Love is supposed to be the last stronghold of the simple life remaining these days, but everything attached to this gentle passion seems smothered in shortages and regulations. In primitive societies, at least, the prospective couple can cut through the red tape and build their own hut; in crowded Cambridge they are at the mercy of a bad housing shortage.

There are some good housing developments for student couples. Holden Green, one of the largest, was built specifically to furnish low cost, non-profit housing for married Harvard students. The apartments are large and comfortable, the prices low--and the waiting list for space is usually a year. Until a couple manager to enter the development, the interim may be an unpleasant time in small, expensive rooms near the University.

Although Holden Green was built for Harvard couples, the existing Federal Rent control law made it impossible to evict tenants as long as they behaved themselves. The result was that students entered the apartments, got their degrees, and still continued to live in the development sometimes for years. During the thirties, when tenants were scarce, the graduating couples were allowed to stay on because the apartments could not be filled any other way.

Today, however, there is little reason for allowing University graduates to remain at Holden Green. The changed Federal Law now permits landlords to evict tenants and should enable the development's renting agents to force out students when they end their University connection. Further, the oversized waiting list shows that there is anything but a shortage of prospective tenants. Fairness to those students waiting for room should make Holden Green, as originally intended, a purely University development.