How closely related is Fate to finding Love? To those who view life with practicality, fate does not play a role in finding love, however to those hopeless romantics, love and fate goes hand in hand.
Fate is when someone passes your life regardless whether it is for a short or long period of time, whether they make an impression or not. Basically any chance encounter is fate. In short fate already plays the first step in getting to know your friends, enemies and life partner. The subsequent steps to be with your life partner could be fate as well as circumstances related.
In the Chinese mystical stories, there is a beautiful story of love and fate titled Butterfly Lovers. It is set in the Eastern Jin Dynasty between two scholars; Zhu Yingtai and Liang Shanbo.
Zhu Yintai is an attractive and intelligent young woman who manages to convince her father to allow her to attend classes disguises as a young man. During that era, women attending classes is unheard of. On her journey to Hangzhou, she befriended another scholar, Liang Shanbo. Unbeknown to Liang Shanbo that Zhu Yingtai is a woman, they gathered soil as incense and took a fraternity oath in the pavilion of a thatched bridge.
For the next three years as they study together, Zhu Yingtai began to develop feelings for Liang Shanbo. However Liang Shanbo failed to notice that Zhu Yingtai is a woman and continued treating her like his fraternity brother.
One day, Zhu Yingtai was requested home by her father. Over the three years, Zhu Yingtai has already developed such strong feelings for Liang Shanbo and has made a private vow in her heart to be with him for eternity. Prior to her departure, she reveals her true identity to the headmaster’s wife and requests her to hand over a jade pendant to Liang as a betrothal gift.
As Liang Shanbo accompanied Zhu Yingtai off, she hinted about her identity by comparing their ‘relationship’ as a pair of mandarin ducks (symbolic of lovers in the Chinese culture). However, Liang Shanbo failed to get her hint. As a last resort, she decided to matchmake Liang Shanbo with her sister and they parted ways under the Changting pavilion where they made their fraternity oath.
Months later, Liang Shanbo kept to his promise and visited Zhu Yingtai to ask for her sister’s hand in marriage. Upon arrival, he was surprised to see that his ‘sworn brother’ is actually a woman. He fell in love with her and they make a vow “till death do us part”. However, before they could be joined in union, they discovered that Zhu Yingtai’s family has already betrothed her to Ma Wencai, son of a rich family.
A heartbroken Liang Shanbo health deteriorates when he heard the news and later passed away.
On the day of the arranged marriage for Zhu Yingtai, a mysterious whirlwind prevented the wedding procession beyond Liang Shanbo’s grave, which lies along the journey. A sad and depressed Zhu Yingtai left her wedding procession and ran to Liang Shanbo’s grave begging the grave to open up. With a clap of thunder, the grave opened up and Zhu Yingtai threw herself in to join Liang Shanbo. It is believed that their spirits turn into a pair of beautiful butterflies and are never to be separated again.
This Chinese mystical story strongly indicates that once you are fated with a person, that person will be your soul mate/life partner for life. However, in reality, the person that you are fated with might not be the person you marry and the person who is your soul mate may also not necessarily be your life partner. Unlike a mystical story, love and fate sometimes do not go hand in hand till the end.