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Romance (love)

Type of love that focuses on feelings From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Romance (love)
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"In love" redirects here. For other uses, see In Love.
Not to be confused with Romance languages.
For the identity, see Romantic orientation.

Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person,[1] and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.[2][3]

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Romeo and Juliet in 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown considered to be the archetypal romantic couple, depicting the play's iconic balcony scene

Collins Dictionary describes romantic love as "an intensity and idealization of a love relationship, in which the other is imbued with extraordinary virtue, beauty, etc., so that the relationship overrides all other considerations, including material ones."[4]

People who experience little to no romantic attraction are referred to as aromantic.

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General definitions

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The meaning of the term "romantic love" has changed considerably throughout history, making it difficult to easily define. The term is used with multiple definitions by academics.[5][6] In Western culture, the term may be used indiscriminately to refer to almost any attraction between a man and woman, although "romance" and "love" are distinguishable. According to the psychotherapist Robert Johnson, the conflation is based on a kind of confusion over terms, with a cultural history of idealizing falling in love and passion-seeking over more ordinary concerns like affection and commitment.[7]

The term is often used to distinguish from other types of close relationships (conjugal, parental, friendship), and in contrast to the modern interpretation of platonic love (which precludes sexual relations).[8] The notion that romantic love only occurs within a relationship of some kind has been called a misconception.[9] It has also been argued that romantic love can actually be "platonic" in some cases, for example, as in the case of a romantic friendship which involves passionate feelings without sexual desire.[10][11]

In academic fields of psychology, the term "romantic love" might be used in reference to any of the definitions given below (courtly love; romanticism and unrealistic, idealized love; or the state of being in love).[5][12][13] The psychologist Dorothy Tennov once criticized the reactions to romantic love in the scientific literature as "confused and contradictory".[14]

The literary tradition

Initially, the term "romantic love" was coined to refer to certain attitudes and behaviors described in a body of literature now referred to as courtly love. Courtly love (also called amour courtois) involved themes elevating the status of the woman, of passionate suffering and separation, and a transformation of the lovers to another plane of existence.[15] This is said to have originated in the Middle Ages with poets known as the troubadours, or possibly even earlier than that. Often, stories which came out of this tradition are depictions of tragic or unfulfilled love. Some examples of romantic love stories in this vein are Layla and Majnun, Tristan and Iseult, Dante and Beatrice (from La Vita Nuova), Romeo and Juliet and The Sorrows of Young Werther.[16] The courtly tradition is said to have influenced attitudes towards love in Western culture, attitudes which continue to be present in the modern day.[17][18] The cultural movement is critiqued for promising a kind of "story-book" or "fairy-tale" love when the stories themselves are actually depictions of suffering and tragedy, perhaps making the culture "blind to love's madness".[19][20]

The cultural phenomenon

In the social sciences, the term "romantic love" has been used to refer to an unrealistic, irrational and idealized kind of love, reminiscent of the attitudes depicted in the literary tradition.[13] The set of beliefs associated with the phenomenon is also called "romanticism".[21] The clinical psychologist Frank Tallis calls romanticism "the closest thing we have to a religious faith in a predominantly secular society".[22] Lovers with romantic beliefs and attitudes tend to idealize their loved one and live in a world of fantasy. They believe in a "soul mate" or "one true love", and believe that "true love" will last forever.[13][23][21] They believe that "true love" will overcome all obstacles, that love is the only legitimate basis for selecting a mate, and that one should "follow their heart" and reject reason and rationality.[21] Romantic love in this sense is contrasted with rational, practical or pragmatic love.[13]

The sociologist John Alan Lee invented the concept of a "love style" to speak of different types of "love stories", or the plethora of possible ways to love another person.[24][25] People usually have a preferred or "favorite" love style, but this can change over a lifetime, and they can also have different love styles with different people.[26][27] Lee has stated that the elements of romantic love may actually correspond to several of his love styles: eros (love of beauty, or erotic love), mania (compared to limerence, obsessive love or love addiction), and ludus (game-playing, non-committal love).[28][29][30][31] Of these, eros and mania most correspond to the experience of "falling" in love.[32] A manic lover falls in love with somebody inappropriate in many cases (a stranger, or even somebody they don't actually like), and tends to experience relationship difficulties.[33][34][35] Mania is most closely compared to eros, the romantic style in search of an ideal physical type. Eros lovers are more self-assured and tend to fall in love in a less chaotic way.[36] Eros is considered to be more positive than mania.[37] The most common romantic theme in the literary tradition is tragedy or self-destruction, and Lee has associated the ideology of courtly love with the mania love style in particular.[38][18] According to Lee, Western culture came to view mania as a legitimate basis for mate selection through the courtly tradition. This replaced the medieval Christian doctrine that the focus of marriage should be on family values and child care.[18]

