thesis of true love

The Concept of True Love Definition Essay

Introduction, understanding the unrealistic notion of true love, the concept of love itself is an illusion, works cited.

The concept of true love is based on the belief that to truly love someone you have to accept them for who they are (including their shortcoming and faults), put their happiness above your own (even if your heart is broken in the process) and that you will always love them even if they are not by your side.

In essence it is a self-sacrificing act wherein a person puts another person’s happiness and well-being above their own. For example in the poem “To my Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet she compares her love for her spouse as “more than whole mines of gold or all the riches that the East doth hold” (Bradstreet, 1). While such an example is archaic it does present itself as an excellent example of the value of true love for other people.

What must be understood though is that in recent years the concept of true has been adopted by popular culture as a needed facet in a person’s life. Various romantic comedies produced by Hollywood all portray characters that at one point or another exhibit tendencies akin to the realization that their life is incomplete without true love and that they should seek it out in the form of female or male character that has been provided as an embodiment of what true love should be.

Due to the influences of popular culture on modern day society this has resulted in more people believing in the concept of true love and actively seeking it out as a result. The inherent problem with this is that true love is an ideal that can be considered the embodiment of every single positive thing that can happen actually happening. In that a person that fits your idea of the perfect partner suddenly appears, that events lead the two of you to be together and that the end result is a classic happily ever after ending.

Unfortunately it must be noted that the concept of the “ideal” is based on the best possible action, event and circumstance actually happening. The fact remains that the real world, unlike in the movies, does not revolve around fortuitous circumstances and the supposed ideal is nothing more than a fanciful notion created by the movie industry.

For example in the story “Rose for Emily” it can be seen that the main character, Emily Grierson, goes to such lengths of retaining love that she murders Homer Barron in order to keep him by her side (Faulkner, 1). The reason behind this action is simple, by the time Homer Barron came into her life she couldn’t experience true love as we know it in the movies due to the effect of reality.

Due to this she creates the illusion of love which she wraps around herself. While most people don’t go to the lengths Emily had done it must be noted that they often follow the same pattern of developing the illusion of true love and retaining its idea. Since the concept of finding true love revolves around finding the ideal partner and that the ideal partner is nothing more than a fanciful creation it can be said that the reality of true love does not exist since it revolves around a fictitious notion and principle.

In the story of Araby readers are introduced to the concept of an unrealistic idea of the embodiment of love wherein the narrator (in the form of a young boy) falls in apparent rapture at the sight of Mangan’s sister. Though she is never mentioned by name the line “I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: ‘O love! O love!’ many times”, shows that the boy indeed developed substantial feelings for her (Joyce, 1).

It fact it is suggested numerous times in the story that the boy thinks that what he feels is true love and this is exemplified by his action of offering to buy the girl some souvenir from the Araby fair. Yet once he gets there he encounters a full grown woman at a stand idly chatting with men on various nonsensical topics.

It is then that he comes to the realization that he had crafted for himself a false ideal and that what lay before him was an example of what he could gain in the future. It must be noted that in essence this particular encounter shows what happens when an “ideal” meets reality in that the boy had been so presumptuous in crafting an “ideal” for himself that he neglected to take into account the possibility of better things in the future.

The line “I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” is an indication of the point in the story when the boy comes to the realization that his ideal was false and that he only though that way because of his isolated world (Joyce, 1).

The story itself could be considered a microcosm of reality with Mangan’s sister acting as the concept of true love. The isolated nature of the idea of love developed by the boy in the story could be compared to the propagated concept of true love in movie industry wherein concepts related to the ideal partner as exemplified by various movies are in effect false when compared to the realities people face.

All too often people think of a person as their true love in an isolated fashion, conceptualizing in them in a world devoid of the interference of reality wherein their every move is considered lovely and perfect.

While such a concept is seen in numerous films it can be seen though that this particular point of view is usually false since when the outside world of reality is introduced people tend to see their “ideals” for what they really are and as a result their behaviors towards such loves usually change.

In essence it can be boiled down to true love being a fantasy created through the isolation of an individual from reality and as such can never be truly attained since once reality is introduced the fantasies diminish resulting in reality taking over banishing the illusion and subjecting people to the harsh truths that they neglected to see.

In the story bitch by Roald Dahl readers are introduced to the notion that passion incited through the creation of a simple chemical compound. This notion is actually symbolic of an ongoing thought that feelings of love are nothing more than illusion created by chemicals and hormones in the body that induce such feelings in order to propagate the species.

In fact various studies have do indeed show that love is a chemical reaction in the brain and as such if properly triggered through an outside source it can be assumed that this can in effect create the same feelings of love.

In fact the poem “Love is not all” by Edna St Vinven Millay says its best when she states that “Love is not all, is not meat or drink nor slumber nor roof against the rain”; from this it can be said that love is immaterial, nothing more than an illusion created by man (Millay, 1). For example in the story it can be seen that once males are affected by the chemical they all of sudden give into to primal urgings for procreation and don’t remember their actions afterwards (Dahl, 1).

Such an effect is suggestive of the fact that in essence people only consider love as love when there is a thought that tries to explain it. The loss of memory of events in the story is symbolic of the loss of thought and as a result the loss of the ability to associate a particular action with love.

In effect the story suggests that love itself is nothing more than a chemical reaction and that as logical individuals we try to justify it through other means that what it actually is. If this is so, the concept of true love itself is again proven to be nothing more than an illusion since it can be considered nothing more than a chemical and hormonal reaction rather than originating from some arbitrary and yet to be defined origin.

Faulkner, William. “Rose for Emily”.

Dahl, Roald. “Bitch”- Switch bitch”.

Joyce, James.”Araby”.

Bradstreet, Anne.“To My Dear and Loving Husband”

Millay, Edna.“Love Is Not All”

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, November 2). The Concept of True Love. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/

"The Concept of True Love." IvyPanda , 2 Nov. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'The Concept of True Love'. 2 November.

IvyPanda . 2019. "The Concept of True Love." November 2, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Concept of True Love." November 2, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Concept of True Love." November 2, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/true-love/.

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This essay focuses on personal love, or the love of particular persons as such. Part of the philosophical task in understanding personal love is to distinguish the various kinds of personal love. For example, the way in which I love my wife is seemingly very different from the way I love my mother, my child, and my friend. This task has typically proceeded hand-in-hand with philosophical analyses of these kinds of personal love, analyses that in part respond to various puzzles about love. Can love be justified? If so, how? What is the value of personal love? What impact does love have on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved?

1. Preliminary Distinctions

2. love as union, 3. love as robust concern, 4.1 love as appraisal of value, 4.2 love as bestowal of value, 4.3 an intermediate position, 5.1 love as emotion proper, 5.2 love as emotion complex, 6. the value and justification of love, other internet resources, related entries.

In ordinary conversations, we often say things like the following:

• I love chocolate (or skiing).
• I love doing philosophy (or being a father).
• I love my dog (or cat).
• I love my wife (or mother or child or friend).

However, what is meant by ‘love’ differs from case to case. (1) may be understood as meaning merely that I like this thing or activity very much. In (2) the implication is typically that I find engaging in a certain activity or being a certain kind of person to be a part of my identity and so what makes my life worth living; I might just as well say that I value these. By contrast, (3) and (4) seem to indicate a mode of concern that cannot be neatly assimilated to anything else. Thus, we might understand the sort of love at issue in (4) to be, roughly, a matter of caring about another person as the person she is, for her own sake. (Accordingly, (3) may be understood as a kind of deficient mode of the sort of love we typically reserve for persons.) Philosophical accounts of love have focused primarily on the sort of personal love at issue in (4); such personal love will be the focus here (though see Frankfurt (1999) and Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) for attempts to provide a more general account that applies to non-persons as well).

Even within personal love, philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionally distinguished three notions that can properly be called “love”: eros , agape , and philia . It will be useful to distinguish these three and say something about how contemporary discussions typically blur these distinctions (sometimes intentionally so) or use them for other purposes.

‘ Eros ’ originally meant love in the sense of a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual passion (Liddell et al., 1940). Nygren (1953a,b) describes eros as the “‘love of desire,’ or acquisitive love” and therefore as egocentric (1953b, p. 89). Soble (1989b, 1990) similarly describes eros as “selfish” and as a response to the merits of the beloved—especially the beloved’s goodness or beauty. What is evident in Soble’s description of eros is a shift away from the sexual: to love something in the “erosic” sense (to use the term Soble coins) is to love it in a way that, by being responsive to its merits, is dependent on reasons. Such an understanding of eros is encouraged by Plato’s discussion in the Symposium , in which Socrates understands sexual desire to be a deficient response to physical beauty in particular, a response which ought to be developed into a response to the beauty of a person’s soul and, ultimately, into a response to the form, Beauty.

Soble’s intent in understanding eros to be a reason-dependent sort of love is to articulate a sharp contrast with agape , a sort of love that does not respond to the value of its object. ‘ Agape ’ has come, primarily through the Christian tradition, to mean the sort of love God has for us persons, as well as our love for God and, by extension, of our love for each other—a kind of brotherly love. In the paradigm case of God’s love for us, agape is “spontaneous and unmotivated,” revealing not that we merit that love but that God’s nature is love (Nygren 1953b, p. 85). Rather than responding to antecedent value in its object, agape instead is supposed to create value in its object and therefore to initiate our fellowship with God (pp. 87–88). Consequently, Badhwar (2003, p. 58) characterizes agape as “independent of the loved individual’s fundamental characteristics as the particular person she is”; and Soble (1990, p. 5) infers that agape , in contrast to eros , is therefore not reason dependent but is rationally “incomprehensible,” admitting at best of causal or historical explanations. [ 1 ]

Finally, ‘ philia ’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members, business partners, and one’s country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977). Like eros , philia is generally (but not universally) understood to be responsive to (good) qualities in one’s beloved. This similarity between eros and philia has led Thomas (1987) to wonder whether the only difference between romantic love and friendship is the sexual involvement of the former—and whether that is adequate to account for the real differences we experience. The distinction between eros and philia becomes harder to draw with Soble’s attempt to diminish the importance of the sexual in eros (1990).

Maintaining the distinctions among eros , agape , and philia becomes even more difficult when faced with contemporary theories of love (including romantic love) and friendship. For, as discussed below, some theories of romantic love understand it along the lines of the agape tradition as creating value in the beloved (cf. Section 4.2 ), and other accounts of romantic love treat sexual activity as merely the expression of what otherwise looks very much like friendship.

Given the focus here on personal love, Christian conceptions of God’s love for persons (and vice versa ) will be omitted, and the distinction between eros and philia will be blurred—as it typically is in contemporary accounts. Instead, the focus here will be on these contemporary understandings of love, including romantic love, understood as an attitude we take towards other persons. [ 2 ]

In providing an account of love, philosophical analyses must be careful to distinguish love from other positive attitudes we take towards persons, such as liking. Intuitively, love differs from such attitudes as liking in terms of its “depth,” and the problem is to elucidate the kind of “depth” we intuitively find love to have. Some analyses do this in part by providing thin conceptions of what liking amounts to. Thus, Singer (1991) and Brown (1987) understand liking to be a matter of desiring, an attitude that at best involves its object having only instrumental (and not intrinsic) value. Yet this seems inadequate: surely there are attitudes towards persons intermediate between having a desire with a person as its object and loving the person. I can care about a person for her own sake and not merely instrumentally, and yet such caring does not on its own amount to (non-deficiently) loving her, for it seems I can care about my dog in exactly the same way, a kind of caring which is insufficiently personal for love.

It is more common to distinguish loving from liking via the intuition that the “depth” of love is to be explained in terms of a notion of identification: to love someone is somehow to identify yourself with him, whereas no such notion of identification is involved in liking. As Nussbaum puts it, “The choice between one potential love and another can feel, and be, like a choice of a way of life, a decision to dedicate oneself to these values rather than these” (1990, p. 328); liking clearly does not have this sort of “depth” (see also Helm 2010; Bagley 2015). Whether love involves some kind of identification, and if so exactly how to understand such identification, is a central bone of contention among the various analyses of love. In particular, Whiting (2013) argues that the appeal to a notion of identification distorts our understanding of the sort of motivation love can provide, for taken literally it implies that love motivates through self -interest rather than through the beloved’s interests. Thus, Whiting argues, central to love is the possibility that love takes the lover “outside herself”, potentially forgetting herself in being moved directly by the interests of the beloved. (Of course, we need not take the notion of identification literally in this way: in identifying with one’s beloved, one might have a concern for one’s beloved that is analogous to one’s concern for oneself; see Helm 2010.)

Another common way to distinguish love from other personal attitudes is in terms of a distinctive kind of evaluation, which itself can account for love’s “depth.” Again, whether love essentially involves a distinctive kind of evaluation, and if so how to make sense of that evaluation, is hotly disputed. Closely related to questions of evaluation are questions of justification: can we justify loving or continuing to love a particular person, and if so, how? For those who think the justification of love is possible, it is common to understand such justification in terms of evaluation, and the answers here affect various accounts’ attempts to make sense of the kind of constancy or commitment love seems to involve, as well as the sense in which love is directed at particular individuals.

In what follows, theories of love are tentatively and hesitantly classified into four types: love as union, love as robust concern, love as valuing, and love as an emotion. It should be clear, however, that particular theories classified under one type sometimes also include, without contradiction, ideas central to other types. The types identified here overlap to some extent, and in some cases classifying particular theories may involve excessive pigeonholing. (Such cases are noted below.) Part of the classificatory problem is that many accounts of love are quasi-reductionistic, understanding love in terms of notions like affection, evaluation, attachment, etc., which themselves never get analyzed. Even when these accounts eschew explicitly reductionistic language, very often little attempt is made to show how one such “aspect” of love is conceptually connected to others. As a result, there is no clear and obvious way to classify particular theories, let alone identify what the relevant classes should be.

The union view claims that love consists in the formation of (or the desire to form) some significant kind of union, a “we.” A central task for union theorists, therefore, is to spell out just what such a “we” comes to—whether it is literally a new entity in the world somehow composed of the lover and the beloved, or whether it is merely metaphorical. Variants of this view perhaps go back to Aristotle (cf. Sherman 1993) and can also be found in Montaigne ([E]) and Hegel (1997); contemporary proponents include Solomon (1981, 1988), Scruton (1986), Nozick (1989), Fisher (1990), and Delaney (1996).

Scruton, writing in particular about romantic love, claims that love exists “just so soon as reciprocity becomes community: that is, just so soon as all distinction between my interests and your interests is overcome” (1986, p. 230). The idea is that the union is a union of concern, so that when I act out of that concern it is not for my sake alone or for your sake alone but for our sake. Fisher (1990) holds a similar, but somewhat more moderate view, claiming that love is a partial fusion of the lovers’ cares, concerns, emotional responses, and actions. What is striking about both Scruton and Fisher is the claim that love requires the actual union of the lovers’ concerns, for it thus becomes clear that they conceive of love not so much as an attitude we take towards another but as a relationship: the distinction between your interests and mine genuinely disappears only when we together come to have shared cares, concerns, etc., and my merely having a certain attitude towards you is not enough for love. This provides content to the notion of a “we” as the (metaphorical?) subject of these shared cares and concerns, and as that for whose sake we act.

Solomon (1988) offers a union view as well, though one that tries “to make new sense out of ‘love’ through a literal rather than metaphoric sense of the ‘fusion’ of two souls” (p. 24, cf. Solomon 1981; however, it is unclear exactly what he means by a “soul” here and so how love can be a “literal” fusion of two souls). What Solomon has in mind is the way in which, through love, the lovers redefine their identities as persons in terms of the relationship: “Love is the concentration and the intensive focus of mutual definition on a single individual, subjecting virtually every personal aspect of one’s self to this process” (1988, p. 197). The result is that lovers come to share the interests, roles, virtues, and so on that constitute what formerly was two individual identities but now has become a shared identity, and they do so in part by each allowing the other to play an important role in defining his own identity.

Nozick (1989) offers a union view that differs from those of Scruton, Fisher, and Solomon in that Nozick thinks that what is necessary for love is merely the desire to form a “we,” together with the desire that your beloved reciprocates. Nonetheless, he claims that this “we” is “a new entity in the world…created by a new web of relationships between [the lovers] which makes them no longer separate” (p. 70). In spelling out this web of relationships, Nozick appeals to the lovers “pooling” not only their well-beings, in the sense that the well-being of each is tied up with that of the other, but also their autonomy, in that “each transfers some previous rights to make certain decisions unilaterally into a joint pool” (p. 71). In addition, Nozick claims, the lovers each acquire a new identity as a part of the “we,” a new identity constituted by their (a) wanting to be perceived publicly as a couple, (b) their attending to their pooled well-being, and (c) their accepting a “certain kind of division of labor” (p. 72):

A person in a we might find himself coming across something interesting to read yet leaving it for the other person, not because he himself would not be interested in it but because the other would be more interested, and one of them reading it is sufficient for it to be registered by the wider identity now shared, the we . [ 3 ]

Opponents of the union view have seized on claims like this as excessive: union theorists, they claim, take too literally the ontological commitments of this notion of a “we.” This leads to two specific criticisms of the union view. The first is that union views do away with individual autonomy. Autonomy, it seems, involves a kind of independence on the part of the autonomous agent, such that she is in control over not only what she does but also who she is, as this is constituted by her interests, values, concerns, etc. However, union views, by doing away with a clear distinction between your interests and mine, thereby undermine this sort of independence and so undermine the autonomy of the lovers. If autonomy is a part of the individual’s good, then, on the union view, love is to this extent bad; so much the worse for the union view (Singer 1994; Soble 1997). Moreover, Singer (1994) argues that a necessary part of having your beloved be the object of your love is respect for your beloved as the particular person she is, and this requires respecting her autonomy.

Union theorists have responded to this objection in several ways. Nozick (1989) seems to think of a loss of autonomy in love as a desirable feature of the sort of union lovers can achieve. Fisher (1990), somewhat more reluctantly, claims that the loss of autonomy in love is an acceptable consequence of love. Yet without further argument these claims seem like mere bullet biting. Solomon (1988, pp. 64ff) describes this “tension” between union and autonomy as “the paradox of love.” However, this a view that Soble (1997) derides: merely to call it a paradox, as Solomon does, is not to face up to the problem.

