith and the Love of Kin

The words ‘kith’ and ‘kin’ are some of the oldest in the English language, appearing somewhere between 400 and 800 CE. They are now also hugely unfamiliar and odd-sounding. Their meaning is simple:

Kin refers to close blood or marriage relatives (there’s a link to the German word ‘Kind’): your husband or wife, your children, your parents.

And kith refers to the community at large: neighbours, colleagues, the village, the city, the people you pass in the street, friends you make at work or through hobbies.

The Modern Obsession with Kin

If we think about the love we’re interested in nowadays, it is – overwhelmingly – the love of kin. When we think of falling in love, it’s with one very special person who will understand us totally, with whom our souls will fuse; a best friend, angel, co-parent, therapist, sex-mate and companion rolled into one. Someone who will exhaust our imaginations; someone who will render everyone else redundant.

The dream is intense, but the search for this sort of love is also notoriously troubled. It’s hugely unlikely (statistically) that we will ever feel as close to our kin – to our families and lovers – as we would like. Resentments are legion. Mother is cold; father is distant; our partner doesn’t understand; we’ve dated 200 people in the last four years; we’re no closer to finding the bond we crave, but our nervous systems are exhausted.

A huge amount of blame is sprayed around to account for the loneliness and scratchiness. There must be something wrong with us. Our attachment style has gone awry. We are using the wrong app. We have an unresolved trauma from childhood.

Why Love Between Kin So Often Fails Us

All this may be true – but eventually this blame-seeking is in danger of missing the point. Whatever the reasons, love between kin is very, very hard. Almost, we might say at certain moments, impossible. Families can’t deliver and nor can lovers.

Nothing in our social or political system encourages us to question our expectations. The fantasy of the nuclear family and the romantic couple is hardwired into the calendar. We celebrate Valentine’s Day and Mother and Father’s Day. There is no Neighbour Day. There is no Community Day. Love of kith carries no glamour.

The Importance of Community

And here we are done an immense disservice. Our longing for love can’t and mustn’t be stopped. It might – given the circumstances – at times be redirected, in line with the importance of community that our age too often overlooks. We have so much love to give and would, at points, be so much better advised to offer it to our kith than to our kin: to friends, to the people we’ve met through our work and on our travels, to the strangers we chat to at the community hall.

It’s a different form of love, of course; there is no sex. There isn’t an exclusive focus. There aren’t going to be children.

But it may be all the more joyful for that. A love free of jealousy, exclusivity and punishing hopes.

It isn’t necessarily where we started, but it may be the future of love properly understood.

We have tried so hard to love our ‘kin’. Before despairing of love, we should open our eyes to a possibility to which our era blinds us: the quiet comforts of the love of ‘kith’ and the importance of community.