The biological definition

Further information: Biology of romantic love § Definition of romantic love

Bode & Kushnick undertook a comprehensive review of romantic love from a biological perspective in 2021. They considered the psychology of romantic love, its mechanisms, development across the lifespan, functions, and evolutionary history. Based on the content of that review, they proposed a biological definition of romantic love:[12]

Romantic love is a motivational state typically associated with a desire for long-term mating with a particular individual. It occurs across the lifespan and is associated with distinctive cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social, genetic, neural, and endocrine activity in both sexes. Throughout much of the life course, it serves mate choice, courtship, sex, and pair-bonding functions. It is a suite of adaptations and by-products that arose sometime during the recent evolutionary history of humans.[12]

Romantic love in this sense might also be referred to as "being in love", passionate love, infatuation, limerence or obsessive love.[12][39][40] Romantic love is not necessarily "dyadic", "social" or "interpersonal", despite being related to pair bonding. Romantic love can be experienced outside the context of a relationship, as in the case of unrequited love where the feelings are not reciprocated.[9][41] People in love experience motivational salience for a loved one (focused attention, associated with "wanting" rewards), which is mediated by dopamine activity in the brain's reward system.[42][43][44] Because of this and other similarities, it has been argued that romantic love is an addiction (which can be positive when reciprocated), but academics do not agree on when this is the case, or on a definition of "love addiction".[43][45]

Some authors also consider companionate love and attachment to be romantic love, or consider romantic love to be an attachment process.[9][46][47] According to a contemporary model of the brain systems involved with romantic love, the attachment system is active during the early stage of romantic love, in addition to the later stages of a relationship.[46] The attachment system has been associated with oxytocin, which has been found circulating in people experiencing romantic love.[46][48] Oxytocin may be a source of salience for a loved one, due to its activity in motivation pathways in the brain. Oxytocin is projected from the hypothalamus to reward areas, which is believed to modulate salience in response to social stimuli.[49][48] Endogenous opioids are also believed to be involved with romantic love, associated with the hedonic (or "liking") aspect of rewarding experiences.[46][50][44]

The "courtly" conception of romantic love (irrational, for an unobtainable person, may thrive in response to obstacles, and so on) has been associated with Dorothy Tennov's concept of limerence.[51][52][53] The type of situation involved contains an element of uncertainty over reciprocation which has been interpreted in terms of intermittent reinforcement, and compared to gambling.[53][54][52][55] Intermittent rewards are essential to slot machines, for example, where the rewards are unpredictable so the gambler cannot understand the pattern. Unable to habituate to the experience, for some people this leads to gambling addiction and compulsions.[55] Uncertainty has also been interpreted as being related to attachment anxiety.[56] Tennov's research study (published in her 1979 book) is also said to have largely marked the beginning of modern romantic love science.[12][57]

An fMRI experiment of people who were in happy, long-term relationships but professed to still be "madly" in love with their partners found that the participants showed brain activations in dopamine-rich reward areas (interpreted as "wanting" or "desire for union"), but also in an area rich with opiate receptors ("liking"). Unlike people who are newly in love, these participants also did not show activity in areas associated with anxiety and fear, and reported far less obsessional features (intrusive thoughts about a loved one, uncertainty and mood swings—features which are compared to infatuation or limerence).[58][59][60]

The origin of romantic love

Further information: Biology of romantic love § Evolution of systems

Because of the literary and cultural tradition, romantic love has been held to be a social construction by some social science scholars, or an experience particular only to Western culture.[61][62][63][64][65] Despite this, studies have shown that romantic love (particularly in the sense of being "in love", or passionate love) is a universal among cultures across the world.[65][66][67] It's been associated with a constellation of psychological characteristics, and brain scan experiments using fMRI have shown that it activates reward areas in the brain.[65][68][43] Romantic love is believed to have evolved in hominids about 4.4 or 2 million years ago (depending on the theory), although the exact time has not been identified yet.[46][12]

One prominent evolutionary theory developed by the anthropologist Helen Fisher states that romantic love is a brain system evolved for mammalian mate choice (also called courtship attraction), an aspect of sexual selection, for focusing energy on a preferred mating partner.[69][42][46] In most species, courtship attraction is only brief (lasting minutes, hours, days or weeks), but Fisher believes that over the course of evolutionary time, it became prolonged and intensified in humans.[69][43] Another prominent theory states that romantic love re-purposed brain systems which were originally for mother-infant bonding, via an evolutionary process called co-option (or exaptation). Both types of love share similar features (preoccupation, exclusivity of focus, longing for reciprocity and idealization), and brain scans have shown overlapping areas.[46][12][11]