The second criticism involves a substantive view concerning love. Part of what it is to love someone, these opponents say, is to have concern for him for his sake. However, union views make such concern unintelligible and eliminate the possibility of both selfishness and self-sacrifice, for by doing away with the distinction between my interests and your interests they have in effect turned your interests into mine and vice versa (Soble 1997; see also Blum 1980, 1993). Some advocates of union views see this as a point in their favor: we need to explain how it is I can have concern for people other than myself, and the union view apparently does this by understanding your interests to be part of my own. And Delaney, responding to an apparent tension between our desire to be loved unselfishly (for fear of otherwise being exploited) and our desire to be loved for reasons (which presumably are attractive to our lover and hence have a kind of selfish basis), says (1996, p. 346):

Given my view that the romantic ideal is primarily characterized by a desire to achieve a profound consolidation of needs and interests through the formation of a we , I do not think a little selfishness of the sort described should pose a worry to either party.

The objection, however, lies precisely in this attempt to explain my concern for my beloved egoistically. As Whiting (1991, p. 10) puts it, such an attempt “strikes me as unnecessary and potentially objectionable colonization”: in love, I ought to be concerned with my beloved for her sake, and not because I somehow get something out of it. (This can be true whether my concern with my beloved is merely instrumental to my good or whether it is partly constitutive of my good.)

Although Whiting’s and Soble’s criticisms here succeed against the more radical advocates of the union view, they in part fail to acknowledge the kernel of truth to be gleaned from the idea of union. Whiting’s way of formulating the second objection in terms of an unnecessary egoism in part points to a way out: we persons are in part social creatures, and love is one profound mode of that sociality. Indeed, part of the point of union accounts is to make sense of this social dimension: to make sense of a way in which we can sometimes identify ourselves with others not merely in becoming interdependent with them (as Singer 1994, p. 165, suggests, understanding ‘interdependence’ to be a kind of reciprocal benevolence and respect) but rather in making who we are as persons be constituted in part by those we love (cf., e.g., Rorty 1986/1993; Nussbaum 1990).

Along these lines, Friedman (1998), taking her inspiration in part from Delaney (1996), argues that we should understand the sort of union at issue in love to be a kind of federation of selves:

On the federation model, a third unified entity is constituted by the interaction of the lovers, one which involves the lovers acting in concert across a range of conditions and for a range of purposes. This concerted action, however, does not erase the existence of the two lovers as separable and separate agents with continuing possibilities for the exercise of their own respective agencies. [p. 165]

Given that on this view the lovers do not give up their individual identities, there is no principled reason why the union view cannot make sense of the lover’s concern for her beloved for his sake. [ 4 ] Moreover, Friedman argues, once we construe union as federation, we can see that autonomy is not a zero-sum game; rather, love can both directly enhance the autonomy of each and promote the growth of various skills, like realistic and critical self-evaluation, that foster autonomy.

Nonetheless, this federation model is not without its problems—problems that affect other versions of the union view as well. For if the federation (or the “we”, as on Nozick’s view) is understood as a third entity, we need a clearer account than has been given of its ontological status and how it comes to be. Relevant here is the literature on shared intention and plural subjects. Gilbert (1989, 1996, 2000) has argued that we should take quite seriously the existence of a plural subject as an entity over and above its constituent members. Others, such as Tuomela (1984, 1995), Searle (1990), and Bratman (1999) are more cautious, treating such talk of “us” having an intention as metaphorical.

As this criticism of the union view indicates, many find caring about your beloved for her sake to be a part of what it is to love her. The robust concern view of love takes this to be the central and defining feature of love (cf. Taylor 1976; Newton-Smith 1989; Soble 1990, 1997; LaFollette 1996; Frankfurt 1999; White 2001). As Taylor puts it:

To summarize: if x loves y then x wants to benefit and be with y etc., and he has these wants (or at least some of them) because he believes y has some determinate characteristics ψ in virtue of which he thinks it worth while to benefit and be with y . He regards satisfaction of these wants as an end and not as a means towards some other end. [p. 157]

In conceiving of my love for you as constituted by my concern for you for your sake, the robust concern view rejects the idea, central to the union view, that love is to be understood in terms of the (literal or metaphorical) creation of a “we”: I am the one who has this concern for you, though it is nonetheless disinterested and so not egoistic insofar as it is for your sake rather than for my own. [ 5 ]

At the heart of the robust concern view is the idea that love “is neither affective nor cognitive. It is volitional” (Frankfurt 1999, p. 129; see also Martin 2015). Frankfurt continues:

That a person cares about or that he loves something has less to do with how things make him feel, or with his opinions about them, than with the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and that guide and limit his conduct.

This account analyzes caring about someone for her sake as a matter of being motivated in certain ways, in part as a response to what happens to one’s beloved. Of course, to understand love in terms of desires is not to leave other emotional responses out in the cold, for these emotions should be understood as consequences of desires. Thus, just as I can be emotionally crushed when one of my strong desires is disappointed, so too I can be emotionally crushed when things similarly go badly for my beloved. In this way Frankfurt (1999) tacitly, and White (2001) more explicitly, acknowledge the way in which my caring for my beloved for her sake results in my identity being transformed through her influence insofar as I become vulnerable to things that happen to her.

Not all robust concern theorists seem to accept this line, however; in particular, Taylor (1976) and Soble (1990) seem to have a strongly individualistic conception of persons that prevents my identity being bound up with my beloved in this sort of way, a kind of view that may seem to undermine the intuitive “depth” that love seems to have. (For more on this point, see Rorty 1986/1993.) In the middle is Stump (2006), who follows Aquinas in understanding love to involve not only the desire for your beloved’s well-being but also a desire for a certain kind of relationship with your beloved—as a parent or spouse or sibling or priest or friend, for example—a relationship within which you share yourself with and connect yourself to your beloved. [ 6 ]

One source of worry about the robust concern view is that it involves too passive an understanding of one’s beloved (Ebels-Duggan 2008). The thought is that on the robust concern view the lover merely tries to discover what the beloved’s well-being consists in and then acts to promote that, potentially by thwarting the beloved’s own efforts when the lover thinks those efforts would harm her well-being. This, however, would be disrespectful and demeaning, not the sort of attitude that love is. What robust concern views seem to miss, Ebels-Duggan suggests, is the way love involves interacting agents, each with a capacity for autonomy the recognition and engagement with which is an essential part of love. In response, advocates of the robust concern view might point out that promoting someone’s well-being normally requires promoting her autonomy (though they may maintain that this need not always be true: that paternalism towards a beloved can sometimes be justified and appropriate as an expression of one’s love). Moreover, we might plausibly think, it is only through the exercise of one’s autonomy that one can define one’s own well-being as a person, so that a lover’s failure to respect the beloved’s autonomy would be a failure to promote her well-being and therefore not an expression of love, contrary to what Ebels-Duggan suggests. Consequently, it might seem, robust concern views can counter this objection by offering an enriched conception of what it is to be a person and so of the well-being of persons.

Another source of worry is that the robust concern view offers too thin a conception of love. By emphasizing robust concern, this view understands other features we think characteristic of love, such as one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved, to be the effects of that concern rather than constituents of it. Thus Velleman (1999) argues that robust concern views, by understanding love merely as a matter of aiming at a particular end (viz., the welfare of one’s beloved), understand love to be merely conative. However, he claims, love can have nothing to do with desires, offering as a counterexample the possibility of loving a troublemaking relation whom you do not want to be with, whose well being you do not want to promote, etc. Similarly, Badhwar (2003) argues that such a “teleological” view of love makes it mysterious how “we can continue to love someone long after death has taken him beyond harm or benefit” (p. 46). Moreover Badhwar argues, if love is essentially a desire, then it implies that we lack something; yet love does not imply this and, indeed, can be felt most strongly at times when we feel our lives most complete and lacking in nothing. Consequently, Velleman and Badhwar conclude, love need not involve any desire or concern for the well-being of one’s beloved.

This conclusion, however, seems too hasty, for such examples can be accommodated within the robust concern view. Thus, the concern for your relative in Velleman’s example can be understood to be present but swamped by other, more powerful desires to avoid him. Indeed, keeping the idea that you want to some degree to benefit him, an idea Velleman rejects, seems to be essential to understanding the conceptual tension between loving someone and not wanting to help him, a tension Velleman does not fully acknowledge. Similarly, continued love for someone who has died can be understood on the robust concern view as parasitic on the former love you had for him when he was still alive: your desires to benefit him get transformed, through your subsequent understanding of the impossibility of doing so, into wishes. [ 7 ] Finally, the idea of concern for your beloved’s well-being need not imply the idea that you lack something, for such concern can be understood in terms of the disposition to be vigilant for occasions when you can come to his aid and consequently to have the relevant occurrent desires. All of this seems fully compatible with the robust concern view.

One might also question whether Velleman and Badhwar make proper use of their examples of loving your meddlesome relation or someone who has died. For although we can understand these as genuine cases of love, they are nonetheless deficient cases and ought therefore be understood as parasitic on the standard cases. Readily to accommodate such deficient cases of love into a philosophical analysis as being on a par with paradigm cases, and to do so without some special justification, is dubious.

Nonetheless, the robust concern view as it stands does not seem properly able to account for the intuitive “depth” of love and so does not seem properly to distinguish loving from liking. Although, as noted above, the robust concern view can begin to make some sense of the way in which the lover’s identity is altered by the beloved, it understands this only an effect of love, and not as a central part of what love consists in.

This vague thought is nicely developed by Wonderly (2017), who emphasizes that in addition to the sort of disinterested concern for another that is central to robust-concern accounts of love, an essential part of at least romantic love is the idea that in loving someone I must find them to be not merely important for their own sake but also important to me . Wonderly (2017) fleshes out what this “importance to me” involves in terms of the idea of attachment (developed in Wonderly 2016) that she argues can make sense of the intimacy and depth of love from within what remains fundamentally a robust-concern account. [ 8 ]

4. Love as Valuing

A third kind of view of love understands love to be a distinctive mode of valuing a person. As the distinction between eros and agape in Section 1 indicates, there are at least two ways to construe this in terms of whether the lover values the beloved because she is valuable, or whether the beloved comes to be valuable to the lover as a result of her loving him. The former view, which understands the lover as appraising the value of the beloved in loving him, is the topic of Section 4.1 , whereas the latter view, which understands her as bestowing value on him, will be discussed in Section 4.2 .

Velleman (1999, 2008) offers an appraisal view of love, understanding love to be fundamentally a matter of acknowledging and responding in a distinctive way to the value of the beloved. (For a very different appraisal view of love, see Kolodny 2003.) Understanding this more fully requires understanding both the kind of value of the beloved to which one responds and the distinctive kind of response to such value that love is. Nonetheless, it should be clear that what makes an account be an appraisal view of love is not the mere fact that love is understood to involve appraisal; many other accounts do so, and it is typical of robust concern accounts, for example (cf. the quote from Taylor above , Section 3 ). Rather, appraisal views are distinctive in understanding love to consist in that appraisal.

In articulating the kind of value love involves, Velleman, following Kant, distinguishes dignity from price. To have a price , as the economic metaphor suggests, is to have a value that can be compared to the value of other things with prices, such that it is intelligible to exchange without loss items of the same value. By contrast, to have dignity is to have a value such that comparisons of relative value become meaningless. Material goods are normally understood to have prices, but we persons have dignity: no substitution of one person for another can preserve exactly the same value, for something of incomparable worth would be lost (and gained) in such a substitution.

On this Kantian view, our dignity as persons consists in our rational nature: our capacity both to be actuated by reasons that we autonomously provide ourselves in setting our own ends and to respond appropriately to the intrinsic values we discover in the world. Consequently, one important way in which we exercise our rational natures is to respond with respect to the dignity of other persons (a dignity that consists in part in their capacity for respect): respect just is the required minimal response to the dignity of persons. What makes a response to a person be that of respect, Velleman claims, still following Kant, is that it “arrests our self-love” and thereby prevents us from treating him as a means to our ends (p. 360).

Given this, Velleman claims that love is similarly a response to the dignity of persons, and as such it is the dignity of the object of our love that justifies that love. However, love and respect are different kinds of responses to the same value. For love arrests not our self-love but rather

our tendencies toward emotional self-protection from another person, tendencies to draw ourselves in and close ourselves off from being affected by him. Love disarms our emotional defenses; it makes us vulnerable to the other. [1999, p. 361]

This means that the concern, attraction, sympathy, etc. that we normally associate with love are not constituents of love but are rather its normal effects, and love can remain without them (as in the case of the love for a meddlesome relative one cannot stand being around). Moreover, this provides Velleman with a clear account of the intuitive “depth” of love: it is essentially a response to persons as such, and to say that you love your dog is therefore to be confused.

Of course, we do not respond with love to the dignity of every person we meet, nor are we somehow required to: love, as the disarming of our emotional defenses in a way that makes us especially vulnerable to another, is the optional maximal response to others’ dignity. What, then, explains the selectivity of love—why I love some people and not others? The answer lies in the contingent fit between the way some people behaviorally express their dignity as persons and the way I happen to respond to those expressions by becoming emotionally vulnerable to them. The right sort of fit makes someone “lovable” by me (1999, p. 372), and my responding with love in these cases is a matter of my “really seeing” this person in a way that I fail to do with others who do not fit with me in this way. By ‘lovable’ here Velleman seems to mean able to be loved, not worthy of being loved, for nothing Velleman says here speaks to a question about the justification of my loving this person rather than that. Rather, what he offers is an explanation of the selectivity of my love, an explanation that as a matter of fact makes my response be that of love rather than mere respect.

This understanding of the selectivity of love as something that can be explained but not justified is potentially troubling. For we ordinarily think we can justify not only my loving you rather than someone else but also and more importantly the constancy of my love: my continuing to love you even as you change in certain fundamental ways (but not others). As Delaney (1996, p. 347) puts the worry about constancy:

while you seem to want it to be true that, were you to become a schmuck, your lover would continue to love you,…you also want it to be the case that your lover would never love a schmuck.

The issue here is not merely that we can offer explanations of the selectivity of my love, of why I do not love schmucks; rather, at issue is the discernment of love, of loving and continuing to love for good reasons as well as of ceasing to love for good reasons. To have these good reasons seems to involve attributing different values to you now rather than formerly or rather than to someone else, yet this is precisely what Velleman denies is the case in making the distinction between love and respect the way he does.

It is also questionable whether Velleman can even explain the selectivity of love in terms of the “fit” between your expressions and my sensitivities. For the relevant sensitivities on my part are emotional sensitivities: the lowering of my emotional defenses and so becoming emotionally vulnerable to you. Thus, I become vulnerable to the harms (or goods) that befall you and so sympathetically feel your pain (or joy). Such emotions are themselves assessable for warrant, and now we can ask why my disappointment that you lost the race is warranted, but my being disappointed that a mere stranger lost would not be warranted. The intuitive answer is that I love you but not him. However, this answer is unavailable to Velleman, because he thinks that what makes my response to your dignity that of love rather than respect is precisely that I feel such emotions, and to appeal to my love in explaining the emotions therefore seems viciously circular.

Although these problems are specific to Velleman’s account, the difficulty can be generalized to any appraisal account of love (such as that offered in Kolodny 2003). For if love is an appraisal, it needs to be distinguished from other forms of appraisal, including our evaluative judgments. On the one hand, to try to distinguish love as an appraisal from other appraisals in terms of love’s having certain effects on our emotional and motivational life (as on Velleman’s account) is unsatisfying because it ignores part of what needs to be explained: why the appraisal of love has these effects and yet judgments with the same evaluative content do not. Indeed, this question is crucial if we are to understand the intuitive “depth” of love, for without an answer to this question we do not understand why love should have the kind of centrality in our lives it manifestly does. [ 9 ] On the other hand, to bundle this emotional component into the appraisal itself would be to turn the view into either the robust concern view ( Section 3 ) or a variant of the emotion view ( Section 5.1 ).

In contrast to Velleman, Singer (1991, 1994, 2009) understands love to be fundamentally a matter of bestowing value on the beloved. To bestow value on another is to project a kind of intrinsic value onto him. Indeed, this fact about love is supposed to distinguish love from liking: “Love is an attitude with no clear objective,” whereas liking is inherently teleological (1991, p. 272). As such, there are no standards of correctness for bestowing such value, and this is how love differs from other personal attitudes like gratitude, generosity, and condescension: “love…confers importance no matter what the object is worth” (p. 273). Consequently, Singer thinks, love is not an attitude that can be justified in any way.

What is it, exactly, to bestow this kind of value on someone? It is, Singer says, a kind of attachment and commitment to the beloved, in which one comes to treat him as an end in himself and so to respond to his ends, interests, concerns, etc. as having value for their own sake. This means in part that the bestowal of value reveals itself “by caring about the needs and interests of the beloved, by wishing to benefit or protect her, by delighting in her achievements,” etc. (p. 270). This sounds very much like the robust concern view, yet the bestowal view differs in understanding such robust concern to be the effect of the bestowal of value that is love rather than itself what constitutes love: in bestowing value on my beloved, I make him be valuable in such a way that I ought to respond with robust concern.

For it to be intelligible that I have bestowed value on someone, I must therefore respond appropriately to him as valuable, and this requires having some sense of what his well-being is and of what affects that well-being positively or negatively. Yet having this sense requires in turn knowing what his strengths and deficiencies are, and this is a matter of appraising him in various ways. Bestowal thus presupposes a kind of appraisal, as a way of “really seeing” the beloved and attending to him. Nonetheless, Singer claims, it is the bestowal that is primary for understanding what love consists in: the appraisal is required only so that the commitment to one’s beloved and his value as thus bestowed has practical import and is not “a blind submission to some unknown being” (1991, p. 272; see also Singer 1994, pp. 139ff).

Singer is walking a tightrope in trying to make room for appraisal in his account of love. Insofar as the account is fundamentally a bestowal account, Singer claims that love cannot be justified, that we bestow the relevant kind of value “gratuitously.” This suggests that love is blind, that it does not matter what our beloved is like, which seems patently false. Singer tries to avoid this conclusion by appealing to the role of appraisal: it is only because we appraise another as having certain virtues and vices that we come to bestow value on him. Yet the “because” here, since it cannot justify the bestowal, is at best a kind of contingent causal explanation. [ 10 ] In this respect, Singer’s account of the selectivity of love is much the same as Velleman’s, and it is liable to the same criticism: it makes unintelligible the way in which our love can be discerning for better or worse reasons. Indeed, this failure to make sense of the idea that love can be justified is a problem for any bestowal view. For either (a) a bestowal itself cannot be justified (as on Singer’s account), in which case the justification of love is impossible, or (b) a bestowal can be justified, in which case it is hard to make sense of value as being bestowed rather than there antecedently in the object as the grounds of that “bestowal.”

