"Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry"

Shelley’s provocative line explores the tension between the ideals of love and the constraints imposed by binding promises. He begins by asserting the essential quality of love: its freedom. Love, for him, is a spontaneous, unforced emotion, an expression of genuine feeling that cannot be dictated or decreed. He finds it paradoxical, therefore, to pledge unwavering, lifelong devotion to a particular person. Such a promise, in his eyes, is as unreasonable as vowing to hold the same beliefs for the rest of one’s life. Both love and faith, Shelley suggests, are matters rooted in the inner workings of the heart and mind, constantly evolving in response to new experiences and understandings.

By likening a lifelong vow of love to a vow of unchanging faith, Shelley brings forward the idea that making such promises disregards human nature’s capacity, and perhaps necessity, for growth and change. Just as beliefs may shift with learning, confrontation with new ideas, and deeper contemplation, so too might the objects of our affection or the nature of our loving feelings. Promising to always love the same person may, in effect, require one to deny changes in oneself, to turn away from inquiry, introspection, and authenticity for the sake of adhering to an externally imposed commitment.

The phrase “excludes us from all inquiry” crystallizes his argument: making such absolute promises shuts the door on examination of one’s true thoughts and feelings. It restricts the natural process of questioning and reflection that leads to genuine understanding of oneself and the world. For Shelley, authentic love and belief must be freely chosen, continually reaffirmed not by social contrivance or ritualistic vows, but by the earnest and uncoerced experience of connection or conviction. Any attempt to fix love, or faith, into a rigid, unyielding obligation, therefore, runs contrary to its essential nature and to the honest pursuit of truth in one’s own mind and heart.