What is meant by 'All is fair in love and war.'...?

Question

To think deeper into this...what exactly is fair? Who makes the rules of fairness? Those that have power!?

Answer 1

What it means is that there are no rules of fairness in love or in war. (I, personally, think there needs to rules of fairness when it comes to love and think the saying should be updated to, "All's fair in war.")

Those that have the power don't necessarily make any rules of fairness, they just may dispense with them.

What is fair? It has to do with justice and with people who do right getting some kind of "right" back instead of getting taken from. It has to do with expecting every person to be treated in an equal way. It has to do with people who intentionally do rotten stuff to other people or animals or the world "getting theirs". (From what I've observed there are often no rules of fairness anywhere, regardless of whether that's in love or war. Go stand outside a U.S. court for a couple of weeks and see how much fairness there is.)