More generally, a proponent of the bestowal view needs to be much clearer than Singer is in articulating precisely what a bestowal is. What is the value that I create in a bestowal, and how can my bestowal create it? On a crude Humean view, the answer might be that the value is something projected onto the world through my pro-attitudes, like desire. Yet such a view would be inadequate, since the projected value, being relative to a particular individual, would do no theoretical work, and the account would essentially be a variant of the robust concern view. Moreover, in providing a bestowal account of love, care is needed to distinguish love from other personal attitudes such as admiration and respect: do these other attitudes involve bestowal? If so, how does the bestowal in these cases differ from the bestowal of love? If not, why not, and what is so special about love that requires a fundamentally different evaluative attitude than admiration and respect?

Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth in the bestowal view: there is surely something right about the idea that love is creative and not merely a response to antecedent value, and accounts of love that understand the kind of evaluation implicit in love merely in terms of appraisal seem to be missing something. Precisely what may be missed will be discussed below in Section 6 .

Perhaps there is room for an understanding of love and its relation to value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal accounts. After all, if we think of appraisal as something like perception, a matter of responding to what is out there in the world, and of bestowal as something like action, a matter of doing something and creating something, we should recognize that the responsiveness central to appraisal may itself depend on our active, creative choices. Thus, just as we must recognize that ordinary perception depends on our actively directing our attention and deploying concepts, interpretations, and even arguments in order to perceive things accurately, so too we might think our vision of our beloved’s valuable properties that is love also depends on our actively attending to and interpreting him. Something like this is Jollimore’s view (2011). According to Jollimore, in loving someone we actively attend to his valuable properties in a way that we take to provide us with reasons to treat him preferentially. Although we may acknowledge that others might have such properties even to a greater degree than our beloved does, we do not attend to and appreciate such properties in others in the same way we do those in our beloveds; indeed, we find our appreciation of our beloved’s valuable properties to “silence” our similar appreciation of those in others. (In this way, Jollimore thinks, we can solve the problem of fungibility, discussed below in Section 6 .) Likewise, in perceiving our beloved’s actions and character, we do so through the lens of such an appreciation, which will tend as to “silence” interpretations inconsistent with that appreciation. In this way, love involves finding one’s beloved to be valuable in a way that involves elements of both appraisal (insofar as one must thereby be responsive to valuable properties one’s beloved really has) and bestowal (insofar as through one’s attention and committed appreciation of these properties they come to have special significance for one).

One might object that this conception of love as silencing the special value of others or to negative interpretations of our beloveds is irrational in a way that love is not. For, it might seem, such “silencing” is merely a matter of our blinding ourselves to how things really are. Yet Jollimore claims that this sense in which love is blind is not objectionable, for (a) we can still intellectually recognize the things that love’s vision silences, and (b) there really is no impartial perspective we can take on the values things have, and love is one appropriate sort of partial perspective from which the value of persons can be manifest. Nonetheless, one might wonder about whether that perspective of love itself can be distorted and what the norms are in terms of which such distortions are intelligible. Furthermore, it may seem that Jollimore’s attempt to reconcile appraisal and bestowal fails to appreciate the underlying metaphysical difficulty: appraisal is a response to value that is antecedently there, whereas bestowal is the creation of value that was not antecedently there. Consequently, it might seem, appraisal and bestowal are mutually exclusive and cannot be reconciled in the way Jollimore hopes.

Whereas Jollimore tries to combine separate elements of appraisal and of bestowal in a single account, Helm (2010) and Bagley (2015) offer accounts that reject the metaphysical presupposition that values must be either prior to love (as with appraisal) or posterior to love (as with bestowal), instead understanding the love and the values to emerge simultaneously. Thus, Helm presents a detailed account of valuing in terms of the emotions, arguing that while we can understand individual emotions as appraisals , responding to values already their in their objects, these values are bestowed on those objects via broad, holistic patterns of emotions. How this amounts to an account of love will be discussed in Section 5.2 , below. Bagley (2015) instead appeals to a metaphor of improvisation, arguing that just as jazz musicians jointly make determinate the content of their musical ideas through on-going processes of their expression, so too lovers jointly engage in “deep improvisation”, thereby working out of their values and identities through the on-going process of living their lives together. These values are thus something the lovers jointly construct through the process of recognizing and responding to those very values. To love someone is thus to engage with them as partners in such “deep improvisation”. (This account is similar to Helm (2008, 2010)’s account of plural agency, which he uses to provide an account of friendship and other loving relationships; see the discussion of shared activity in the entry on friendship .)

5. Emotion Views

Given these problems with the accounts of love as valuing, perhaps we should turn to the emotions. For emotions just are responses to objects that combine evaluation, motivation, and a kind of phenomenology, all central features of the attitude of love.

Many accounts of love claim that it is an emotion; these include: Wollheim 1984, Rorty 1986/1993, Brown 1987, Hamlyn 1989, Baier 1991, and Badhwar 2003. [ 11 ] Thus, Hamlyn (1989, p. 219) says:

It would not be a plausible move to defend any theory of the emotions to which love and hate seemed exceptions by saying that love and hate are after all not emotions. I have heard this said, but it does seem to me a desperate move to make. If love and hate are not emotions what is?

The difficulty with this claim, as Rorty (1980) argues, is that the word, ‘emotion,’ does not seem to pick out a homogeneous collection of mental states, and so various theories claiming that love is an emotion mean very different things. Consequently, what are here labeled “emotion views” are divided into those that understand love to be a particular kind of evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object, whether that response is merely occurrent or dispositional (‘emotions proper,’ see Section 5.1 , below), and those that understand love to involve a collection of related and interconnected emotions proper (‘emotion complexes,’ see Section 5.2 , below).

An emotion proper is a kind of “evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object”; what does this mean? Emotions are generally understood to have several objects. The target of an emotion is that at which the emotion is directed: if I am afraid or angry at you, then you are the target. In responding to you with fear or anger, I am implicitly evaluating you in a particular way, and this evaluation—called the formal object —is the kind of evaluation of the target that is distinctive of a particular emotion type. Thus, in fearing you, I implicitly evaluate you as somehow dangerous, whereas in being angry at you I implicitly evaluate you as somehow offensive. Yet emotions are not merely evaluations of their targets; they in part motivate us to behave in certain ways, both rationally (by motivating action to avoid the danger) and arationally (via certain characteristic expressions, such as slamming a door out of anger). Moreover, emotions are generally understood to involve a phenomenological component, though just how to understand the characteristic “feel” of an emotion and its relation to the evaluation and motivation is hotly disputed. Finally, emotions are typically understood to be passions: responses that we feel imposed on us as if from the outside, rather than anything we actively do. (For more on the philosophy of emotions, see entry on emotion .)

What then are we saying when we say that love is an emotion proper? According to Brown (1987, p. 14), emotions as occurrent mental states are “abnormal bodily changes caused by the agent’s evaluation or appraisal of some object or situation that the agent believes to be of concern to him or her.” He spells this out by saying that in love, we “cherish” the person for having “a particular complex of instantiated qualities” that is “open-ended” so that we can continue to love the person even as she changes over time (pp. 106–7). These qualities, which include historical and relational qualities, are evaluated in love as worthwhile. [ 12 ] All of this seems aimed at spelling out what love’s formal object is, a task that is fundamental to understanding love as an emotion proper. Thus, Brown seems to say that love’s formal object is just being worthwhile (or, given his examples, perhaps: worthwhile as a person), and he resists being any more specific than this in order to preserve the open-endedness of love. Hamlyn (1989) offers a similar account, saying (p. 228):

With love the difficulty is to find anything of this kind [i.e., a formal object] which is uniquely appropriate to love. My thesis is that there is nothing of this kind that must be so, and that this differentiates it and hate from the other emotions.

Hamlyn goes on to suggest that love and hate might be primordial emotions, a kind of positive or negative “feeling towards,” presupposed by all other emotions. [ 13 ]

The trouble with these accounts of love as an emotion proper is that they provide too thin a conception of love. In Hamlyn’s case, love is conceived as a fairly generic pro-attitude, rather than as the specific kind of distinctively personal attitude discussed here. In Brown’s case, spelling out the formal object of love as simply being worthwhile (as a person) fails to distinguish love from other evaluative responses like admiration and respect. Part of the problem seems to be the rather simple account of what an emotion is that Brown and Hamlyn use as their starting point: if love is an emotion, then the understanding of what an emotion is must be enriched considerably to accommodate love. Yet it is not at all clear whether the idea of an “emotion proper” can be adequately enriched so as to do so. As Pismenny & Prinz (2017) point out, love seems to be too varied both in its ground and in the sort of experience it involves to be capturable by a single emotion.

The emotion complex view, which understands love to be a complex emotional attitude towards another person, may initially seem to hold out great promise to overcome the problems of alternative types of views. By articulating the emotional interconnections between persons, it could offer a satisfying account of the “depth” of love without the excesses of the union view and without the overly narrow teleological focus of the robust concern view; and because these emotional interconnections are themselves evaluations, it could offer an understanding of love as simultaneously evaluative, without needing to specify a single formal object of love. However, the devil is in the details.

Rorty (1986/1993) does not try to present a complete account of love; rather, she focuses on the idea that “relational psychological attitudes” which, like love, essentially involve emotional and desiderative responses, exhibit historicity : “they arise from, and are shaped by, dynamic interactions between a subject and an object” (p. 73). In part this means that what makes an attitude be one of love is not the presence of a state that we can point to at a particular time within the lover; rather, love is to be “identified by a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75). Moreover, Rorty argues, the historicity of love involves the lover’s being permanently transformed by loving who he does.

Baier (1991), seeming to pick up on this understanding of love as exhibiting historicity, says (p. 444):

Love is not just an emotion people feel toward other people, but also a complex tying together of the emotions that two or a few more people have; it is a special form of emotional interdependence.

To a certain extent, such emotional interdependence involves feeling sympathetic emotions, so that, for example, I feel disappointed and frustrated on behalf of my beloved when she fails, and joyful when she succeeds. However, Baier insists, love is “more than just the duplication of the emotion of each in a sympathetic echo in the other” (p. 442); the emotional interdependence of the lovers involves also appropriate follow-up responses to the emotional predicaments of your beloved. Two examples Baier gives (pp. 443–44) are a feeling of “mischievous delight” at your beloved’s temporary bafflement, and amusement at her embarrassment. The idea is that in a loving relationship your beloved gives you permission to feel such emotions when no one else is permitted to do so, and a condition of her granting you that permission is that you feel these emotions “tenderly.” Moreover, you ought to respond emotionally to your beloved’s emotional responses to you: by feeling hurt when she is indifferent to you, for example. All of these foster the sort of emotional interdependence Baier is after—a kind of intimacy you have with your beloved.

Badhwar (2003, p. 46) similarly understands love to be a matter of “one’s overall emotional orientation towards a person—the complex of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings”; as such, love is a matter of having a certain “character structure.” Central to this complex emotional orientation, Badhwar thinks, is what she calls the “look of love”: “an ongoing [emotional] affirmation of the loved object as worthy of existence…for her own sake” (p. 44), an affirmation that involves taking pleasure in your beloved’s well-being. Moreover, Badhwar claims, the look of love also provides to the beloved reliable testimony concerning the quality of the beloved’s character and actions (p. 57).

There is surely something very right about the idea that love, as an attitude central to deeply personal relationships, should not be understood as a state that can simply come and go. Rather, as the emotion complex view insists, the complexity of love is to be found in the historical patterns of one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved—a pattern that also projects into the future. Indeed, as suggested above, the kind of emotional interdependence that results from this complex pattern can seem to account for the intuitive “depth” of love as fully interwoven into one’s emotional sense of oneself. And it seems to make some headway in understanding the complex phenomenology of love: love can at times be a matter of intense pleasure in the presence of one’s beloved, yet it can at other times involve frustration, exasperation, anger, and hurt as a manifestation of the complexities and depth of the relationships it fosters.

This understanding of love as constituted by a history of emotional interdependence enables emotion complex views to say something interesting about the impact love has on the lover’s identity. This is partly Rorty’s point (1986/1993) in her discussion of the historicity of love ( above ). Thus, she argues, one important feature of such historicity is that love is “ dynamically permeable ” in that the lover is continually “changed by loving” such that these changes “tend to ramify through a person’s character” (p. 77). Through such dynamic permeability, love transforms the identity of the lover in a way that can sometimes foster the continuity of the love, as each lover continually changes in response to the changes in the other. [ 14 ] Indeed, Rorty concludes, love should be understood in terms of “a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75) that results from such dynamic permeability. It should be clear, however, that the mere fact of dynamic permeability need not result in the love’s continuing: nothing about the dynamics of a relationship requires that the characteristic narrative history project into the future, and such permeability can therefore lead to the dissolution of the love. Love is therefore risky—indeed, all the more risky because of the way the identity of the lover is defined in part through the love. The loss of a love can therefore make one feel no longer oneself in ways poignantly described by Nussbaum (1990).

By focusing on such emotionally complex histories, emotion complex views differ from most alternative accounts of love. For alternative accounts tend to view love as a kind of attitude we take toward our beloveds, something we can analyze simply in terms of our mental state at the moment. [ 15 ] By ignoring this historical dimension of love in providing an account of what love is, alternative accounts have a hard time providing either satisfying accounts of the sense in which our identities as person are at stake in loving another or satisfactory solutions to problems concerning how love is to be justified (cf. Section 6 , especially the discussion of fungibility ).

Nonetheless, some questions remain. If love is to be understood as an emotion complex, we need a much more explicit account of the pattern at issue here: what ties all of these emotional responses together into a single thing, namely love? Baier and Badhwar seem content to provide interesting and insightful examples of this pattern, but that does not seem to be enough. For example, what connects my amusement at my beloved’s embarrassment to other emotions like my joy on his behalf when he succeeds? Why shouldn’t my amusement at his embarrassment be understood instead as a somewhat cruel case of schadenfreude and so as antithetical to, and disconnected from, love? Moreover, as Naar (2013) notes, we need a principled account of when such historical patterns are disrupted in such a way as to end the love and when they are not. Do I stop loving when, in the midst of clinical depression, I lose my normal pattern of emotional concern?

Presumably the answer requires returning to the historicity of love: it all depends on the historical details of the relationship my beloved and I have forged. Some loves develop so that the intimacy within the relationship is such as to allow for tender, teasing responses to each other, whereas other loves may not. The historical details, together with the lovers’ understanding of their relationship, presumably determine which emotional responses belong to the pattern constitutive of love and which do not. However, this answer so far is inadequate: not just any historical relationship involving emotional interdependence is a loving relationship, and we need a principled way of distinguishing loving relationships from other relational evaluative attitudes: precisely what is the characteristic narrative history that is characteristic of love?

Helm (2009, 2010) tries to answer some of these questions in presenting an account of love as intimate identification. To love another, Helm claims, is to care about him as the particular person he is and so, other things being equal, to value the things he values. Insofar as a person’s (structured) set of values—his sense of the kind of life worth his living—constitutes his identity as a person, such sharing of values amounts to sharing his identity, which sounds very much like union accounts of love. However, Helm is careful to understand such sharing of values as for the sake of the beloved (as robust concern accounts insist), and he spells this all out in terms of patterns of emotions. Thus, Helm claims, all emotions have not only a target and a formal object (as indicated above), but also a focus : a background object the subject cares about in terms of which the implicit evaluation of the target is made intelligible. (For example, if I am afraid of the approaching hailstorm, I thereby evaluate it as dangerous, and what explains this evaluation is the way that hailstorm bears on my vegetable garden, which I care about; my garden, therefore, is the focus of my fear.) Moreover, emotions normally come in patterns with a common focus: fearing the hailstorm is normally connected to other emotions as being relieved when it passes by harmlessly (or disappointed or sad when it does not), being angry at the rabbits for killing the spinach, delighted at the productivity of the tomato plants, etc. Helm argues that a projectible pattern of such emotions with a common focus constitute caring about that focus. Consequently, we might say along the lines of Section 4.3 , while particular emotions appraise events in the world as having certain evaluative properties, their having these properties is partly bestowed on them by the overall patterns of emotions.

Helm identifies some emotions as person-focused emotions : emotions like pride and shame that essentially take persons as their focuses, for these emotions implicitly evaluate in terms of the target’s bearing on the quality of life of the person that is their focus. To exhibit a pattern of such emotions focused on oneself and subfocused on being a mother, for example, is to care about the place being a mother has in the kind of life you find worth living—in your identity as a person; to care in this way is to value being a mother as a part of your concern for your own identity. Likewise, to exhibit a projectible pattern of such emotions focused on someone else and subfocused on his being a father is to value this as a part of your concern for his identity—to value it for his sake. Such sharing of another’s values for his sake, which, Helm argues, essentially involves trust, respect, and affection, amounts to intimate identification with him, and such intimate identification just is love. Thus, Helm tries to provide an account of love that is grounded in an explicit account of caring (and caring about something for the sake of someone else) that makes room for the intuitive “depth” of love through intimate identification.

Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) argue that Helm’s construal of intimacy as intimate identification is too demanding. Rather, they argue, the sort of intimacy that distinguishes love from mere caring is one that involves a kind of emotional vulnerability in which things going well or poorly for one’s beloved are directly connected not merely to one’s well-being, but to one’s ability to flourish. This connection, they argue, runs through the lover’s self-understanding and the place the beloved has in the lover’s sense of a meaningful life.

Why do we love? It has been suggested above that any account of love needs to be able to answer some such justificatory question. Although the issue of the justification of love is important on its own, it is also important for the implications it has for understanding more clearly the precise object of love: how can we make sense of the intuitions not only that we love the individuals themselves rather than their properties, but also that my beloved is not fungible—that no one could simply take her place without loss. Different theories approach these questions in different ways, but, as will become clear below, the question of justification is primary.

One way to understand the question of why we love is as asking for what the value of love is: what do we get out of it? One kind of answer, which has its roots in Aristotle, is that having loving relationships promotes self-knowledge insofar as your beloved acts as a kind of mirror, reflecting your character back to you (Badhwar, 2003, p. 58). Of course, this answer presupposes that we cannot accurately know ourselves in other ways: that left alone, our sense of ourselves will be too imperfect, too biased, to help us grow and mature as persons. The metaphor of a mirror also suggests that our beloveds will be in the relevant respects similar to us, so that merely by observing them, we can come to know ourselves better in a way that is, if not free from bias, at least more objective than otherwise.