In behavioral genetics, one tool which is valuable for determining genetic influence is the twin study, which compares identical twins (monozygotic, who are genetically identical) and fraternal twins (dizygotic, who are only 50% genetically related, like other siblings). The differences between the two types of twins are used to estimate how much of a given trait is heritable (how much the individual differences in a group, i.e. variance, can be accounted for by genetic differences between individuals), and how much is environmental. Environmental contribution is further split between shared environment (which makes family members more similar) and nonshared environment (which makes them different, but for mathematical reasons also includes measurement error).[70] A twin study has investigated genetic and environmental influences using the Love Attitudes Scale, developed to measure John Alan Lee's love styles.[71][72][73] This study found that individual differences in love attitudes are almost exclusively due to environmental influence, with genetic factors having very little influence for most love attitudes (from most-to-least heritable: mania, storge, pragma & eros), and even no influence at all for others (ludus & agape). The authors interpret the result as meaning that love styles may be influenced by one's childhood familial environment (for shared environment) and unique experiences with parents, peers, adolescent and adult lovers, and so on (for nonshared environment). Of these, the influence from the nonshared environment was larger than the shared environment.[71] According to Lee's earlier observations, typical eros lovers recall a happy childhood, while typical manic lovers recall an unhappy one.[74]

Using the Love Attitudes Scale, romantic love styles have also been correlated with different personality measures: eros (with agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion & secure attachment), mania (with neuroticism & anxious attachment), and ludus (with avoidant attachment). For other love styles: storge (friendship love, with agreeableness & insecure attachment), pragma (practical love, with conscientiousness & insecure attachment), and agape (selfless love, with secure attachment).[75][37] The formation of attachment styles is complicated, often being attributed to childhood, but with twin studies finding both genetic and environmental contributions.[76][77] There's also a person–situation problem, where people can have different attachment styles with different people, for example, an avoidant partner can make a secure partner feel and act anxious.[76][47] Lee identified a kind of transitional love style he called "manic eros", where the lover is "moving either toward a more stable eros or toward full-blown mania". Some are typical erotic lovers under a temporary strain (moving toward mania), while others are typical manic lovers with a self-confident and helping partner (moving toward eros).[78]

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Historical usage

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The word "romance" comes from the French vernacular where initially it indicated a verse narrative. The word was originally an adverb of Latin origin, "romanicus", meaning "of the Roman style". European medieval vernacular tales, epics, and ballads generally dealt with chivalric adventure, not bringing in the concept of love until late into the seventeenth century. The word romance developed other meanings, such as the early nineteenth century Spanish and Italian definitions of "adventurous" and "passionate", which could intimate both "love affair" and "idealistic quality".[citation needed]

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Tristan and Iseult in Codex Manesse, an early 14th century Medieval illuminated manuscript by Bernger von Horheim

Anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss show that there were complex forms of courtship in ancient as well as contemporary primitive societies. There may not be evidence, however, that members of such societies formed loving relationships distinct from their established customs in a way that would parallel modern romance.[79] Marriages were often arranged, but the wishes of those to be wed were considered, as affection was important to primitive tribes.[80]

In the majority of primitive societies studied by the anthropologists, the extramarital and premarital relations between men and women were completely free. The members of the temporary couples were sexually attracted to each other more than to anyone else, but in all other respects their relationships had not demonstrated the characteristics of romantic love. Lewis H. Morgan: "the passion of love was unknown among the barbarians. They are below the sentiment, which is the offspring of civilization and super added refinement of love was unknown among the barbarians."[81] Margaret Mead: "Romantic love as it occurs in our civilisation, inextricably bound up with ideas of monogamy, exclusiveness, jealousy and undeviating fidelity does not occur in Samoa."[82] Bronislaw Malinowski: "Though the social code does not favour romance, romantic elements and imaginative personal attachments are not altogether absent in Trobriand courtship and marriage."[83]

The phenomenon which B. Malinowski calls love, actually has very little in common with the European love: "Thus there is nothing roundabout in a Trobriand wooing; nor do they seek full personal relations, with sexual possession only as a consequence. Simply and directly a meeting is asked for with the avowed intention of sexual gratification. If the invitation is accepted, the satisfaction of the boy's desire eliminates the romantic frame of mind, the craving for the unattainable and mysterious."[84] "an important point is that the pair's community of interest is limited to the sexual relation only. The couple share a bed and nothing else. ... there are no services to be mutually rendered, they have no obligation to help each other in any way..."[85]

Nathaniel Branden claims that by virtue of "the tribal mentality," "in primitive cultures the idea of romantic love did not exist at all. Passionate individual attachments are evidently seen as threatening to tribal values and tribal authority."[86] Dr. Audrey Richards, an anthropologist who lived among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia in the 1930s, once related to a group of them an English folk-fable about a young prince who climbed glass mountains, crossed chasms, and fought dragons, all to obtain the hand of a maiden he loved. The Bemba were plainly bewildered, but remained silent. Finally an old chief spoke up, voicing the feelings of all present in the simplest of questions: "Why not take another girl?" he asked.[87]

