Claim. Of the three family loves (parental, conjugal, filial), parental love is the essential form — vertical rather than horizontal, unilateral and self-forgetting in its giving, structurally undeniable. SMM grounds this in metaphysics: parental love is the human inheritance of God’s creative posture toward Adam and Eve.
Elaboration. The unilateral structure is the diagnostic feature: “Why do we respect parents’ love? It is because they sacrifice without expecting anything. They do not want any return from it. They are satisfied with loving, and happy just with that. They are happy just with giving. Receiving everything does not always make you happy. One who gives has more blessing than one who receives” (3.1. Parents’ love is the love of the essence, 46-35, 1971.7.18).
The vertical-horizontal asymmetry is explicit: “The parent-child relationship represents the vertical aspect. Thus, the love in the parent-child relationship cannot change. This has been the case throughout history, hasn’t it? Conjugal love possesses four directions because it is connected with the horizontal aspect. Thus, parents cannot forsake their children, nor can children forsake their parents” (ibid, 145-274, 1986.5.25).
The metaphysical grounding: “Originally, the universe was not created for the sake of life. Because it was created for the sake of love, it is love that comes first. Thus, it is rather that life goes along with love, and not that love goes along with life” (ibid, 132-152, 1984.5.31).
Significance: parental love is the form to which all other loves are calibrated. Conjugal disagreements about “who loves whom more” are a category error — the vertical form is logically prior.
See also. csg-love-not-life-is-basis-of-creation