Brink (1999, pp. 264–65) argues that there are serious limits to the value of such mirroring of one’s self in a beloved. For if the aim is not just to know yourself better but to improve yourself, you ought also to interact with others who are not just like yourself: interacting with such diverse others can help you recognize alternative possibilities for how to live and so better assess the relative merits of these possibilities. Whiting (2013) also emphasizes the importance of our beloveds’ having an independent voice capable of reflecting not who one now is but an ideal for who one is to be. Nonetheless, we need not take the metaphor of the mirror quite so literally; rather, our beloveds can reflect our selves not through their inherent similarity to us but rather through the interpretations they offer of us, both explicitly and implicitly in their responses to us. This is what Badhwar calls the “epistemic significance” of love. [ 16 ]

In addition to this epistemic significance of love, LaFollette (1996, Chapter 5) offers several other reasons why it is good to love, reasons derived in part from the psychological literature on love: love increases our sense of well-being, it elevates our sense of self-worth, and it serves to develop our character. It also, we might add, tends to lower stress and blood pressure and to increase health and longevity. Friedman (1993) argues that the kind of partiality towards our beloveds that love involves is itself morally valuable because it supports relationships—loving relationships—that contribute “to human well-being, integrity, and fulfillment in life” (p. 61). And Solomon (1988, p. 155) claims:

Ultimately, there is only one reason for love. That one grand reason…is “because we bring out the best in each other.” What counts as “the best,” of course, is subject to much individual variation.

This is because, Solomon suggests, in loving someone, I want myself to be better so as to be worthy of his love for me.

Each of these answers to the question of why we love understands it to be asking about love quite generally, abstracted away from details of particular relationships. It is also possible to understand the question as asking about particular loves. Here, there are several questions that are relevant:

• What, if anything, justifies my loving rather than not loving this particular person?
• What, if anything, justifies my coming to love this particular person rather than someone else?
• What, if anything, justifies my continuing to love this particular person given the changes—both in him and me and in the overall circumstances—that have occurred since I began loving him?

These are importantly different questions. Velleman (1999), for example, thinks we can answer (1) by appealing to the fact that my beloved is a person and so has a rational nature, yet he thinks (2) and (3) have no answers: the best we can do is offer causal explanations for our loving particular people, a position echoed by Han (2021). Setiya (2014) similarly thinks (1) has an answer, but points not to the rational nature of persons but rather to the other’s humanity , where such humanity differs from personhood in that not all humans need have the requisite rational nature for personhood, and not all persons need be humans. And, as will become clear below , the distinction between (2) and (3) will become important in resolving puzzles concerning whether our beloveds are fungible, though it should be clear that (3) potentially raises questions concerning personal identity (which will not be addressed here).

It is important not to misconstrue these justificatory questions. Thomas (1991) , for example, rejects the idea that love can be justified: “there are no rational considerations whereby anyone can lay claim to another’s love or insist that an individual’s love for another is irrational” (p. 474). This is because, Thomas claims (p. 471):

no matter how wonderful and lovely an individual might be, on any and all accounts, it is simply false that a romantically unencumbered person must love that individual on pain of being irrational. Or, there is no irrationality involved in ceasing to love a person whom one once loved immensely, although the person has not changed.

However, as LaFollette (1996, p. 63) correctly points out,

reason is not some external power which dictates how we should behave, but an internal power, integral to who we are.… Reason does not command that we love anyone. Nonetheless, reason is vital in determining whom we love and why we love them.

That is, reasons for love are pro tanto : they are a part of the overall reasons we have for acting, and it is up to us in exercising our capacity for agency to decide what on balance we have reason to do or even whether we shall act contrary to our reasons. To construe the notion of a reason for love as compelling us to love, as Thomas does, is to misconstrue the place such reasons have within our agency. [ 17 ]

Most philosophical discussions of the justification of love focus on question (1) , thinking that answering this question will also, to the extent that we can, answer question (2) , which is typically not distinguished from (3) . The answers given to these questions vary in a way that turns on how the kind of evaluation implicit in love is construed. On the one hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of the bestowal of value (such as Telfer 1970–71; Friedman 1993; Singer 1994) typically claim that no justification can be given (cf. Section 4.2 ). As indicated above, this seems problematic, especially given the importance love can have both in our lives and, especially, in shaping our identities as persons. To reject the idea that we can love for reasons may reduce the impact our agency can have in defining who we are.

On the other hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of appraisal tend to answer the justificatory question by appeal to these valuable properties of the beloved. This acceptance of the idea that love can be justified leads to two further, related worries about the object of love.

The first worry is raised by Vlastos (1981) in a discussion Plato’s and Aristotle’s accounts of love. Vlastos notes that these accounts focus on the properties of our beloveds: we are to love people, they say, only because and insofar as they are objectifications of the excellences. Consequently, he argues, in doing so they fail to distinguish “ disinterested affection for the person we love” from “ appreciation of the excellences instantiated by that person ” (p. 33). That is, Vlastos thinks that Plato and Aristotle provide an account of love that is really a love of properties rather than a love of persons—love of a type of person, rather than love of a particular person—thereby losing what is distinctive about love as an essentially personal attitude. This worry about Plato and Aristotle might seem to apply just as well to other accounts that justify love in terms of the properties of the person: insofar as we love the person for the sake of her properties, it might seem that what we love is those properties and not the person. Here it is surely insufficient to say, as Solomon (1988, p. 154) does, “if love has its reasons, then it is not the whole person that one loves but certain aspects of that person—though the rest of the person comes along too, of course”: that final tagline fails to address the central difficulty about what the object of love is and so about love as a distinctly personal attitude. (Clausen 2019 might seem to address this worry by arguing that we love people not as having certain properties but rather as having “ organic unities ”: a holistic set of properties the value of each of which must be understood in essential part in terms of its place within that whole. Nonetheless, while this is an interesting and plausible way to think about the value of the properties of persons, that organic unity itself will be a (holistic) property held by the person, and it seems that the fundamental problem reemerges at the level of this holistic property: do we love the holistic unity rather than the person?)

The second worry concerns the fungibility of the object of love. To be fungible is to be replaceable by another relevantly similar object without any loss of value. Thus, money is fungible: I can give you two $5 bills in exchange for a $10 bill, and neither of us has lost anything. Is the object of love fungible? That is, can I simply switch from loving one person to loving another relevantly similar person without any loss? The worry about fungibility is commonly put this way: if we accept that love can be justified by appealing to properties of the beloved, then it may seem that in loving someone for certain reasons, I love him not simply as the individual he is, but as instantiating those properties. And this may imply that any other person instantiating those same properties would do just as well: my beloved would be fungible. Indeed, it may be that another person exhibits the properties that ground my love to a greater degree than my current beloved does, and so it may seem that in such a case I have reason to “trade up”—to switch my love to the new, better person. However, it seems clear that the objects of our loves are not fungible: love seems to involve a deeply personal commitment to a particular person, a commitment that is antithetical to the idea that our beloveds are fungible or to the idea that we ought to be willing to trade up when possible. [ 18 ]

In responding to these worries, Nozick (1989) appeals to the union view of love he endorses (see the section on Love as Union ):

The intention in love is to form a we and to identify with it as an extended self, to identify one’s fortunes in large part with its fortunes. A willingness to trade up, to destroy the very we you largely identify with, would then be a willingness to destroy your self in the form of your own extended self. [p. 78]

So it is because love involves forming a “we” that we must understand other persons and not properties to be the objects of love, and it is because my very identity as a person depends essentially on that “we” that it is not possible to substitute without loss one object of my love for another. However, Badhwar (2003) criticizes Nozick, saying that his response implies that once I love someone, I cannot abandon that love no matter who that person becomes; this, she says, “cannot be understood as love at all rather than addiction” (p. 61). [ 19 ]

Instead, Badhwar (1987) turns to her robust-concern account of love as a concern for the beloved for his sake rather than one’s own. Insofar as my love is disinterested — not a means to antecedent ends of my own—it would be senseless to think that my beloved could be replaced by someone who is able to satisfy my ends equally well or better. Consequently, my beloved is in this way irreplaceable. However, this is only a partial response to the worry about fungibility, as Badhwar herself seems to acknowledge. For the concern over fungibility arises not merely for those cases in which we think of love as justified instrumentally, but also for those cases in which the love is justified by the intrinsic value of the properties of my beloved. Confronted with cases like this, Badhwar (2003) concludes that the object of love is fungible after all (though she insists that it is very unlikely in practice). (Soble (1990, Chapter 13) draws similar conclusions.)

Nonetheless, Badhwar thinks that the object of love is “phenomenologically non-fungible” (2003, p. 63; see also 1987, p. 14). By this she means that we experience our beloveds to be irreplaceable: “loving and delighting in [one person] are not completely commensurate with loving and delighting in another” (1987, p. 14). Love can be such that we sometimes desire to be with this particular person whom we love, not another whom we also love, for our loves are qualitatively different. But why is this? It seems as though the typical reason I now want to spend time with Amy rather than Bob is, for example, that Amy is funny but Bob is not. I love Amy in part for her humor, and I love Bob for other reasons, and these qualitative differences between them is what makes them not fungible. However, this reply does not address the worry about the possibility of trading up: if Bob were to be at least as funny (charming, kind, etc.) as Amy, why shouldn’t I dump her and spend all my time with him?

A somewhat different approach is taken by Whiting (1991). In response to the first worry concerning the object of love, Whiting argues that Vlastos offers a false dichotomy: having affection for someone that is disinterested —for her sake rather than my own—essentially involves an appreciation of her excellences as such. Indeed, Whiting says, my appreciation of these as excellences, and so the underlying commitment I have to their value, just is a disinterested commitment to her because these excellences constitute her identity as the person she is. The person, therefore, really is the object of love. Delaney (1996) takes the complementary tack of distinguishing between the object of one’s love, which of course is the person, and the grounds of the love, which are her properties: to say, as Solomon does, that we love someone for reasons is not at all to say that we only love certain aspects of the person. In these terms, we might say that Whiting’s rejection of Vlastos’ dichotomy can be read as saying that what makes my attitude be one of disinterested affection—one of love—for the person is precisely that I am thereby responding to her excellences as the reasons for that affection. [ 20 ]

Of course, more needs to be said about what it is that makes a particular person be the object of love. Implicit in Whiting’s account is an understanding of the way in which the object of my love is determined in part by the history of interactions I have with her: it is she, and not merely her properties (which might be instantiated in many different people), that I want to be with; it is she, and not merely her properties, on whose behalf I am concerned when she suffers and whom I seek to comfort; etc. This addresses the first worry, but not the second worry about fungibility, for the question still remains whether she is the object of my love only as instantiating certain properties, and so whether or not I have reason to “trade up.”

To respond to the fungibility worry, Whiting and Delaney appeal explicitly to the historical relationship. [ 21 ] Thus, Whiting claims, although there may be a relatively large pool of people who have the kind of excellences of character that would justify my loving them, and so although there can be no answer to question (2) about why I come to love this rather than that person within this pool, once I have come to love this person and so have developed a historical relation with her, this history of concern justifies my continuing to love this person rather than someone else (1991, p. 7). Similarly, Delaney claims that love is grounded in “historical-relational properties” (1996, p. 346), so that I have reasons for continuing to love this person rather than switching allegiances and loving someone else. In each case, the appeal to both such historical relations and the excellences of character of my beloved is intended to provide an answer to question (3) , and this explains why the objects of love are not fungible.

There seems to be something very much right with this response. Relationships grounded in love are essentially personal, and it would be odd to think of what justifies that love to be merely non-relational properties of the beloved. Nonetheless, it is still unclear how the historical-relational propreties can provide any additional justification for subsequent concern beyond that which is already provided (as an answer to question (1) ) by appeal to the excellences of the beloved’s character (cf. Brink 1999). The mere fact that I have loved someone in the past does not seem to justify my continuing to love him in the future. When we imagine that he is going through a rough time and begins to lose the virtues justifying my initial love for him, why shouldn’t I dump him and instead come to love someone new having all of those virtues more fully? Intuitively (unless the change she undergoes makes her in some important sense no longer the same person he was), we think I should not dump him, but the appeal to the mere fact that I loved him in the past is surely not enough. Yet what historical-relational properties could do the trick? (For an interesting attempt at an answer, see Kolodny 2003 and also Howard 2019.)

If we think that love can be justified, then it may seem that the appeal to particular historical facts about a loving relationship to justify that love is inadequate, for such idiosyncratic and subjective properties might explain but cannot justify love. Rather, it may seem, justification in general requires appealing to universal, objective properties. But such properties are ones that others might share, which leads to the problem of fungibility. Consequently it may seem that love cannot be justified. In the face of this predicament, accounts of love that understand love to be an attitude towards value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal, between recognizing already existing value and creating that value (see Section 4.3 ) might seem to offer a way out. For once we reject the thought that the value of our beloveds must be either the precondition or the consequence of our love, we have room to acknowledge that the deeply personal, historically grounded, creative nature of love (central to bestowal accounts) and the understanding of love as responsive to valuable properties of the beloved that can justify that love (central to appraisal accounts) are not mutually exclusive (Helm 2010; Bagley 2015).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics , translated by W.D. Ross.
• Moseley, A., “ Philosophy of Love ,” in J. Fieser (ed.), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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• Published: 18 January 2024

Meanings and implications of love: review of the scholarship of love with a sub-Saharan focus

• Karin Steen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4176-4296 1 ,
• Alice Antoniou 2 ,
• Lehnke Lindemann 2 &
• Anne Jerneck 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  129 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Development studies

Love, as an emotion, binds people together in social practices that are contingent on culture, historical processes, and social trends. As such, love is a perfect site to study how people interact and to understand how power, equality, and sustainability play out in human relations. Despite its importance and much attention, love as a concept and form of interaction is not fully understood, especially not across cultures. In our research, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, we show that alongside other emotions, love matters not only for passion in life or for wellbeing but also for improved resource use, increased gender equality, and, subsequently, higher food security and sovereignty – all signs of sustainability. While love is understood as a universal human phenomenon, definitions and expressions of love vary across time and cultures. Since love drives human interaction in many intertwined ways there is no single best way to define it. Yet, scholars have advanced the theory of love by identifying at least 40 major distinct but interdependent ‘love constructs’ fitting into the four main dimensions of affection, closeness, compassion, and commitment (Karandashev et al. 2022 ). In parallel to this and based on our review of the scholarship of love in a subset of 45 relevant academic articles from an 80-article systematic literature search of ‘love’ we find four core (and partly overlapping) types of how to speak about love as an expression and experience. These include: 1/ contextual love influenced by culture, space, and time; 2/ romantic and compassionate love; 3/ transactional love; 4/ post-humanist perspectives and ‘harmony love’. Finally, we examine love in relation to power; love-related emotions; and how understandings of love and culture impact gender relations.

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Introduction.

Love is universal but contextual. Everyone who has been ‘in love’ knows that it matters (Sayer, 2011 ) and how it feels, often a fluttering, engaging feeling. Although the literature is brimming with illustrations (Sayer, 2011 ) and conceptual attempts to capture the essence of love, it often escapes clear scholarly definitions. It may be discarded as laughable, embarrassingly personal, or unimportant to study (Cole and Thomas, 2009 ; Sayer, 2011 ; Swidler, 2001 ), but love, passion, fear, and other affective dimensions of being with one another are increasingly recognised as fundamental in understanding development, social vulnerability, and thereby also sustainability (Clouser, 2016 ; Sayer, 2011 ; Wright, 2012 ).

Although culture is constitutive, it still allows multiple options and repertoires to be mobilised for various aims and purposes including social change (Swidler, 2001 ). In intimate contracts, spouses relate to each other in various forms of love and power (and other emotions). By unravelling how they think, speak and act (Schmidt, 2008 ) on love, one can get closer in identifying and explaining aspects of material and immaterial power. For that, as described below, we need to conceptualise love in ways that allow a fertile and multifaceted analysis.

Love and other emotions

Although emotional energy, such as love, drives much of human interaction (Collins, 2005 ) it is a non-obvious subject under scrutiny (Collins, 1992 ) in disciplines ranging from biology to anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Emotions and emotional energy including affection, desire, fear, hope, and love are expressed through social and cultural practices (Collins, 2005 ; Wright, 2012 ) ‘that bind people to another’ (Cole and Thomas, 2009 , 2) and that are contingent on context, culture, historical processes, social trends, and the exercise of power (Bauman, 2003 ).

Relevant research in feminist geography emphasises that love and affection in ‘relationships of intimacy’ (Morrison et al. 2012 ) must be held up to scrutiny to unpack power in sexual and love relationships. To exemplify, love is manifested as a dynamic power relation in intimate contracts with wider social implications (Collins, 2005 ) and is an effective entry point to capture issues of power, gender and identity including the negotiations of those. The study of love as an arena for power could thus show how emotions, such as love in intimate contracts, influence gendered resource management. For that setting, marriage, as an intimate relation, is best seen as a social institution that both reproduces gender inequality and mediates social change (Jackson, 2012 ).

On an individual scale, the emotional energy in love drives our motivation, intention, and action. The effects of love on a person can be defined in writer Jeanette Winterson’s ( 2007 , 122) words: ‘I say I’m in love with her. What does that mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling’. This echoes our understanding of what the power in love may imply in terms of imagination as well as in negotiation and compromises of relations in everyday practices and strategies; thereby referring to both expressions and experiences of love in relationships. But while personal aspects are central, it is necessary to keep social aspects in mind. To clarify this, we draw parallels to other feminist debates. For long, feminist thinkers have argued that work and labour in both the private and the public sphere should be identified, valued, and analysed as interdependent. Similarly, black feminist scholars of love-politics seek to interpret ‘love’ not only (or mainly) as an individual and personal experience but also as a social and collective concern and a subject for justice theory (see Nash, 2020 ). Such views allow us to challenge the focus on the private self and sphere and reorient it towards the public social world beyond self-hood (Nash, 2020 ). In line with that, life choices (including love) could, in the famous words of Audre Lorde, be illuminated by the idea that the personal is political ( 1984 , 113).

Focusing on the interaction between individual and collective scales, our mapping here reveals understandings of how love, affection, and similar emotions can influence human interactions in varied forms of relationships, and in extension, how that may impact sustainable development in sub-Saharan African agricultural settings.

Love, gender, and sustainability

Gendered access to land and power in sub-Saharan farming societies is widely studied, whereas the division, provision, or outcome of labour in this context is not. Even less is known about embodied and affective dimensions of food production, reproductive work, and household food security (Steen, 2011 ). This means that gender-sensitive sustainability studies must address material, immaterial and emotional challenges, here with a focus on emotions in nature-society relations and on feelings of affection such as love between spouses in intimate relations. Sustainability is here defined broadly in terms of its three main types of dynamics – human-environmental, intergenerational, and intersectional interaction and outcome.