The earliest recorded marriages in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and among Hebrews were used to secure alliances and produce offspring. It was not until the Middle Ages that love began to be a real part of marriage.[88] The marriages that did arise outside of arranged marriage were most often spontaneous relationships. In Ladies of the Leisure Class, Rutgers University professor Bonnie G. Smith depicts courtship and marriage rituals that may be viewed as oppressive to modern people. She writes, "When the young women of the Nord married, they did so without illusions of love and romance. They acted within a framework of concern for the reproduction of bloodlines according to financial, professional, and sometimes political interests."[89][90]

Anthony Giddens, in The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Society, states that romantic love introduced the idea of a narrative to an individual's life, and telling a story is a root meaning of the term romance. According to Giddens, the rise of romantic love more or less coincided with the emergence of the novel. It was then that romantic love, associated with freedom and therefore the ideals of romantic love, created the ties between freedom and self-realization.[91][92]

David R. Shumway states that "the discourse of intimacy" emerged in the last third of the 20th century, intended to explain how marriage and other relationships worked, and making the specific case that emotional closeness is much more important than passion, with intimacy and romance coexisting.[93]

One example of the changes experienced in relationships in the early 21st century was explored by Giddens regarding homosexual relationships. According to Giddens, since homosexuals were not able to marry, they were forced to pioneer more open and negotiated relationships. These kinds of relationships then permeated the heterosexual population.[94]

In F. Engels book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: "monogamy was the only known form of the family under which modern sex love could develop, it does not follow that this love developed, or even predominantly, within it as the mutual love of the spouses. The whole nature of strict monogamian marriage under male domination ruled this out."[95] Sigmund Freud stated, "It can easily be shown that the psychical value of erotic needs is reduced as soon as their satisfaction becomes easy. An obstacle is required in order to heighten libido; and where natural resistances to satisfaction have not been sufficient men have at all times erected conventional ones so as to be able to enjoy love. This is true both of individuals and of nations. In times in which there were no difficulties standing in the way of sexual satisfaction, such as perhaps during the decline of the ancient civilizations, love became worthless and life empty."[96]

Some believe that romantic love evolved independently in multiple cultures. For example, in an article presented by Henry Grunebaum, he argues "therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon unique to Western cultures and first expressed by the troubadours of the Middle Ages."[97]

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La Belle Dame sans Merci 1893, by John William Waterhouse

Popularization of the term "romance"

The word "romance" is derived from the Latin adverb Romanice, meaning "in the vernacular," in reference to the languages Old French and Old Occitan. These languages were descendants of Latin, the language of the Romans. Evolutions of the word Romanice were used to refer first to the Romance languages and eventually also to the works composed in them. The genre of chivalric romance initially focused on the heroic military deeds of knights, which led to the use of the word romantic in the sense of chivalrous. As the genre evolved, starting after the Renaissance and especially in the Romantic period, it focused increasingly on love in the modern sense.[98]

The general idea of "romantic love" in the Western tradition is believed[by whom?] to have originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily from that of the French culture. This idea is what has spurred the connection between the words "romantic" and "lover", thus coining English phrases for romantic love such as "loving like the Romans do". The precise origins of such a connection are unknown, however. Although the word "romance" or the equivalents thereof may not have the same connotation in other cultures, the general idea of "romantic love" appears to have crossed cultures and been accepted as a concept at one point in time or another.[citation needed]

Courtly love

Main article: Courtly love

The conception of romantic love was popularized in Western culture by the concept of courtly love. Knights of the Middle Ages were thought to have engaged in non-sexual relationships with women of nobility whom they served.[99]

Courtly love and the notion of domnei were often the subjects of troubadours, and could be typically found in artistic endeavors such as lyrical narratives and poetic prose of the time. Since marriage was commonly a formal arrangement,[100][better source needed] courtly love sometimes permitted expressions of emotional closeness that may have been lacking from the union between husband and wife.[101] Courtly love did not necessarily refer to those engaging in sexual acts. It may also have referred to caring and emotional intimacy. The bond between a knight and his Lady, or the woman of typically high stature of whom he served, may in some cases have been one such example.[99][102]

Religious meditations upon the Virgin Mary were partially responsible for the development of chivalry as an ethic and lifestyle. A lady's honor and a knight's devotion to her, coupled with an obligatory respect for all women, factored prominently in the identity of medieval knighthood. Members of the aristocracy were schooled in the principles of chivalry, which facilitated important changes in attitudes regarding the value of women.[103]

Modern historians such as D. W. Robertson Jr.,[104] John C. Moore,[105] and E. Talbot Donaldson[106] consider the concept of courtly love to be a modern invention. Donaldson called it "The Myth of Courtly Love," on the basis that it is not supported in medieval texts. Other scholars consider courtly love to have been purely a literary convention. Examples of allegorical use of the concept can be found in the Middle Ages, but there are no historical records that offer evidence of its presence in reality. Historian John Benton found no documentary evidence in law codes, court cases, chronicles or other historical documents.[107][108]

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Philosophy

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Roman copy of a Greek sculpture by Lysippus depicting Eros, the Greek personification of romantic love

