Yes, love is "ever" equal, but sometimes it is more equal than others.
I am really trying to dig deep and figure out why it annoys me that people seem obsessed about this whole "equal" thing, in the context of these "polyamorous relationships". I am not addressing other forms of equality, such as equal wages, equal treatment under the law, etc. This is only in regards to "emotional equality" or whatever a person values between themselves and their partner(s). Here is what i have come up with so far:
It iis not really about equality. It's about being number-1. Everyone wants to be number-1 at SOMETHING, right? I know i do. But we can't ALL be number-1 at EVERYTHING all the time. And nobody WANTS to be number-2. I have never heard ANYONE say, "i want to be SECOND best! I want to win the SILVER medal at the Olympics!". "i want to be VICE PRESIDENT someday!"
I think that this (perceived) obsession with being "equal" in relationships, whatever that means to a person, is rooted in the competitive mindset. Insecurity and low self-esteem certainly play a part in SOME cases, but i have observed enough people admit with relish that they are competitive, type-A, over-achiever personality-types to be able to conclude that it isn't necessarily a pathological or dysfunctional condition or mindset. I shall even go so far to say that ambition, competitiveness, recognition, popularity, and achievement are all considered virtues and desirable qualities to have about oneself, in the society i live in which us urban united states.
So - this tend to find its way into relationships. The thing is, you can control your results to a certain extent when it comes to your career, your hobbies, your long-term plans and investments, and you can set goals (we were talking about goals versus self-esteem in another thread; this is related to that but covers a slightly different scope) and work toward them and change your approach or improve it as you learn more, you gain experience and expertise and apply it and if you put forth enough and the right kind of effort, you can be number-1 eventually.
But relationships don't work that way. You don't get to decide whether someone loves you, in what way, how much, and whether you are the only one or are there others. None of us get to decide that. Our partners could stop loving us at any time and leave, or decide to stay with us for any reason. This of course goes the other way, too. We can't control whether other people love us, and other people are not REQUIRED to love us! But society tells us we have to be number-1 or we are doing it wrong. So we tell our partners that our love is "equal". We recite group-think party-lines such as "when you have a second child it doesn't make you love the first any less" and "i have more than one favorite food" to intellectually avoid admitting that we don't want to "pick favorites". We don't want to tell one partner that we like the way the other partner kisses better, because we don't want to hurt their feelings. So we say "love is equal" and we eschew hierarchy and have endless discussions about jealousy and how poly is a lot of work... When all it is is, you just want to be number-one, and so does everyone else. Well, not everyone else, i mean not me, i know i am number-1 with both of my partners. But i'm number-1 with them IN MY HEAD, i don't worry about what they feel for others. And as for both of them, i love them about the same, but they also do not obsess about that; they have different qualities that i value in each, and i am unable to itemize and quantify the sum of the parts.
tl;dr Getting worked-up about "equal love" is futile and that energy could be better expended toward becoming fabulous, or at least awesome.