Research on gender in societies where women depend on men for productive resources focuses more on gendered control of land and other productive resources than on immaterial resources such as labour, intra marriage dynamics, or emotions. Empirical and theoretical research and representations of love in sub-Saharan Africa are still scant, especially outside African scholarship (Cole and Thomas, 2009 ; Thomas and Cole, 2009 ) and the failure to engage in research on love in sub-Saharan Africa is partly a product of colonial history. Europeans justified their domination in various ways such as by depicting African people as hypersexual or lacking the emotional or intellectual depth required for nobler sentiments like love (Thomas and Cole, 2009 ; Tocco, 2010 ). To avoid falling into the trap of reiterating still-pervasive depictions of African intimacy as reducible to sexual urge, biological reproduction, or economic survival, we must engage more profoundly in research on love in this context (Tocco, 2010 ) and do so to highlight how it is expressed and experienced (see Steen and Jerneck, forthcoming). While doing so, we also acknowledge that romantic love is not necessarily a Western construct, but a universal emotion that is historically and contextually contingent (see Karandashev, 2015 and Karandashev et al. 2022 for further discussion).

In this article, we map out how love is understood (in different contexts) and how it influences human, and gendered, interaction. While our main focus is intimate contracts, we will address other sites of love occasionally. Below, we describe our search methods for the literature review and the material that we generated. After that we present, discuss, and compare findings. Finally, we sum up and seek to draw some conclusions.

Methods and material

The starting point refers to our interest in how love, and similar emotions, may influence sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa, here understood more specifically as increased food security and food sovereignty with due attention to socio-environmental conditions and concerns. While the first question guided our literature review – How is love defined and studied in the scholarship of love research? – it was mainly aimed at shedding light on the second and main question ‘What does love mean across sub-Saharan African cultures? The ambition was to bring sub-Saharan scholarship on love in conversation with the broader field of research. For the literature review we developed a list of key terms to be checked in titles, keywords, and abstracts (Table 1 ) and limited the search to English language texts including book chapters, conference proceedings, peer-reviewed journal articles and review articles published until July 2021. Primarily we relied upon the search engine Web of Science later cross-checked with Google Scholar to ensure relevant coverage and resulting in a catalogue of 80 texts.

In the second round we coded the introduction and conclusion in the 80 texts to determine their relevance – high, medium, or low – according to six emerging clusters, which resulted in 45 highly relevant texts. The twelve categories represented six clusters, with various sub-themes (Table 2 ), each treated as a column in the literature tracking table. We extracted relevant information from each article and entered as text in Excel, which yielded data in 1360 cells, including some labelled ‘n/a’ or ‘not specified.’

Finally, we systematically analysed the completed literature tracking table by adding a synopsis of each article and column. The column content was then systematically colour-coded across the data set. Ultimately, information for each thematic category was arranged horizontally in Excel and details for the 45 selected texts arranged side by side for ease of viewing and preliminary visualisations.

Results and discussion

Overarching insights.

Love is researched in many disciplines. In Web of Science, we found most categories in the humanities, such as art and literature, and in behavioural sciences, such as psychology, but fewer hits in family studies, healthcare science services, history, religion, sociology, or ‘social science other topics.’ The overarching insight from the survey is that love is best understood, not as a single, universal concept, but as a vastly diverse and contextually specific social phenomenon. This finding echoes other studies in the field of love research since the 1960s (e.g. Karandashev, 2015 ; Karandashev et al. 2022 ).

To reflect diversity in the literature on love, we identified four core (and partly overlapping) types of speaking about love as an expression and experience: 1/ contextual love influenced by culture, space, and time; 2/ romantic and compassionate love; 3/ transactional love; 4/ post-humanist perspectives and ‘harmony love’. While the intention was to make distinct themes there is obviously certain overlap. Finally, we examine love in relation to power; love-related emotions; and how understandings of love and culture impact gender relations.

Contextual love: influenced by culture, space, and time

Love is often spoken of as a universal feeling. However, in the literature, love is widely agreed upon to be contextually specific – thus, a complex, multi-dimensional and far from universal feeling (Bhana, 2013a ). Beall and Sternberg ( 1995 , 433) state that ‘Love is a social construction that reflects its time period because it serves an important function in a culture’.

During the Enlightenment, love was understood as a rational experience only to become an uncontrollable passion during 18 th and 19 th century Romanticism. Later on, love is said to be defined and experienced according to the context. Here culture defines what is considered moral or immoral in relation to love and how thoughts, feelings, and actions are associated with and follow from that (Beall and Sternberg, 1995 ). Culture also influences what is considered desirable and attractive. For example, in the 1990s Beall and Sternberg described how the individualistic culture associated with the US and the West often values the explicit expression of emotions, including love, and that of ‘finding oneself’. In contrast, Chinese culture was described as valuing relationships, meaning that people were more likely to define themselves by a relational role such as father, sister, or spouse (ibid) rather than only in individual terms (Karandashev, 2015 ). Even when love is similarly defined across settings, its manifestation will depend on culture (Eugénie, 2016 ). Bhana ( 2013b ) further concludes that since love is socially and culturally bound it will be experienced, felt, and enacted depending on gender and how gender is perceived and expressed in a particular context.

Romantic, compassionate, and confluent love – how to reach emotional fulfilment?

In the reviewed literature, we identified a variety of types of love expressions. Again, this illustrates the complexity of love, as an emotion and a relational experience varying across cultures, space, and time. Broadly speaking, loving is commonly accompanied by a sense of ‘closeness, belonging, and an attachment to a significant other’ (Osei-Tutu et al. 2018 , 83). Depending on the nature of this significant other , love expressions may be distinguished into romantic, parental, compassionate, or altruistic love, while levels of intimacy, passion and commitment diverge (ibid.).

In the surveyed literature, the idea of romantic love is construed as predominately ‘heterosexual, monogamous and permanent’, as suggested by the familiar ‘living happily ever after’ or ‘one true love’ narratives (Vincent and McEwen, 2006 , 39). Central to this is a fixed male-female binary, which serves the purpose of each partner ‘completing the other as a result of the inherent separation between them’ (Vincent and McEwen, 2006 ). In other words, the ‘flawed individual’ is made whole (Giddens, 1992 , 45 in ibid). Importantly, romantic love perpetuates stereotypical versions of femininity and masculinity. Supported by Simone de Beauvoir, love holds a different meaning to men and women ( 1953 , 642). Accordingly, men are portrayed by de Beauvoir as remaining ‘sovereign subjects’ within love relationships and are less likely to place their love affairs in the context of long-term visions of perfect harmony (ibid.). Contrastingly, women are represented to be consumed by love and the idea of finding their significant other or soulmate. Vincent and McEwen stress that romantic love has at its heart a highly ‘restricted mode of femininity’, which entails that women suffer and endure pain in the name of love ( 2006 , 41). The embodiment of this type of romantic feminised love refers to jealousy, breaking up, followed by a passionate reconciliation (ibid). Vu ( 2020 ) and Baum ( 1971 ) stress that a worldwide rise in individualism in times of neoliberalism compels young people to increasingly choose marriages based on this ideal of love and romance.

This understanding of romantic love is becoming increasingly challenged by a vast emergent body of queer literature. Doan et al. ( 2015 ) explore to what extent the expression of emotions of love differs across social groups. Specifically, the authors investigate whether American heterosexuals differentially attribute love to lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples (Doan et al. 2015 , 401). Underlying their investigation, is the assumption that social norms and cultural standards play a role in the expression and experience of emotions. They find that stigma and societal prejudice may lead to a lower level of granted legitimacy and recognition of a loving homosexual relationship, which in turn affects the couple’s level of public expression of their emotions (ibid. 406). In fact, ‘nowhere could the queer reader find a romance that depicted a queer couple with any hope for future fulfilment’ (Barot, 2016 ). While queer theory has had something to say about sex, its perspectives on love were entirely omitted until recently, according to Halperin ( 2019 , 396). Love was seemingly ‘too intimately bound up with institutions and discourses of the “normal”, too deeply embedded in the standard narratives of romance, to be available for “queering”’ (ibid). As a consequence, the LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, 2-spirit queer questioning, and intersex) community has been denied access to love, both as a representation and a form of life (ibid, 397). This adds another dimension to the struggles related to the political recognition and oppression of LGBTQI+ subjectivities.

Exploring the history of romantic love in sub-Saharan Africa, Megan Vaughan ( 2009 ) illustrates that the nature of romantic love is subject to much contemporary debate across the African continent. Romantic love is often construed as a Western, ‘alien import’ at odds with African tradition. While Vaughan demonstrates that contemporary African discourses often make the association between romantic love and modernity, her findings also reveal that some pre-colonial or ‘traditional’ African societies and cultures have a rich vocabulary for feelings and emotions, typically ascribed to ‘Western’ perceptions of passionate desire and romantic love. For instance, the Taita of Kenya used words for lust and infatuation , in relation to irresponsible feelings felt by the young for each other, while romantic love is used when passion is combined with enduring affection (Vaughan, 2009 , 11). A focus group study with young South African males yielded similar results (Manyaapelo et al. 2019 ). The participants stressed that the isiZulu expression for ‘I love you’, as opposed to ‘I like you’, is only used by men when they want to propose a romantic relationship to a woman (ibid, 5). Similarly, traditional Swahili songs revolved around passionate love poetry, full of loss and longing, and of unrequited love. Importantly, Vaughan stresses that love, across African societies, takes forms that are far richer and more diverse than can be allowed for by the restrictive ideals of romantic love (Vaughan, 2009 , 23). Karandashev and others (Karandashev, 2015 ; Karandashev et al. 2022 ) confirm that romantic love is not solely a Western construct.

Osei-Tutu et al. ( 2018 ) investigated love expressions among Ghanaian Christians. In collectivist communities of sub-Saharan Africa, love is typically associated with expressions of affect towards others including social relationships and material provisioning. In addition, it involves a deep commitment to sharing, reciprocity, fidelity, and exclusivity in social relationships. Conducting interviews with over 60 participants, Osei-Tutu et al. found that communal and maintenance-oriented love appears to be the dominant love expression among Ghanaian Christians. A distinction between agape and eros love was identified, the former being a ‘universal type defined as a concern or regard for people of all sorts’, and the latter being defined as a ‘desire for something or someone’. While agape is centred on the benefits of the other person (including children), eros is self-oriented and is directed towards benefits to the self. Agape love was the dominant type of love expressed by the Ghanaian Christian participants, while they often quoted biblical perspectives or the words of God. Additionally, Vaughan identified three major understandings of love in her interviews: to meet someone’s needs, to help people in need, and to care for someone. Thus, the overall expressions of love among the respondents were communally oriented, which is expressed primarily through the distribution of basic material resources, taking care of family obligations and the needs of neighbours. In short, in collectivist cultures, love arguably captures feelings of responsibility for and care of others. This type of love is mentioned in the literature as companionate, or altruistic love. It is juxtaposed to the notion of romantic love explored above, which centres around the individual’s experience of how love (and infatuation) makes one feel.

In line with this, it can be useful to refer to how sociologist Anthony Giddens ( 1992 , 117) proposes the idea of confluent love as the alternative to romantic love. This understanding of love is rooted in equality and the necessity of emotional involvement and commitment between partners. Importantly, this type of love is not oriented towards permanence, but rather towards the emotional fulfilment of each during the time of engagements.

Transactional love – is it love?

Transactional love examines the interconnectedness of love and financial support to explore whether – and if so, also explain how – emotions are associated with economic benefits. While the West generally rejects the interconnectedness of love and provision due to the Western conception of love as a spontaneous and private emotion, Cole argues that material support is involved in Western romantic relationships (Bhana, 2013a ). However, she states that the connection between love and provision is often more explicit in African romantic relationships where poverty is more prevalent. Similarly, Bhana addresses the connection between love and provision, stating that ‘money and love are not separate issues but rather entangled in feelings, desires and ideals of love’ (Bhana, 2013b , 6).

To take some examples from sub-Saharan Africa, Jackson ( 2012 ) traces the characteristics of Shona marriages in Zimbabwe from the colonial period to the 1980s and demonstrates how changes in culture and marriage customs influenced the connection between love and provision. She found that with the weakening of kin relations, the bride price increasingly became a man’s responsibility rather than his family’s. In response, women sought men in financially secure positions as they knew they could not depend on his family for support. The weakening of kin relationships also increased women’s autonomy. In households that were separate from their in-laws, women had more power over their husband’s finances. Additionally, the decreasing frequency and importance of paying a bride price provided women greater ability to leave the marriage with less financial repercussions and greater rights over their children (ibid.).

In her study on love and provision among financially disadvantaged youth in Tanzania, Stark ( 2017 ) found that men who are poor felt disempowered compared to wealthier men, while women felt exploited by men that could not satisfactorily provide financially. Stark defines transactional intimacy as ‘a continuum of relationships with sex work at one extreme, and provision of needs by a primary male partner (permanent boyfriend or husband) at the other’ (Stark, 2017 , 571). Stark chooses to use the term ‘transactional intimacy’ over ‘transactional sex’ to emphasise the emotions involved in the long-term relationships she studied. Due to conceptions of love that include the male as a provider, men who are poor described feeling they could not get married if they did not have enough resources to support themselves and their spouse. A few men allowed their girlfriends to have intimate relations with other men as a means of earning money. Men also described having multiple girlfriends for fear that one of their girlfriends would leave them for a wealthier man. Many women in the study expressed conflicting views on transactional love. Women described understanding gifts as an expression of love; yet they also spoke of ‘clean love’, a love that is free from material relations.

In a similar qualitative study among sex workers in rural Ghana, Onyango et al. ( 2019 ) explored the relationship dynamics between sex workers and their intimate partners. The authors found that most relationships between sex workers and their intimate partners were mutual, reciprocal, and transactional, while many of the participants (both male and female) described their relationships in terms of friendship, love, and a hopeful future (ibid, 31). Both men and women expressed that they support each other financially, share resources and support one another emotionally (ibid, 38).

These studies demonstrate the complex connectedness between love and provision. While the connection may be more apparent in sub-Saharan African relationships, this should not be viewed as inherently negative (Thomas and Cole, 2009 ). Love and affection can coexist within transactional relationships as demonstrated by Cole’s finding showing that bride-wealth may include an affective dimension demonstrating a man’s love for his fiancé and her value (ibid.).

Post-humanist perspective and ‘harmony love’

The capacity to love and to form an emotional attachment is a fundamental human condition, according to González Morales ( 2019 ). He stresses that ‘the human condition refers insurmountably to love, which because of it and in it, is what makes humans what we are’ (ibid, 6). Similarly, love is presented as the ‘essence of our lives’ and as the enabling factor for achieving spiritual growth and happiness. The primary objective of spiritual growth is to improve ourselves and to achieve love: Love for yourself (self-love), love for others, and love for other living beings (non-humans) (Pličanič, 2020 , 407). An emergent body of literature explores love and emotional attachment that goes beyond human-to-human interaction, and instead extends to other non-human beings.

Drawing from Donna Haraway, Engelmann ( 2019 ) defines a post-humanist love as a love that is not limited to human entities. Instead, love is the foundational principle of awareness, interconnectedness and situatedness shared by all beings. (Affectionate) love, then acts as an affirmative action towards all living entities and is the integrating factor between all species. Similarly, Blom et al. ( 2020 ) stress that love is the most powerful of emotions, which has the capacity to heal, as it is the innate ability to feel with one’s heart. The authors propose a post-humanist perspective of love as an outward emotion, towards nature, which provides a way of ‘knowing nature’. It is about complementing nature to become one, through our senses and inner-knowing. This kind of post-humanist love, then, channels our connection and appreciation for the natural world and as such can be considered one of the drivers for the restoration and sustainability of Earth’s natural health and beauty.

The concept of ‘harmony love’ is introduced by Suvorov and Suvorova ( 2016 , 2015 ) as the supreme moral law, grounded in ethics and peace. Love is understood as the capability to understand the problems of another person and to go against one’s interests for the sake of others, and to make the joy of others their own. Love is a creative force which is the foundation for the ethical and moral perfection of human potential. The authors argue that this principle of harmony love may be a driver for holistic sustainable development, taking both society and nature into consideration.

Both the post-humanist perspectives on love for nature and the concept of harmony love argue that love holds a transformative potential to drive sustainable development (Engelmann, 2019 ; González Morales, 2019 ; Pličanič, 2020 ; Suvorov and Suvorova, 2015 , 2016 ). Underlying this, is the requirement that humanity’s love for the natural world be rekindled. Humans across all cultures must once again learn to connect with and love nature in order to protect and nurture the natural environment.

Love, power, and inequality

At the household level, love is often analysed in terms of division of labour, resource management, and power. For instance, Lambrecht ( 2016 ) explores the process of negotiating access to land and resources among marital partners in Ghana. Her findings reveal that community leadership and land ownership, as well as resource access are highly gendered and largely male-dominated, with merely 10 percent of agricultural parcels being owned by individual female farmers (ibid, 2016, 188). Importantly, access to land and land ownership are not in fact negotiated at the individual or household level, but are instead deeply embedded in social norms, rules and perceptions about men’s and women’s roles, responsibility and capabilities in their households, families, and communities. According to Lambrecht, these societal expectations rest on the assumption that husbands ‘love, lead and provide’, thus revealing an explicit imbalance in power relations (ibid, 2016, 192).

As love is culturally bound, it is greatly impacted by societal gender relations. Gregoratto ( 2017 ) states exploitation can occur within a romantic relationship and is often rooted in social factors such as race, gender, and cultural definitions of love. For example, when love is defined as unconditional and selfless, and women are expected to be caring and sensitive, relations can end with the labour exploitation of women in unpaid domestic work. A study on sex and love within marriage in Zimbabwe explored how power is displayed (Mugweni et al. 2012 ). In the study, some of the men interviewed declared sex with their spouse as their right because they had paid a bride price. Some men also described forcing their partners to have sex when they did not want it, as a way to teach their wives to be obedient and submissive. Many of the women who experienced intimate partner violence within marriage did not report it due to a taboo surrounding sex and marriage, as well as fear of losing their husband’s financial support if they reported it. However, other women in the study reported withholding sex until they received what they desired from their spouse, for example a material item, thus an example of transactional love (ibid). In conclusion, sex was used in different ways by both genders to assert power.

Jackson asserts ‘conjugality is a social relationship which may either deepen, or diminish, the effects of wider patriarchal environments’ (Jackson, 2012 , 43). This is an acknowledgement that relationships do not exist in a vacuum and are influenced by their context. However, relationships are not bound to replicating cultural norms. Spouses have agency within a relationship to negotiate relations and power. Similarly, Bhana states ‘To claim that love is a bond of inequality simplifies relations of intimacy and ignores the possibilities of tenderness and agency despite the widespread forms of inequalities’ (Bhana, 2013b , 6).