Plato

Greek philosophers and authors have had many theories of love. Some of these theories are presented in Plato's Symposium. Six Athenian friends, including Socrates, drink wine and each give a speech praising the deity Eros. When his turn comes, Aristophanes says in his mythical speech that sexual partners seek each other because they are descended from beings with spherical torsos, two sets of human limbs, genitalia on each side, and two faces back to back. Their three forms included the three permutations of pairs of gender (i.e. one masculine and masculine, another feminine and feminine, and the third masculine and feminine) and they were split by the gods to thwart the creatures' assault on heaven, recapitulated, according to the comic playwright, in other myths such as the Aloadae.[109]

This story is relevant to modern romance partly because of the image of reciprocity it shows between the sexes. In the final speech before Alcibiades arrives, Socrates gives his encomium of love and desire as a lack of being, namely, the being or form of beauty.

René Girard

Though there are many theories of romantic love—such as that of Robert Sternberg, in which it is merely a mean combining liking and sexual desire—the major theories involve far more insight. For most of the 20th century, Freud's theory of the family drama dominated theories of romance and sexual relationships. This gave rise to a few counter-theories. Theorists like Deleuze counter Freud and Jacques Lacan by attempting to return to a more naturalistic philosophy:

René Girard argues that romantic attraction is a product of jealousy and rivalry—particularly in a triangular form.

Girard, in any case, downplays romance's individuality in favor of jealousy and the love triangle, arguing that romantic attraction arises primarily in the observed attraction between two others. A natural objection is that this is circular reasoning, but Girard means that a small measure of attraction reaches a critical point insofar as it is caught up in mimesis. Shakespeare's plays A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and The Winter's Tale are the best known examples of competitive-induced romance.[110]

Girard's theory of mimetic desire is controversial because of its alleged sexism. This view has to some extent supplanted its predecessor, Freudian Oedipal theory. It may find some spurious support in the supposed attraction of women to aggressive men. As a technique of attraction, often combined with irony, it is sometimes advised that one feign toughness and disinterest, but it can be a trivial or crude idea to promulgate to men, and it is not given with much understanding of mimetic desire in mind. Instead, cultivating a spirit of self-sacrifice, coupled with an attitude of appreciation or contemplation, directed towards the other of one's attractions, constitutes the ideals of what we consider to be true romantic love. Mimesis is always the desire to possess, in renouncing it we offer ourselves as a sacrificial gift to the other.[111]

Mimetic desire is often challenged by feminists, such as Toril Moi,[112] who argue that it does not account for the woman as inherently desired.

Though the centrality of rivalry is not itself a cynical view, it does emphasize the mechanical in love relations. In that sense, it does resonate with capitalism and cynicism native to post-modernity. Romance in this context leans more on fashion and irony, though these were important for it in less emancipated times. Sexual revolutions have brought change to these areas. Wit or irony therefore encompass an instability of romance that is not entirely new but has a more central social role, fine-tuned to certain modern peculiarities and subversion originating in various social revolutions, culminating mostly in the 1960s.[113]

Arthur Schopenhauer

The process of courtship also contributed to Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimism, despite his own romantic success,[114] and he argued that to be rid of the challenge of courtship would drive people to suicide with boredom. Schopenhauer theorized that individuals seek partners looking for a "complement" or completing of themselves in a partner, as in the cliché that "opposites attract", but with the added consideration that both partners manifest this attraction for the sake of the species:

But what ultimately draws two individuals of different sex exclusively to each other with such power is the will-to-live which manifests itself in the whole species, and here anticipates, in the individual that these two can produce, an objectification of its true nature corresponding to its aims. —World as Will and Representation, Volume 2, Chapter XLIV[115]

Other philosophers

Later modern philosophers such as La Rochefoucauld, David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau also focused on morality, but desire was central to French thought and Hume himself tended to adopt a French worldview and temperament. Desire in this milieu meant a very general idea termed "the passions", and this general interest was distinct from the contemporary idea of "passionate" now equated with "romantic". Love was a central topic again in the subsequent movement of Romanticism, which focused on such things as absorption in nature and the absolute, as well as platonic and unrequited love in German philosophy and literature.

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze linked this concept of love as a lack mainly to Sigmund Freud, and Deleuze often criticized it.

American views of romantic love

Victor C. De Munck and David B. Kronenfeld conducted a study named "Romantic Love in the United States: Applying Cultural Models Theory and Methods".[116] This study was conducted through an investigation of two cultural model cases. It states that in America, "we have a rather novel and dynamic cultural model that is falsifiable and predictive of successful love relationships" Which supports that it is popular for American people to successfully share feelings of romanticism with each other's partners. It describes American culture by stating: "The model is unique in that it combines passion with comfort and friendship as properties of romantic love." One of its main contributions is advising the reader that "For successful romantic love relations, a person would feel excited about meeting their beloved; make passionate and intimate love as opposed to only physical love; feel comfortable with the beloved, behaving in a companionable, friendly way with one's partner; listen to the other's concerns, offering to help out in various ways if necessary; and, all the while, keeping a mental ledger of the degree to which altruism and passion are mutual."

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Literature

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Further information: Romance novel
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Archetypal lovers in Romeo and Juliet by Frank Dicksee, 1884. The play ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It legacy can be seen on its many adaptations in ballet, music and cinema.
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Cover of Zhuchun yuan (The Garden of Spring Residence) written by Wuhang Yeke, an 18th-century Chinese caizi jiaren ("scholar and beauty") romantic novel, a representative type of romantic fiction[117][118][119]

Shakespeare and Søren Kierkegaard share a similar viewpoint that marriage and romance are not harmoniously in tune with each other. In Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, for example, "...there has not been, nor is there at this point, any display of affection between Isabella and the Duke, if by affection we mean something concerned with sexual attraction. The two at the end of the play love each other as they love virtue."[120] In Romeo and Juliet, in saying "all combined, save what thou must combine By holy marriage", Romeo implies that it is not marriage with Juliet that he seeks but simply to be joined with her romantically.

Kierkegaard addressed these ideas in works such as Either/Or and Stages on Life's Way:

In the first place, I find it comical that all men are in love and want to be in love, and yet one never can get any illumination upon the question what the lovable, i.e., the proper object of love, really is.[121]

In his 2008 book How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time, British writer Iain King tried to establish rules for romance applicable across most cultures. He concluded on six rules, including:

  1. Do not flirt with someone unless you mean it.
  2. Do not pursue people who you are not interested in, or who are not interested in you.
  3. In general, express your affection or uncertainty clearly, unless there is a special reason not to.[122]
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Psychology

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Many theorists attempt to analyze the process of romantic love.[123][124][125][126]

Anthropologist Helen Fisher, in her book Why We Love,[127] uses brain scans to show that love is the product of a chemical reaction in the brain. Norepinephrine and dopamine, among other brain chemicals, are responsible for excitement and bliss in humans as well as non-human animals. Fisher uses MRI to study the brain activity of a person "in love" and she concludes that love is a natural drive as powerful as hunger.

Psychologist Karen Horney in her article "The Problem of the Monogamous Ideal",[128] indicates that the overestimation of love leads to disillusionment; the desire to possess the partner results in the partner wanting to escape; and the friction against sex result in non-fulfillment. Disillusionment plus the desire to escape plus non-fulfillment result in a secret hostility, which causes the other partner to feel alienated. Secret hostility in one and secret alienation in the other cause the partners to secretly hate each other. This secret hate often leads one or the other or both to seek love objects outside the marriage or relationship.

Psychologist Harold Bessell in his book The Love Test,[129] reconciles the opposing forces noted by the above researchers and shows that there are two factors that determine the quality of a relationship. Bessell proposes that people are drawn together by a force he calls "romantic attraction", which is a combination of genetic and cultural factors. This force may be weak or strong and may be felt to different degrees by each of the two love partners. The other factor is "emotional maturity", which is the degree to which a person is capable of providing good treatment in a love relationship. It can thus be said that an immature person is more likely to overestimate love, become disillusioned, and have an affair whereas a mature person is more likely to see the relationship in realistic terms and act constructively to work out problems.

Romantic love, in the abstract sense of the term, is traditionally considered to involve a mix of emotional and sexual desire for another as a person. However, Lisa M. Diamond, a University of Utah psychology professor, proposes that sexual desire and romantic love are functionally independent[10] and that romantic love is not intrinsically oriented to same-gender or other-gender partners. She also proposes that the links between love and desire are bidirectional as opposed to unilateral. Furthermore, Diamond does not state that one's sex has priority over another sex (a male or female) in romantic love because her theory suggests[according to whom?] it is as possible for someone who is homosexual to fall in love with someone of the other gender as for someone who is heterosexual to fall in love with someone of the same gender.[11] In her 2012 review of this topic, Diamond emphasized that what is true for men may not be true for women. According to Diamond, in most men sexual orientation is fixed and most likely innate, but in many women sexual orientation may vary from 0 to 6 on the Kinsey scale and back again.[130]

Martie Haselton, a psychologist at UCLA, considers romantic love a "commitment device" or mechanism that encourages two humans to form a lasting bond. She has explored the evolutionary rationale that has shaped modern romantic love and has concluded that long-lasting relationships are helpful to ensure that children reach reproductive age and are fed and cared for by two parents. Haselton and her colleagues have found evidence in their experiments that suggest love's adaptation. The first part of the experiments consists of having people think about how much they love someone and then suppress thoughts of other attractive people. In the second part of the experiment the same people are asked to think about how much they sexually desire those same partners and then try to suppress thoughts about others. The results showed that love is more efficient in pushing out those rivals than sex.[131]