Love-related emotions

As definitions of love differ across cultures and contexts, so do the emotions expressed and associated with it. Rostami et al. ( 2014 , 697) stress that the ability to distinguish and express emotions, increases the intimacy and sense of security, heightens the ambiguity tolerance in individuals and is essential for the continuation and preservation of a successful marriage. In short, the expression and interpretation of emotions is central to love and social relationships. Vincent and McEwen ( 2006 ) distinguish between the set of emotions associated with romantic love, as opposed to confluent or companionate love. Romantic love is heavily dominated by feelings of heartache and pain, since it is ‘natural for heroines to suffer, to endure pain, in the name of love’. The lived demonstration of this kind of love is through high levels of jealousy, breaking up, and passionate reconciliation. Romantic love, according to the authors, is necessarily irrational, meaning that lovers are often unable to comprehend their own feelings and emotions. Juxtaposed against this, the set of emotions associated with confluent love involves equality, commitment, and mutuality between the partners, which grants the emotional fulfilment of the couple.

Vaughan ( 2009 ) asserts that emotions are socially and symbolically produced. They can be both feelings and meanings and are both individual and social in nature. Importantly, emotions are influenced by culture, meaning that the salience of expressions of love by individuals and among communities differs cross-culturally. In his investigation, Vaughan contrasts the sets of emotions associated with romantic love within societies in sub-Saharan Africa with Western ideas of love. She found that in Sub-Saharan African societies, passion, lust, and infatuation are expressed and interpreted as emotions equated with youth and irresponsibility. ‘True’ love or companionate marriages, on the other hand, are understood to be guided by mutual feelings of trust, respect, and moral responsibility. This stands in stark contrast with Western emotional expressions of romantic love which often include passion, desire, and pain. Osei-Tutu et al.’s ( 2018 ) investigation of the expression and meaning of love in Ghana yields similar results. They contend that individualistic societies tend to value passionate love more, while collective cultures tend to value companionate love more. Passionate love centres around the experience of how love makes one feel, while companionate love captures feelings for and care for others. There may of course be exceptions to these rather generalised views.

Ruark et al. ( 2014 ) stress that there is a gendered difference within the emotional experience of love. Conducting in-depth interviews with 28 Swasi men and women, the authors found that women are typically motivated by love, emotional attachment, and loneliness, while men are motivated to enter a relationship by lust, sexual desire, love and attachment or alcohol use. Men did recognise a distinction between sexual relationships and real (more encompassing) relationships, the latter of which involved love and emotional attachment, while the former is mostly driven by lust and alcohol use. While emotions of love, such as affection and tenderness are typically attributed to ‘femininity’, women also expressed strong emotions when discussing their partners’ infidelity. This alludes to the assumption that social and gender norms, as well as cultural standards play a role in the expression and experience of emotions. Doan et al. ( 2015 ) explore to what extent the expression of emotions of love differs across social groups, in this case homosexual and heterosexual couples. They find that stigma and societal prejudice leads to a lower level of granted legitimacy and recognition of a loving homosexual relationship, which in turn affects the couple’s level of public expression of their emotions.

To conclude, emotions are at the core of romantic or social relationships and are inextricably bound to expressions of love. Emotions associated with love differ historically and cross-culturally, are gender-specific and shaped by societal norms and range from positive feelings such as affection, care, tenderness, or commitment to negative feelings of pain, jealousy, or irrationality. Yet, findings may have to be further investigated – and new insights generated.

Gendered love and labour

As stated above, Ruark et al. ( 2014 ) argue that there is a gendered difference within the emotional experience of love. Men did recognise a distinction between sexual relationships and real relationships, the latter of which involved love and emotional attachment, while the former is mostly driven by lust and alcohol use. Women expressed strong emotions when discussing their partners’ infidelity, which often materialised in sadness or anger (ibid, 136).

Gender norms can influence how a heterosexual couple divides their unpaid domestic labour and income generating labour. A study in Tanzania and Zimbabwe found that men who wanted to provide practical support to their wives by assisting with domestic work were heavily stigmatised by other community members who would say that these men are completing a woman’s work or have been given a love potion by their wife (Comrie-Thomson et al. 2020 ). It was more acceptable for men to provide assistance when their spouse was ill, or to phrase it as a favour to their spouse, rather than that of a regular duty. Nonetheless, both men and women reported their marriages were ‘happier, more loving, more peaceful and more mutually supportive following increased male partner practical support’ (Comrie-Thomson et al. 2020 , 731).

While a number of studies demonstrate that a household spends more on items such as food and child education when women control a larger proportion of household assets (Fafchamps et al. 2009 ; Lachaud, 1998 ; Quisumbing and Maluccio, 2003 ), Kevane ( 2012 ) is critical of this assumption and shows how factors beyond gender could be contributing to the observed outcome. For example, this may be impacted by decisions of who to marry, especially in situations where men and women with similar views on spending and consumption choose to marry each other. Similarly, farming practices that appear to be determined by gender within a household may be more influenced by external factors. A study on farming practices in Southern Ghana showed women’s plots of land were less invested in than their spouses because their claim to the land was more insecure due to patriarchal allocation of land practices by village elders. In areas where women only have secondary rights to the land through a male relative, it can be more sensible to invest more resources and time in their spouse’s land which is securely held (ibid) (Steen, 2011 shows similar examples from a Zimbabwean context). These studies demonstrate how context and culture influence gender relations and the division of labour within a household.

Conclusions

The article brings a comprehensive and applied perspective on love, as a construction of society based on intra and interpersonal relationships. In this systematic review, we set out to examine how love, as a study site of social interaction, may be adequately understood and how it influences power, sustainability, and gender relations. After reviewing the literature, we may now conclude that despite its universal importance, love as a concept and a form of human interaction is still under-examined, not yet fully understood and thus deserving more attention in both in-depth studies and more comparative cross-cultural research.

In the reviewed literature, which comprises a catalogue of 80 selected texts with a focus on a subset of 45 articles, we identified four core types of love. First, love is conceptually specific as it is influenced by culture, space, and time. Second, the genres of romantic, compassionate, and confluent love, which are commonly construed as Western ideals, could also be identified across sub-Saharan African cultures. Third, transactional love describes the interconnection of love and material provision or financial support and was the most visible type of love in sub-Saharan African relationships. Finally, post-humanist perspectives of love are not limited to human entities, but instead constitutes an affirmative action towards all living entities as the primary integrating factor. Such love may be further explored in relation to themes such as ‘love of the environment and nature’ – also in the context of agricultural settings in sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on this systematic categorisation of how love is best understood, we also examined love in relation to power and a range of diverse emotions and gender relations with a specific focus on labour seen as a resource next to land in many sub-Saharan settings. Especially at the household level, exploitation can occur within a spousal relationship. Because of this, studying love in relation to the division of labour, resource management and power, reveals how spouses actively negotiate their power relationship. Furthermore, we clearly noticed that the expression and interpretation of emotions is central to social relations and love. The array of emotions associated with love, which we identified in the literature, largely corresponds with the distinct love genres presented above, and are influenced by culture. Similarly, understanding how love and culture impact gender relations may help reveal the division of a couple’s unpaid domestic labour and income generating labour.

To conclude here, we made the case that love not only matters for emotional wellbeing and interpersonal relations, but also influences resource use and division, gender equality, power and sustainability understood in human-environmental, intersectional, and intergenerational terms which we have also explored in further studies (Steen and Jerneck, forthcoming). The findings from the literature review have revealed that by examining love, our understanding of power relations, as well as negotiations in spousal relationships may be enhanced, as love directly relates to the division and use of labour (in farming households and mainly with a focus on women’s labour) and other resources. The scholarship of love, then, delivers novel perspectives and insights into gender inequalities, and in turn, contributes – or may contribute – to women empowerment.

Beyond the household level, we reviewed a broad body of literature of diverse, cross-cultural representations of love. On this basis, we found that love is best understood as a universal phenomenon, which is also culturally and socially-bound, as well as contextually specific. Importantly, the preconceived idea that ‘romantic love’ originated in Western or modern societies and can be reduced to a mere ‘imported good’ across non-Western cultures and societies, has been disproved, thus also echoing findings in other reviews (Karandashev, 2015 ). Simultaneously, we demonstrated that the complex connectedness between love and provision, introduced as ‘transactional love’, which was found to be more prominently discussed in the context of sub-Saharan African relationships, can coexist with emotions of love, passion, and affection. The diversity of conceptions of love, both in its expression and experience, was further exemplified by the post-humanist perspectives, or ‘harmony love’. Resting on the assumption that love is not limited to human entities, but instead extends far beyond it, love may be construed as the foundational principle of awareness, interconnectedness and situatedness shared by all beings. This ultimately channels humanity’s connectivity with nature and the world and may therefore drive the restoration and protection of Earth’s biodiversity. Provided that humanity’s love for the natural world is rekindled, love holds a vast transformative potential to promote sustainability in terms of protecting and conserving the natural environment and driving climate change action.

In addition to providing a systematic overview of the scholarship of love, we set out specifically in this article to examine what love means across sub-Saharan African cultures and societies as exemplified by the cases and examples we found. Out of the 80 reviewed articles, only 20 articles explicitly investigated love in an African setting. This indicates that African conceptualisations and experiences of love remain underrepresented in the debate on the theory of love. The article is an attempt to challenge this as we not only presented the richness of love (and its interpretations and expressions) in sub-Sahara Africa, but also illuminated the implications and contributions that the scholarship of love can make to improved gender equality as one aspect of sustainability. Finally, the overwhelming majority of the articles and texts that we reviewed either completely omitted or barely discussed queer perspectives on love. While there is a growing, emergent body of queer literature, we noticed the gap in the scholarship of love to fully encompass queer experiences.

As regards calls for further research, first we suggest combining literature and research on polygany and polyamorous love in order to enrich the understanding of the relationships between love, sex, power and gender. Second, we would encourage scholars to enrich the theory of love through cross-cultural investigations, profound ethnographies, in-depth cases, and wider discursive studies from where to draw further insights that may illuminate and advance the theory of love and the contribute to empower sub-Saharan smallscale farmers.

Data availability

As this is a literature review, no original data were generated or analysed.

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Steen, K., Antoniou, A., Lindemann, L. et al. Meanings and implications of love: review of the scholarship of love with a sub-Saharan focus. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 129 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02504-1

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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Towards a comprehensive theory of love: the quadruple theory.

• Independent Researcher, San Diego, CA, United States

Scholars across an array of disciplines including social psychologists have been trying to explain the meaning of love for over a century but its polysemous nature has made it difficult to fully understand. In this paper, a quadruple framework of attraction, resonance or connection, trust, and respect are proposed to explain the meaning of love. The framework is used to explain how love grows and dies and to describe brand love, romantic love, and parental love. The synergistic relationship between the factors and how their variations modulate the intensity or levels of love are discussed.

Introduction

Scholars across an array of disciplines have tried to define the meaning and nature of love with some success but questions remain. Indeed, it has been described as a propensity to think, feel, and behave positively toward another ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986 ). However, the application of this approach has been unsuccessful in all forms of love ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Some social psychologists have tried to define love using psychometric techniques. Robert Sternberg Triangular Theory of Love and Clyde and Susan Hendrick’s Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) are notable attempts to employ the psychometric approach ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986 ; Sternberg, 1986 ). However, data analysis from the administration of the LAS, Sternberg’s scale and the Passionate Love Scale by Hatfield and Sprecher’s (1986) found a poor association with all forms of love ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1989 ). Other studies have found a poor correlation between these and other love scales with different types of love ( Whitley, 1993 ; Sternberg, 1997 ; Masuda, 2003 ; Graham and Christiansen, 2009 ).

In recent years, the neuropsychological approach to study the nature of love has gained prominence. Research has compared the brain activity of people who were deeply in love while viewing a picture of their partner and friends of the same age using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and concluded that there is a specialized network of the brain involved in love ( Bartels and Zeki, 2000 ). Indeed, several lines of investigation using fMRI have described a specialized area of the brain mediating maternal love ( Noriuchi et al., 2008 ; Noriuchi and Kikuchi, 2013 ) and, fMRI studies have implicated multiple brain systems particularly the reward system in romantic love ( Aron et al., 2005 ; Fisher et al., 2005 , 2010 ; Beauregard et al., 2009 ). Brain regions including ventral tegmental area, anterior insula, ventral striatum, and supplementary motor area have been demonstrated to mediate social and material reward anticipation ( Gu et al., 2019 ). Although brain imaging provides a unique insight into the nature of love, making sense of the psychological significance or inference of fMRI data is problematic ( Cacioppo et al., 2003 ).

Also, there has been growing interests in the neurobiology of love. Indeed, evidence suggests possible roles for oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, cortisol, morphinergic system, and nerve growth factor in love and attachment ( Esch and Stefano, 2005 ; De Boer et al., 2012 ; Seshadri, 2016 ; Feldman, 2017 ). However, in many cases, definite proof is still lacking and the few imaging studies on love are limited by selection bias on the duration of a love affair, gender and cultural differences ( De Boer et al., 2012 ).

So, while advances have been made in unraveling the meaning of love, questions remain and a framework that can be employed to understand love in all its forms remains to be developed or proposed. The objective of this article is to propose a novel framework that can be applied to all forms of love.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development (The AAC Model)

In the past few decades, the psychological literature has defined and described different forms of love and from these descriptions, the role of attraction, attachment-commitment, and caregiving (AAC), appears to be consistent in all forms of love.

Attraction theory is one of the first approaches to explain the phenomenon of love and several studies and scholarly works have described the importance of attraction in different forms of love ( Byrne and Griffitt, 1973 ; Berscheid and Hatfield, 1978 ; Fisher et al., 2006 ; Braxton-Davis, 2010 ; Grant-Jacob, 2016 ). Attraction has been described as an evolutionary adaptation of humans for mating, reproduction, and parenting ( Fisher et al., 2002a , 2006 ).

The role of attachment in love has also been extensively investigated. Attachment bonds have been described as a critical feature of mammals including parent-infant, pair-bonds, conspecifics, and peers ( Feldman, 2017 ). Indeed, neural networks including the interaction of oxytocin and dopamine in the striatum have been implicated in attachment bonds ( Feldman, 2017 ). The key features of attachment include proximity maintenance, safety and security, and separation distress ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Multiple lines of research have proposed that humans possess an innate behavioral system of attachment that is essential in love ( Harlow, 1958 ; Bowlby, 1977 , 1988 , 1989 ; Ainsworth, 1985 ; Hazan and Shaver, 1987 ; Bretherton, 1992 ; Carter, 1998 ; Burkett and Young, 2012 ). Attachment is essential to commitment and satisfaction in a relationship ( Péloquin et al., 2013 ) and commitment leads to greater intimacy ( Sternberg, 1986 ).

Also, several lines of evidence have described the role of caregiving in love. It has been proposed that humans possess an inborn caregiving system that complements their attachment system ( Bowlby, 1973 ; Ainsworth, 1985 ). Indeed, several studies have used caregiving scale and compassionate love scale, to describe the role of caring, concern, tenderness, supporting, helping, and understanding the other(s), in love and relationships ( Kunce and Shaver, 1994 ; Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ). Mutual communally responsive relationships in which partners attend to one another’s needs and welfare with the expectation that the other will return the favor when their own needs arise ( Clark and Mills, 1979 ; Clark and Monin, 2006 ), have been described as key in all types of relationships including friendship, family, and romantic and compassionate love ( Berscheid, 2010 ).

Attachment and caregiving reinforce each other in relationships. Evidence suggests that sustained caregiving is frequently accompanied by the growth of familiarity between the caregiver and the receiver ( Bowlby, 1989 , p. 115) strengthening attachment ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Several studies have proposed that attachment has a positive influence on caregiving behavior in love and relationships ( Carnelley et al., 1996 ; Collins and Feeney, 2000 ; Feeney and Collins, 2001 ; Mikulincer, 2006 ; Canterberry and Gillath, 2012 ; Péloquin et al., 2013 ).

The AAC model can be seen across the literature on love. Robert Sternberg triangular theory of love which proposes that love has three components —intimacy, passion, and commitment ( Sternberg, 1986 ), essentially applies the AAC model. Passion, a key factor in his theory, is associated with attraction ( Berscheid and Hatfield, 1978 ), and many passionate behaviors including increased energy, focused attention, intrusive thinking, obsessive following, possessive mate guarding, goal-oriented behaviors and motivation to win and keep a preferred mating partner ( Fisher et al., 2002b , 2006 ; Fisher, 2005 ). Also, evidence indicates that attachment is central to intimacy, another pillar of the triangular theory ( Morris, 1982 ; Feeney and Noller, 1990 ; Oleson, 1996 ; Grabill and Kent, 2000 ). Commitment, the last pillar of the triangular theory, is based on interdependence and social exchange theories ( Stanley et al., 2010 ), which is connected to mutual caregiving and secure attachment.

Hendrick and Hendrick’s (1986) , Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) which measures six types of love ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986 ) is at its core based on the AAC model. Similarly, numerous works on love ( Rubin, 1970 ; Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986 ; Fehr, 1994 ; Grote and Frieze, 1994 ), have applied one or all of the factors in the ACC model. Berscheid (2010) , proposed four candidates for a temporal model of love including companionate love, romantic love, and compassionate love and adult attachment love. As described, these different types of love (romantic, companionate, compassionate, and attachment) all apply at least one or all of the factors in the AAC model.

New Theory (The Quadruple Framework)

The AAC model can be fully captured by four fundamental factors; attraction, connection or resonance, trust, and respect, providing a novel framework that could explain love in all its forms. Table 1 shows the core factors of love, and the four factors derived from them.

Table 1. Factors of love.

Evidence suggests that both attachment and attraction play a role in obsession or passion observed in love ( Fisher et al., 2005 ; Honari and Saremi, 2015 ). Attraction is influenced by the value or appeal perceived from a relationship and this affects commitment ( Rusbult, 1980 ).