Research by the University of Pavia[who?] suggests that romantic love lasts for about a year (similar to limerence) before being replaced by a more stable, non-passionate "companionate love".[132] In companionate love, changes occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established and romantic feelings seem to end. However, research from Stony Brook University in New York suggests that some couples keep romantic feelings alive for much longer.[133]

Attachment patterns

Attachment styles that people develop as children can influence the way that they interact with partners in adult relationships, with secure attachment styles being associated with healthier and more trusting relationships than avoidant or anxious attachment styles.[134][135] Hazen and Shaver found that adult romantic attachment styles were similar to the categories of secure, avoidant, and anxious that had previously been studied in children's attachments to their caregivers, demonstrating that attachment styles are stable across the lifespan.[136] Later on, researchers distinguished between dismissive avoidant attachment and fearful avoidant attachment.[137] Others have found that secure adult attachment, leading to the ability for intimacy and confidence in relationship stability, is characterized by low attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, while the fearful style is high on both dimensions, the dismissing style is low on anxiety and high on avoidance, and the preoccupied style is high on anxiety and low on avoidance.[138]

Romantic love definition/operationalization

Irving Singer first defined love based on four Greek terms: eros, meaning the search for beauty; philia, the feelings of affection in close friendships, nomos, the submission of and obedience to higher or divine powers, and agape, the bestowal of love and affection for the divine powers.[139][140][141] While Singer did believe that love was important to world culture, he did not believe that romantic love played a major role.[141] However, Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick at Texas Tech University have theorized that romantic love will play an increasingly important cultural role in the future, as it is considered an important part of living a fulfilling life.[142][143] They also theorized that love in long-term romantic relationships has only been the product of cultural forces that came to fruition within the past 300 years. By cultural forces, they mean the increasing prevalence of individualistic ideologies, which are the result of an inward shift of many cultural worldviews.

Passionate and companionate love

Main article: Passionate and companionate love

Researchers have determined that romantic love is a complex emotion that can be divided into either passionate or companionate forms.[144] Berscheid and Walster [145] and Hatfield[146] found that these two forms can co-exist, either simultaneously or intermittently. Passionate love is an arousal-driven emotion that often gives people extreme feelings of happiness, and can also give people feelings of anguish.[citation needed] Companionate love is a form that creates a steadfast bond between two people, and gives people feelings of peace. Researchers have described the stage of passionate love as "being on cocaine", since during that stage the brain releases the same neurotransmitter, dopamine, as when cocaine is being used.[147] It is also estimated that passionate love (as with limerence) lasts for about twelve to eighteen months.[148]

Hendrick and Hendrick studied college students who were in the early stages of a relationship and found that almost half reported that their significant other was their closest friend, providing evidence that both passionate and companionate love exist in new relationships.[149] Conversely, in a study of long-term marriages, Contreras, Hendrick, and Hendrick found that couples endorsed measures of both companionate love and passionate love and that passionate love was the strongest predictor of marital satisfaction, showing that both types of love can endure throughout the years.[150]

The triangular theory of love

Psychologist Robert Sternberg[151] developed the triangular theory of love. He theorized that love is a combination of three main components: passion (physical arousal); intimacy (psychological feelings of closeness); and commitment (the sustaining of a relationship). He also theorized that the different combinations of these three components could yield up to seven different forms of love. These include popularized forms such as romantic love (intimacy and passion) and consummate love (passion, intimacy, and commitment). The other forms are liking (intimacy), companionate love (intimacy and commitment), empty love (commitment), fatuous love (passion and commitment), and infatuation (passion). Studies on Sternberg's theory of love found that intimacy most strongly predicted marital satisfaction in married couples, with passion also being an important predictor (Silberman, 1995.[152] On the other hand, Acker and Davis[153] found that commitment was the strongest predictor of relationship satisfaction, especially for long-term relationships.

The self-expansion theory of romantic love

Researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron theorized that humans have a basic drive to expand their self-concepts. Further, their experience with Eastern concepts of love caused them to believe that positive emotions, cognitions, and relationships in romantic behaviors all drive the expansion of a person's self-concept.[154] A study following college students for 10 weeks showed that those students who fell in love over the course of the investigation reported higher feelings of self-esteem and self-efficacy than those who did not.[155]

Mindful relationships

Gottman studies the components of a flourishing romantic relationship have been studied in the lab [156] Gottman & Silver, 1999.[157] He used physiological and behavioral measures during couples' interactions to predict relationship success and found that five positive interactions to one negative interaction are needed to maintain a healthy relationship. He established a therapy intervention for couples that focused on civil forms of disapproval, a culture of appreciation, acceptance of responsibility for problems, and self-soothing.[158]

Relationship behaviors

Recent research suggests that romantic relationships impact daily behaviors and people are influenced by the eating habits of their romantic partners. Specifically, in the early stages of romantic relationships, women are more likely to be influenced by the eating patterns (i.e., healthiness/unhealthiness) of men. However, when romantic relationships are established, men are influenced by the eating patterns of women.[159]

Relationship maintenance

Daniel Canary from the International Encyclopedia of Marriage[160] describes relationship maintenance as "At the most basic level, relational maintenance refers to a variety of behaviors used by partners in an effort to stay together." Maintaining stability and quality in a relationship is the key to success in a romantic relationship. He says that: "simply staying together is not sufficient; instead, the quality of the relationship is important. For researchers, this means examining behaviors that are linked to relational satisfaction and other indicators of quality." Canary suggests using the work of John Gottman, an American physiologist best known for his research on marital stability for over four decades, serves as a guide for predicting outcomes in relationships because "Gottman emphasizes behaviors that determine whether or not a couple gets divorced".[161]

Furthermore, Canary also uses the source from Stafford and Canary,[162] a journal on Communication Monographs, because they created five great strategies based on maintaining quality in a relationship, the article's strategies are to provide:

  • Positivity: being joyful and optimistic, not criticizing each other.
  • Assurances: proving one's commitment and love.
  • Openness: to be honest with one another according to what they want in the relationship.
  • Social networks: efforts into involving friends and family in their activities.
  • Sharing tasks: complementing each other's needs based on daily work.

On relational maintenance, Steven McCornack and Joseph Ortiz, the authors of the book Choices & Connection, state that relationship maintenance "refers to the use of communication behaviors to keep a relationship strong and to ensure that each party continues to draw satisfaction from the relationship".[163]

Physiology

Researchers such as Feeney and Noller question the stability of attachment style across the life span since studies that measured attachment styles at time points ranging from two weeks to eight months found that one out of four adults' attachment style changed.[164] Furthermore, a study by Lopez and Gormley found that attachment styles could change during the first year of college and that changes to more secure attachment styles were associated with adjustments in self-confidence ratings and coping styles.[165] On the other hand, attachment styles in childhood mirror the ones found in adult romantic relationships.[166] In addition, research has shown that building interpersonal connections strengthens neural regulatory systems that are involved in emotions of empathy, enjoyment of positive social events, and stress management,[167][168] providing evidence that early social interactions affect adult relationships.

Another topic of controversy in the field of romantic relationships is that of domestic abuse. Following the theory that romantic love evolved as a byproduct of survival, it can be said that in some instances, it has turned into a maladaptation. Oxytocin (OT) is a neurophysical hormone produced in the brain. It is known to cause a decrease in stress response. It also can cause an increase in feelings of attachment. In the beginning stages of a romantic relationship, OT levels surge and then remain relatively stable over the duration of the relationship. The higher the surge of OT, the greater the likelihood is of partners staying together.[169] It plays an important role in increasing positive interpersonal behaviors such as trust, altruism, empathy, etc.[170] This response is not universal and can in fact, cause the opposite to occur depending on environment and individual. Individuals ranked high in rejection sensitivity exhibited aggressive tendencies and decreased willingness for cooperation, indicating a link between oxytocin and relationship maintenance.[171]

The feelings associated with romantic love function to ensure the greater reproductive fitness of individuals. The obligations of individuals in romantic relationships to preserve these bonds are based in kin selection theory, where by exhibiting aggressive behavior, a mate can use intimidation and dominance to ward off other potential predators, thus protecting the pair bond and their actual or potential offspring. This has however evolved to the point where it has become detrimental to the fitness of individuals; what is causing attachment to occur in a relationship, is now causing one partner to harm the other.

In the search for the root of intimate partner violence (IPV), intranasal oxytocin was administered to a control group and a group of participants with aggressive tendencies. Participants were then surveyed on how willing they were to engage in five behaviors towards their romantic partner. What they found was that oxytocin increased IPV inclinations only among the participants with a predisposition towards aggressive tendencies.[172]

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See also

Romantic practices
  • Flirting – Social behavior that suggests interest in a deeper relationship with the other person
  • Fraternizing – Establishment of personal relations
  • Gift-giving – Item given to someone without the expectation of anything in return
    • Flowers – Reproductive structure in flowering plants
    • Candy – Sweet confection
    • Jewellery – Items of personal adornment
      • Promise ring – Ring symbolizing intent to wed
      • Engagement ring – Ring indicating that the person wearing it is engaged to be married
      • Wedding ring – Finger ring which indicates that its wearer is married
  • Courtship – Period in a couple's relationship which precedes their engagement and marriage
  • Pet names – Phrase expressing affection
  • Baby talk – Type of speech associated with an older person speaking to a child
  • Intimacy – Physical or emotional intimacy
    • Eye contact – Form of nonverbal communication
    • Hugging – Form of endearment
    • Holding hands – Form of physical intimacy
    • Kissing – Touch with the lips, usually to express love, affection or greeting
  • Love letter – Expression of love in written form
  • Dating – Meeting socially intending a future relationship
    • Couple – Physical or emotional intimacy
    • Movies – Social norms observed by patrons of a movie theater
    • Serenade – Musical composition or performance
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References

Further reading

External links

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