Connection or Resonance

Connection is key to commitment, caregiving, and intimacy. It creates a sense of oneness in relationships and it is strengthened by proximity, familiarity, similarity, and positive shared experiences ( Sullivan et al., 2011 ; Beckes et al., 2013 ). Homogeneity or similarity has been observed to increase social capital and engagement among people ( Costa and Kahn, 2003a , b ), and it has been described as foundational to human relationships ( Tobore, 2018 , pp. 6–13). Research indicates that similarity plays a key role in attachment and companionship as people are more likely to form long-lasting and successful relationships with those who are more similar to themselves ( Burgess and Wallin, 1954 ; Byrne, 1971 ; Berscheid and Reis, 1998 ; Lutz-Zois et al., 2006 ). Proximity plays a key role in caregiving as people are more likely to show compassion to those they are familiar with or those closest to them ( Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ). Similarity and proximity contribute to feelings of familiarity ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Also, caregiving and empathy are positively related to emotional interdependence ( Hatfield et al., 1994 ).

Trust is crucial for love ( Esch and Stefano, 2005 ) and it plays an important role in relationship intimacy and caregiving ( Rempel and Holmes, 1985 ; Wilson et al., 1998 ; Salazar, 2015 ), as well as attachment ( Rodriguez et al., 2015 ; Bidmon, 2017 ). Familiarity is a sine qua non for trust ( Luhmann, 1979 ), and trust is key to relationship satisfaction ( Simpson, 2007 ; Fitzpatrick and Lafontaine, 2017 ).

Respect is cross-cultural and universal ( Frei and Shaver, 2002 ; Hendrick et al., 2010 ) and has been described as fundamental in love ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ). It plays a cardinal role in interpersonal relations at all levels ( Hendrick et al., 2010 ). Indeed, it is essential in relationship commitment and satisfaction ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 2006 ) and relationship intimacy and attachment ( Alper, 2004 ; Hendrick et al., 2011 ).

Synergetic Interactions of the Four Factors

Connection and attraction.

Similarity, proximity, and familiarity are all important in connection because they promote attachment and a sense of oneness in a relationship ( Sullivan et al., 2011 ; Beckes et al., 2013 ). Research indicates that proximity ( Batool and Malik, 2010 ) and familiarity positively influence attraction ( Norton et al., 2015 ) and several lines of evidence suggests that people are attracted to those similar to themselves ( Sykes et al., 1976 ; Wetzel and Insko, 1982 ; Montoya et al., 2008 ; Batool and Malik, 2010 ; Collisson and Howell, 2014 ). Also, attraction mediates similarity and familiarity ( Moreland and Zajonc, 1982 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ).

Respect and Trust

Evidence suggests that respect promotes trust ( Ali et al., 2012 ).

Connection, Respect, Trust, and Attraction

Trust affects attraction ( Singh et al., 2015 ). Trust and respect can mediate attitude similarity and promote attraction ( Singh et al., 2016 ).

So, although these factors can operate independently, evidence suggests that the weakening of one factor could negatively affect the others and the status of love. Similarly, the strengthening of one factor positively modulates the others and the status of love.

Relationships are dynamic and change as events and conditions in the environment change ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Love is associated with causal conditions that respond to these changes favorably or negatively ( Berscheid, 2010 ). In other words, as conditions change, and these factors become present, love is achieved and if they die, it fades. Figure 1 below explains how love grows and dies. Point C in the figure explains the variations in the intensity or levels of love and this variation is influenced by the strength of each factor. The stronger the presence of all factors, the higher the intensity and the lower, the weaker the intensity of love. The concept of non-love is similar to the “non-love” described in Sternberg’s triangular theory of love in which all components of love are absent ( Sternberg, 1986 ).

Figure 1. Description: (A) Presence of love (all factors are present). (B) Absence of love (state of non-love or state where all factors are latent or dormant). (C) Different levels of love due to variations in the four factors. (D) Movement from non-love toward love (developmental stage: at least one but not all four factors are present). (E) Movement away from love toward non-love (decline stage: at least one or more of the four factors are absent).

Application of the Quadruple Framework on Romantic, Brand and Parental Love

Romantic, parental and brand love have been chosen to demonstrate the role of these factors and their interactions in love because there is significant existing literature on them. However, they can be applied to understand love in all its forms.

Romantic Love

Attraction and romantic love.

Attraction involves both physical and personality traits ( Braxton-Davis, 2010 ; Karandashev and Fata, 2014 ). To this end, attraction could be subdivided into sexual or material and non-sexual or non-material attraction. Sexual or material attraction includes physical attributes such as beauty, aesthetics, appeal, wealth, etc. In contrast, non-sexual or non-material attraction includes characteristics such as personality, social status, power, humor, intelligence, character, confidence, temperament, honesty, good quality, kindness, integrity, etc. Both types of attraction are not mutually exclusive.

Romantic love has been described as a advanced form of human attraction system ( Fisher et al., 2005 ) and it fits with the passion component of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love which he described as the quickest to recruit ( Sternberg, 1986 ). Indeed, research indicates that physical attractiveness and sensual feelings are essential in romantic love and dating ( Brislin and Lewis, 1968 ; Regan and Berscheid, 1999 ; Luo and Zhang, 2009 ; Braxton-Davis, 2010 ; Ha et al., 2010 ; Guéguen and Lamy, 2012 ) and sexual attraction often provides the motivational spark that kickstarts a romantic relationship ( Gillath et al., 2008 ). Behavioral data suggest that love and sex drive follow complementary pathways in the brain ( Seshadri, 2016 ). Indeed, the neuroendocrine system for sexual attraction and attachment appears to work synergistically motivating individuals to both prefer a specific mating partner and to form an attachment to that partner ( Seshadri, 2016 ). Sex promotes the activity of hormones involved in love including arginine vasopressin in the ventral pallidum, oxytocin in the nucleus accumbens and stimulates dopamine release which consequently motivates preference for a partner and strengthens attachment or pair-bonding ( Seshadri, 2016 ).

Also, romantic love is associated with non-material attraction. Research indicates that many people are attracted to their romantic partner because of personality traits like generosity, kindness, warmth, humor, helpfulness, openness to new ideas ( Giles, 2015 , pp. 168–169). Findings from a research study on preferences in human mate selection indicate that personality traits such as kindness/considerate and understanding, exciting, and intelligent are strongly preferred in a potential mate ( Buss and Barnes, 1986 ). Indeed, character and physical attractiveness have been found to contribute jointly and significantly to romantic attraction ( McKelvie and Matthews, 1976 ).

Attraction is key to commitment in a romantic relationship ( Rusbult, 1980 ), indicating that without attraction a romantic relationship could lose its luster. Also, romantic attraction is weakened or declines as the reason for its presence declines or deteriorates. If attraction is sexual or due to material characteristics, then aging or any accident that compromises physical beauty would result in its decline ( Braxton-Davis, 2010 ). Loss of fortune or social status could also weaken attraction and increase tension in a relationship. Indeed, tensions about money increase marital conflicts ( Papp et al., 2009 ; Dew and Dakin, 2011 ) and predicted subsequent divorce ( Amato and Rogers, 1997 ).

Connection and Romantic Love

Connection or resonance fits with the intimacy, and commitment components of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love ( Sternberg, 1986 ). Connection in romantic love involves intimacy, friendship or companionship and caregiving and it is strengthened by novelty, proximity, communication, positive shared experiences, familiarity, and similarity. It is what creates a sense of oneness between romantic partners and it is expressed in the form of proximity seeking and maintenance, concern, and compassion ( Neto, 2012 ). Evidence suggests that deeper levels of emotional involvement or attachment increase commitment and cognitive interdependence or tendency to think about the relationship in a pluralistic manner, as reflected in the use of plural pronouns to describe oneself, romantic partner and relationship ( Agnew et al., 1998 ).

Research indicates that both sexual attraction and friendship are necessary for romantic love ( Meyers and Berscheid, 1997 ; Gillath et al., 2008 ; Berscheid, 2010 ), indicating that connection which is essential for companionship plays a key role in romantic love. A study on college students by Hendrick and Hendrick (1993) found that a significant number of the students described their romantic partner as their closest friend ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1993 ), reinforcing the importance of friendship or companionship in romantic love.

Similarity along the lines of values, goals, religion, nationality, career, culture, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, language, etc. is essential in liking and friendship in romantic love ( Berscheid and Reis, 1998 ). Research indicates that a partner who shared similar values and interests were more likely to experience stronger love ( Jin et al., 2017 ). Indeed, the more satisfied individuals were with their friendships the more similar they perceived their friends to be to themselves ( Morry, 2005 ). Also, similarity influences perceptions of familiarity ( Moreland and Zajonc, 1982 ), and familiarity plays a role in the formation of attachment and connectedness because it signals safety and security ( Bowlby, 1977 ). Moreover, similarity and familiarity affect caregiving. Sprecher and Fehr (2005) , found compassion or caregiving were lower for strangers, and greatest for dating and marital relationships, indicating that similarity and familiarity enhance intimacy and positively influences caregiving ( Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ).

Proximity through increased exposure is known to promote liking ( Saegert et al., 1973 ), familiarity and emotional connectedness ( Sternberg, 1986 ; Berscheid, 2010 ). Exposure through fun times and direct and frequent communication is essential to maintaining and strengthening attachment and connectedness ( Sternberg and Grajek, 1984 ). In Sternberg’s triangular theory, effective communication is described as essential and affects the intimacy component of a relationship ( Sternberg, 1986 ). Indeed, intimacy grows from a combination of mutual self-disclosure and interactions mediated by positive partner responsiveness ( Laurenceau et al., 1998 , 2005 ; Manne et al., 2004 ), indicating that positive feedback and fun times together strengthens connection.

Also, sexual activity is an important component of the reward system that reinforces emotional attachment ( Seshadri, 2016 ), indicating that sexual activity may increase emotional connectedness and intimacy. Over time in most relationships, predictability grows, and sexual satisfaction becomes readily available. This weakens the erotic and emotional experience associated with romantic love ( Berscheid, 2010 ). Research shows that a reduction in novelty due to the monotony of being with the same person for a long period is the reason for this decline in sexual attraction ( Freud and Rieff, 1997 , p. 57; Sprecher et al., 2006 , p. 467). According to Sternberg (1986) , the worst enemy of the intimacy component of love is stagnation. He explained that too much predictability can erode the level of intimacy in a close relationship ( Sternberg, 1986 ). So, novelty is essential to maintaining sexual attraction and strengthening connection in romantic love.

Jealousy and separation distress which are key features of romantic love ( Fisher et al., 2002b ), are actions to maintain and protect the emotional union and are expressions of a strong connection. Research has found a significant correlation between anxiety and love ( Hatfield et al., 1989 ) and a positive link between romantic love and jealousy in stable relationships ( Mathes and Severa, 1981 ; Aune and Comstock, 1991 ; Attridge, 2013 ; Gomillion et al., 2014 ). Indeed, individuals who feel strong romantic love tend to be more jealous or sensitive to threats to their relationship ( Orosz et al., 2015 ).

Connection in romantic love is weakened by distance, a dearth of communication, unsatisfactory sexual activity, divergences or dissimilarity of values and interests, monotony and too much predictability.

Trust and Romantic Love

Trust is the belief that a partner is, and will remain, reliable or dependable ( Cook, 2003 ). Trust in romantic love fits with the intimacy, and commitment components of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love which includes being able to count on the loved one in times of need, mutual understanding with the loved one, sharing of one’s self and one’s possessions with the loved one and maintaining the relationship ( Sternberg, 1986 ).

It has been proposed that love activates specific regions in the reward system which results in a reduction in emotional judgment and fear ( Seshadri, 2016 ). This reduced fear or trust has been identified as one of the most important characteristics of a romantic relationship and essential to fidelity, commitment, monogamy, emotional vulnerability, and intimacy ( Laborde et al., 2014 ). Indeed, trust can deepen intimacy, increase commitment and increase mutual monogamy, and make a person lower their guards in the belief that they are safe from harm ( Larzelere and Huston, 1980 ; Bauman and Berman, 2005 ). People with high trust in romantic relationships tend to expect that their partner will act in their interest causing them to prioritize relationship dependence over making themselves invulnerable from harm or self-protection ( Luchies et al., 2013 ). In contrast, people with low trust in their partner tend to be unsure about whether their partner will act in their interests and prioritize insulating themselves from harm over relationship dependence ( Luchies et al., 2013 ).

Trust takes time to grow into a romantic relationship. Indeed, people in a relationship come to trust their partners when they see that their partner’s action and behavior moves the relationship forward or acts in the interest of the relationship and not themself ( Wieselquist et al., 1999 ). Research indicates that trust is associated with mutual self-disclosure ( Larzelere and Huston, 1980 ), and positive partner responsiveness which are both essential to the experience of friendship and intimacy in romantic relationships ( Larzelere and Huston, 1980 ; Reis and Shaver, 1988 ; Laurenceau et al., 1998 ).

Also, trust influences caregiving and compassion. Evidence suggests that compassion is positively related to trust ( Salazar, 2015 ). Mutual communal responsiveness or caregiving in relationships in which partners attend to one another’s needs and welfare is done because they are confident that the other will do the same when or if their own needs arise ( Clark and Monin, 2006 ). Repeated acts of communal responsiveness given with no expectation of payback provide a partner with a sense of security and trust and increase the likelihood that they will be communally responsive if or when the need arises ( Clark and Monin, 2006 ), and contributes to a sense of love in romantic relationships ( Berscheid, 2010 ).

Loss or weakening of trust could spell the end of romantic love. Indeed, mistrust corrupts intimacy and often indicates that a relationship has ended or near its end ( LaFollette and Graham, 1986 ) and it makes mutual monogamy, and commitment difficult to achieve in a romantic relationship ( Towner et al., 2015 ). A study on individuals who had fallen out of romantic love with their spouse found that loss of trust and intimacy was part of the reason for the dissolution of love ( Sailor, 2013 ).

Respect and Romantic Love

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that respect is expected in both friendships and romantic relationships ( Gaines, 1994 , 1996 ). In romantic love, it entails consideration, admiration, high regard, and value for the loved one as a part of one’s life ( Sternberg and Grajek, 1984 ; Hendrick et al., 2011 ).

Gottman (1999) , found that the basis for a stable and satisfactory marital relationship is friendship filled with fondness and admiration ( Gottman, 1999 ). Respect is considered one of the most important things married couples want from their partner ( Gottman, 1994 ). Grote and Frieze (1994) , found that respect correlates with companionate or friendship love ( Grote and Frieze, 1994 ), indicating that respect is essential to intimacy and relationship satisfaction. Also, respect is positively correlated with passion, altruism, self-disclosure, and relationship overall satisfaction ( Frei and Shaver, 2002 ; Hendrick and Hendrick, 2006 ). It is associated with the tendency to overlook a partner’s negative behavior or respond with pro-relationship actions or compassion to their shortcomings ( Rusbult et al., 1998 ; Gottman, 1999 ).

Absence or a lack of respect could spell the end of romantic love. Research indicates that there is an expectation of mutual respect in friendship and most relationships and people reacted negatively when this expectation is violated ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ), indicating that a lack of respect could negatively affect commitment and attraction. Indeed, denial of respect is an important negative behavior in friendships and most relationships ( Gaines, 1994 , 1996 ) and a lack of respect is a violation of what it means to love one ‘s partner in a close romantic relationship ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ). Gottman (1993 , 1994) identified contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling as four of the relationally destructive behavior and he labeled them as “the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”

Romantic love summary

Romantic love involves the interactions and synergistic interplay between respect, connection, trust, and attraction. All four must be present in love. Any event that results in the loss of any of these factors could cause romantic love to gradually decline and unless effort is made to replenish it, it will eventually fade or collapse. Romantic love is dynamic and requires significant investment from both partners to keep it alive.

Parental Love

Attraction and parental love.

Attraction plays an essential role in parental love and it could be material or non-material. Material attraction involves the child’s health, gender, accomplishments or success, and attractiveness. In contrast, non-material attraction includes traits such as intelligence, character, and other personality traits.

Evidence suggests that culture influences gender preference with attraction greater for sons in most cases ( Cronk, 1993 ). Indeed, mothers and fathers have been found to favor the more intelligent and more ambitious/industrious child ( Lauricella, 2009 ). Also, parental perception that investment in a child will cost more than the benefits to be gained from taking care of the child might influence negative behavior toward the child. Indeed, multiple lines of evidence suggest that parental unemployment increases the rates of child maltreatment and abuse ( Steinberg et al., 1981 ; Lindo et al., 2013 ). Research indicates that teen mothers who have poor social support reported greater unhappiness, were at greater risk for child abuse and often employed the use of physical punishment toward their child ( Haskett et al., 1994 ; de Paúl and Domenech, 2000 ).

Also, several studies have suggested that parents tended to favor healthy children ( Mann, 1992 ; Barratt et al., 1996 ; Hagen, 1999 ). However, when resources are plentiful, parents tend to invest equally in less healthy or high-risk children ( Beaulieu and Bugental, 2008 ), because they have abundant resources to go around without compromising the reproductive value of healthy children ( Lauricella, 2009 ).

Connection and Parental Love

Connection creates a sense of oneness between parent and child and involves caregiving, intimacy, and attachment. It is influenced by proximity, positive and unique shared experiences, and similarity along virtually every dimension between parent and child.

Proximity, and similarity increases attachment and intimacy between parent and child. Research shows that parents are perceived as favoring genetically related children ( Salmon et al., 2012 ), and evidence suggests that paternal resemblance predicted paternal favoritism ( Lauricella, 2009 ). Parental proximity and similarity to a biological child are unique because it is based on genes and blood. In contrast, intimacy between a parent and an adopted child is based solely on shared experiences and proximity and takes time to grow and on many occasions may not develop ( Hooks, 1990 ; Hughes, 1999 ).

Dissimilarities or discrepancy in values, attitudes, etc., can create problems between children and parents and can have a profound effect on their relationship. Indeed, evidence suggests that the rebel child tended to be less close to the parents ( Rohde et al., 2003 ). Research has found that adolescents who are less religious than their parents tend to experience lower-quality relationships with their parents which results in higher rates of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms ( Kim-Spoon et al., 2012 ). When parents and family members were very religious, and a child comes out as an atheist, relationship quality could suffer in the form of rejection, anger, despair, or an inability to relate to one another ( Zimmerman et al., 2015 ). A study of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youngsters, for patterns of disclosure of sexual orientation to families, found that those who had disclosed reported verbal and physical abuse by parents and family members ( D’Augelli et al., 1998 ). Honor killing of female children which have been reported in Pakistan and some parts of the Middle East because of deviation from traditional gender roles or crossing of social boundaries that are deemed as taboo in their culture ( Lindsey and Sarah, 2010 ), is another example of the negative effects of the discrepancy in values between parents and child.

Unique shared experiences between parent and child could increase connection. Bank (1988) observed that the development of favoritism seems to require that the “child’s conception or birth be unusual or stressful,” ( Bank, 1988 ). Evidence suggests that parents most favored child tended to be last-born child and this is linked to their unique position, vulnerability and neediness ( Rohde et al., 2003 ). Also, proximity, positive experiences and time spent together increases connection and intimacy. Research indicates that parents tend to give more love and support to the grown child they were historically closest to and got along with ( Siennick, 2013 ). A study of primiparous women found that mothers with greater contact with their infants were more reluctant to leave them with someone else, and engaged more intimately with their child ( Klaus et al., 1972 ).

Divorce could create distance between a parent and child, weakening connection and intimacy. Indeed, one of the outcomes of divorce is the lessening of contact between divorced non-custodial fathers and their children ( Appleby and Palkovitz, 2007 ), and this can reduce intimacy ( Guttmann and Rosenberg, 2003 ).

Also, parental separation distress, worry, and concern for their child’s welfare, academic performance, and future are expressions of connection and a lack thereof is a sign of poor connection. Indeed, the levels of concern and worry expressed between children and their parents influenced their perceptions of the relationship quality ( Hay et al., 2007 ).

Trust and Parental Love

Trust is essential to parental attachment, intimacy, and caregiving. When there is mistrust, attachment and intimacy between a parent and their child are disrupted or unable to blossom. In Africa and many parts of the world, there have been reports of children being condemned and abandoned by their parents simply because they are tagged as witches with mysterious evil powers ( Tedam, 2014 ; Bartholomew, 2015 ; Briggs and Whittaker, 2018 ). The tag of “witchcraft” stirs up fear and anger, causing the child to be perceived as a deadly threat which inevitably damages attachment, intimacy and eliminates the need for caregiving.

Research has found that firstborn children were most likely to be chosen as those to whom mothers would turn when facing personal problems or crises ( Suitor and Pillemer, 2007 ). This tendency may be linked to trust. Moreover, evidence suggests that the rebel child tended to be less close to the parents ( Rohde et al., 2003 ). In other words, the more obedient, and reliable child is likely to gain the confidence and intimacy of the parents. In contrast, the disobedient and unreliable child is excluded or kept at a distance. Also, trust and poor connection could influence inheritance and disinheritance decisions. Indeed, estrangement, alienation and disaffection of a parent toward a child could result in disinheritance ( Batts, 1990 ; Brashier, 1994 , 1996 ; Foster, 2001 ; Arroyo et al., 2016 ).

Respect and Parental Love

Respect in parental love entails treating the child with consideration and regard. This consideration and regard for the child are essential to intimacy, caregiving and attachment. Indeed, respect is foundational to a harmonious relationship between parent and child ( Dixon et al., 2008 ). Evidence suggests that humans possess an innate behavioral system that leads them to form an attachment to a familiar person who provides care, comfort, and protection ( Harlow, 1958 ; Bowlby, 1989 ). Repeated acts of caregiving contribute to a sense of love in all types of relationships ( Berscheid, 2010 ), reinforcing the role of parental caregiving in fostering intimacy and attachment with the child.

Taking care of an infant’s needs, and making sure they are safe and well, all fall under consideration and regard for the child. Child abuse and neglect ( Tedam, 2014 ; Bartholomew, 2015 ; Briggs and Whittaker, 2018 ), is a display of a lack of consideration for the child’s need.

Also, respect in parental love involves admiration. Research has found that fathers treated more ambitious/industrious sons with high regard, and both parents favored the more intelligent and more ambitious/industrious daughters ( Lauricella, 2009 ) indicating that a child that engages in activities or behavior that is highly regarded by their parents may gain favor with their parents, strengthening intimacy and vice versa.

Parental love summary

Parental love involves the interactions and synergistic interplay between respect, connection, trust, and attraction. Any event that results in the loss of any of these factors could cause parental love to gradually decline. In many cases, the behavior and actions of a child significantly influence parental love.

Brand love has been defined as the level of passionate emotional attachment a satisfied or happy consumer has for a brand and evidence suggests it is very similar to interpersonal love ( Russo et al., 2011 ).

Attraction and Brand Love

Attraction plays an essential role in brand love. Material attraction for a brand includes attributes like superior design, quality, and aesthetics, price, benefits, etc. Non-material attraction involves social status symbol, brand personality, uniqueness, distinctiveness, user experience, image, etc. evidence suggests that when talking about loved brands, people often talk passionately about the brand’s many attractive qualities such as its exceptional performance, good-looking design, value for money, and other positive attributes ( Fournier, 1998 ; Whang et al., 2004 ; Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006 ; Batra et al., 2012 ). Research on brand love has found that brand attractive attributes such as prestige or uniqueness influence brand passion which affects relevant factors such as purchase intention ( Bauer et al., 2007 ).

Also, brand attraction influences brand loyalty, and commitment. Indeed, research indicates that brand benefits influences brand loyalty or commitment ( Huang et al., 2016 ). Brand personality (image, distinctiveness, and self-expressive value) is strongly associated with brand identification and loyalty ( Kim et al., 2001 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ).

Connection and Brand Love

Connection is essential to brand love. It involves brand attachment, commitment, and intimacy and it is strengthened by brand identification, image, familiarity or awareness, proximity, length or frequency of usage and similarity or congruences along virtually every dimension including values, lifestyle, goals, etc. between brand and customer. Brand awareness which means brand familiarity has been described as essential for people to identify with a brand ( Pascual and Académico, 2015 ), and it indirectly affects current purchases ( Esch et al., 2006 ).

Also, brand identification promotes a sense of oneness between a brand and a customer strengthening commitment and it is driven by brand self-similarity, brand prestige and brand distinctiveness ( Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2008 ). Indeed, brand identification contributes to the development of brand love and brand loyalty ( Alnawas and Altarifi, 2016 ) and brand image and identification influence loyalty and positive word of mouth ( Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006 ; Batra et al., 2012 ; Anggraeni and Rachmanita, 2015 ). Brand identity, values and lifestyle similarities to those of the customer appear to have a strong and significant relationship with brand love ( Batra et al., 2012 ; Rauschnabel and Ahuvia, 2014 ; Alnawas and Altarifi, 2016 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ). Findings from research suggest that customer-to-customer similarity and sense of community drive consumer brand identification, loyalty, and engagement ( Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen, 2010 ; Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ).

Moreover, proximity and interaction play a role in brand love. Indeed, the duration of the relationship between a customer and a brand is essential in brand love ( Albert et al., 2007 ). Fournier (1998) , discussed interdependence which involved frequent brand interactions as necessary for a strong brand relationship ( Fournier, 1998 ). Similarly, Batra et al. (2012) found that having a long-term relationship, positive emotional connection and frequent interactions with a brand was an important aspect of brand love ( Batra et al., 2012 ). Indeed, shared experiences and history between a person and a brand can increase their emotional attachment, make the brand to become an important part of the person’s identity narrative and increases their loyalty to the brand ( Thomson et al., 2005 ; Pedeliento et al., 2016 ).

Just like romantic love, concern and worry and proximity seeking, or maintenance are an expression of emotional connectedness to the brand. Indeed, anticipated separation distress has been described as a core element of brand love ( Batra et al., 2012 ), and consumers are likely to feel strong desires to maintain proximity with their loved objects, even feeling “separation distress” when they are distanced from them ( Thomson et al., 2005 ; Park et al., 2010 ).

Also, novelty through continued innovation is vital to maintaining and strengthening both attraction and connection. According to the Harvard business review, the relationship between brand and consumer go through “ruts” and to “keep the spark” alive, innovation and news are essential ( Halloran, 2014 ). Research indicates that innovation plays a role in brand equity and it impacts brand identification or resonance ( Sinha, 2017 ).

Lack of brand familiarity or awareness, poor or negative user experience, a dearth of innovation and increased dissimilarities in values and lifestyles between brand and consumer can all weaken brand connection.

Trust and Brand Love

Trust is essential to brand attachment, intimacy, and commitment. It involves confidence and reliability, or dependability of the brand and it is influenced by brand image, familiarity, values, user experience, and quality. Indeed, brand trust directly influences brand love ( Turgut and Gultekin, 2015 ; Meisenzahl, 2017 ) and a strong relationship exists between brand love and brand trust and identification ( Albert and Merunka, 2013 ). Evidence suggests that brand familiarity influences brand trust ( Ha and Perks, 2005 ) and brand trust and experience, positively influence brand attachment ( Erciş et al., 2012 ; Chinomona, 2013 ; Chinomona and Maziriri, 2017 ).

Also, brand trust affects brand purchase, loyalty, and commitment. Evidence suggests that a strong relationship exists between brand love and brand trust, brand commitment, positive word of mouth, and willingness to pay a higher price for the brand ( Albert and Merunka, 2013 ). Research indicates that brand trust positively affects brand loyalty ( Setyawan and Kussudiyarsana, 2015 ), directly influences brand purchase intentions ( Yasin and Shamim, 2013 ) and positively influences current and future purchases ( Erciş et al., 2012 ). Indeed, more than any other factor, brand trust has been identified as essential for future purchases of a brand ( Esch et al., 2006 ). It is essential in determining purchase loyalty and attitudinal loyalty and it plays a role in brand market share ( Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001 ). Brand trust affects both affective and continuance commitment and affective commitment influences repurchase intention and loyalty ( Erciş et al., 2012 ).

Brand quality is essential to brand trust and love. Indeed, Fournier (1998) , discussed the role of brand quality in brand love and highlighted the role of trust in relationship satisfaction and strength ( Fournier, 1998 ). Also, brand trust has been found to positively affect resistance to negative information and repurchase intention ( Turgut and Gultekin, 2015 ).

Brand trust is weakened by poor user experience, brand quality, brand image, and a lack of brand familiarity.

Respect and Brand Love

Brand respect is essential in brand love and plays an important role in brand attachment, intimacy, and commitment. It is influenced by brand identification, values, image, experience, and quality. Brand respect is displayed by the customer in the form of high regard, admiration for the brand, brand loyalty and consideration or tolerance of negative information. Indeed, brand familiarity positively affects brand respect ( Zhou, 2017 ), indicating that brand familiarity increases regard for a brand. Evidence suggests that brand image positively influences brand respect and love ( Cho, 2011 ), indicating that brand image modulates a customer’s regard and admiration for a brand.

Brand respect influences brand commitment and loyalty. Indeed, a strong relationship has been found between brand respect and brand loyalty ( Cho, 2011 ) and brand admiration results in greater brand loyalty, stronger brand advocacy, and higher brand equity ( Park et al., 2016 ). Brand respect affects the behavioral outcomes of brand love such as affective commitment, and willingness to pay a price premium ( Garg et al., 2016 ; Park et al., 2016 ).

Also, evidence suggests that customers’ admiration or high regard for a brand contributes to why they tend to ignore negative information about the brand ( Elbedweihy et al., 2016 ). Fournier (1998) , included respect as one of the components of brand partner quality. This means that respect is one of the factors that reflects the consumer’s evaluation of the brand’s performance ( Fournier, 1998 ).

A lack of respect could negatively influence the relationship between a brand and a customer. Indeed, people react negatively when the expectation of respect is violated ( Hendrick et al., 2011 ) and a violation of expectation between brand and customer has been found to contribute to brand hate ( Zarantonello et al., 2016 ).

Brand love summary

Brand love involves the interactions and synergistic interplay between respect, connection, trust, and attraction. Any event that results in the loss of any of these factors could cause brand love to gradually decline and unless effort is made to replenish it, it will eventually fade or collapse. Brand love is dynamic and requires significant investment from the brand to keep it alive.

Strengths and Advances Made by the Quadruple Theory

The quadruple theory builds on many of the strengths of previous theories of love and it applies a temporal approach that has been proposed as the best way to understand love ( Berscheid, 2010 ). It goes further than previous theories for several reasons. Firstly, it could potentially be applied to any form of love although, only brand, romantic and parental love were discussed in this paper due to the paucity of scholarly articles on other forms of love. One of the reasons current love scales and approaches have been unable to be applied in all forms of love ( Hendrick and Hendrick, 1989 ; Whitley, 1993 ; Sternberg, 1997 ; Masuda, 2003 ; Graham and Christiansen, 2009 ), is because they capture only a part of the ACC model, unlike the quadruple framework which fully captures it.

Unlike previous theories, the quadruple theory’s application of the complex factor of connection/resonance gives it an edge in furthering our understanding of love. Proximity, positive shared experience, familiarity, and similarity are vital to connection and connection has the most profound influence on all the other factors.

Also, the dynamism and variation of these factors provide a fresh way to understand love from its development to collapse. As Figure 1 shows, love tends to take time to mature in a relationship and can die as these factors rise and decline. Figure 1 shows that variations in the presence of these factors represent different levels of love. Love in any relationship is influenced by the events in the environment it is embedded, and it responds favorably or negatively to these changes. Indeed, people get sick, old, lose their finances, travel in search of greener pastures creating distance, develop new interests different from their partner’s and all these influences the presence and absence of love. One brand becomes more innovative, improves its product quality and users experience over another and people gradually love it more than the one they previously loved. In other words, love is very dynamic and may be divided into high, moderate and low. Another point highlighted in Figure 1 is that the absence of one factor represents the absence of love and only the presence of all factors represents the presence of love. Indeed, the decline of a factor can be replenished in response to changes in the environment causing the reestablishment of love. Trust could decline but attraction and respect remain and over time trust could be replenished.

This dynamic understanding of love implies that it can be nurtured and sustained. As an example, for a brand to be loved and to maintain that love, it must make products that are attractive (appealing). It must be able to connect to its target customers by reaching out through adverts to achieve familiarity and it must ensure that its values, goals, actions are consistently similar to those of its customer base. Also, it must ensure its services and products and actions promote and maintain trust with its customers. It must respect (value) its customer’s interests and ensure that its services and products continue to receive the admiration of its customers. Table 2 describes how brand love can be nurtured and preserved.

Table 2. Brand love can be nurtured and maintained.

Using this framework, a love scale or algorithm could be developed to ascertain the presence or absence of love in any relationship. Such a scale must effectively capture these four factors and must consider the type of love being calculated in its approach. As an example, in trying to create a scale for romantic love, sexual attraction, and activity may be important for attraction and connection (depending on the age of the partners) but would be unnecessary in the calculation of brand or parental love.

Major Challenges for the Theory

One of the biggest challenges the theory faces is the lack of psychometric data to prove many of its claims. Most of its arguments are based on decades of psychological data, but its lack of psychometric data weakens the theory significantly. Also, the entire premise of the theory is based on the ACC model, which has not been validated as essential or foundational to understanding love. Perhaps, something else needs to be added to the model that the theory may have missed. The argument that the quadruple theory captures the ACC model better than previous theories on love is an argument that has not been validated, and it remains to be seen if this is true. Also, the argument that it can be applied to all forms of love apart from the three discussed remains to be tested and verified.

Gaps currently exist in our understanding of love and evidences from the existing literature show that a framework that can be applied to all forms of love is needed. The quadruple theory hopes to be that framework. It is likely to broaden our understanding of the complex nature of love. It could make love less complex by making it something that can be cultivated or nurtured, regulated and preserved. Future research should consider the modulatory roles of peptides, neurotransmitters, and hormones on these factors and their influence on love as well as the integrated parts of the brain that modulates all these factors and how they work synergistically in different stages of love.

It is important to note that love is universal and applies to people of all cultures, races, ethnicities, religion and sexual orientations. Indeed, romantic love as described by the quadruple theory applies equally to heterosexual relationships and to the relationships of people in the LGTBQ community.

In conclusion, culture has a monumental influence on what people feel, think, and how they behave toward other people and things in their environment ( Karandashev, 2015 ; Ching Hei and David, 2018 ). So, it can be considered a modulating factor on the factors discussed and on love.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords : triangular theory of love, Romance, brand love, parental love, maternal love, Meaning of love, Definition of love, am I in love

Citation: Tobore TO (2020) Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Love: The Quadruple Theory. Front. Psychol. 11:862. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00862

Received: 20 September 2019; Accepted: 07 April 2020; Published: 19 May 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Tobore. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Tobore Onojighofia Tobore, [email protected]

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Toward a Theology of Love: Defining Love as the Scriptures—Not the World—Define It

Over 15 years ago, the late theologian Marva Dawn wrote a helpful little book that she called Talking the Walk: Letting Christian Language Live Again , in which she encouraged readers to consider the depth of meaning of several words that have long been part of the Christian tradition. She warned that we are in danger of corrupting these words by treating them as clichés or slogans and, in some cases, neglecting them all together.

In her introduction, she explains that the book is her response to a crisis in churches—a crisis she describes as “the frequent corruption or rejection of key words in biblical faith for reasons that often seem to be merely quick fixes of, instead of genuine solutions to, deeper problems.” She continues, “During the last century, English-speaking Christians have been stressing that we should walk our talk, that our way of living should match the values we espouse. That Christians frequently don’t act on what they know and say is still a problem. However, the opposite is often increasingly true: that the way we talk doesn’t offer the deepest truth of the Christian faith. Could we also practice letting the Christian language live again in all of its glory? Can we work together with the whole church throughout time and space on rectifying the names and thereby learn more fully to talk our walk?”

Marva Dawn was concerned that some words have gotten a bad reputation while others, like “hell,” are largely ignored and others, like “awesome” (which is a biblical word), are used with such excess that we lose sight of their theological significance and profundity. These examples are in addition to other words that Christians treat as outdated or irrelevant. Surprisingly, one Christian word that Marva Dawn didn’t include in her book is “love.”

In the relatively short space I have, I’d like to begin to think about the profundity and the significance of love, particularly the love Scripture commands us to have for one another. Of course, anything I say about the topic is going to be just scratching the surface. If you ever wonder why it is that there are so many theology books with the title “Toward a Theology of . . ., ” it’s because the author is saying upfront, “I’m not going to say everything that there is to say about this. This isn’t the last word, but this is an entryway.” And so we might think about this as “toward a theology of love.”

We should begin by asking, “What does love mean?” You might think that this is an unnecessary exercise. “Who doesn’t know what love is?” you might ask. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Why in the world do we need to take time to explore what love is?” I would answer those questions in this way: because there are a multitude of misconceptions about the nature of love.

Common cultural notions of love prevail in our world. For example, “love’s primary aim is to make the one loved feel good.” Or “love never causes discomfort to the one loved.” Or “love never finds fault or corrects but leaves the object of love to him or herself to do as seems best to them.” Or “love is simply being nice or courteous.” If we are careless, we will unwillingly embrace one or more of these culturally prevalent misconceptions and read them into the Bible wherever we come across the word love. Consequently, I can think I’m obeying God by doing what in my mind is loving my neighbor. But if my notion of what it means to love is foreign to God’s, then in actuality I’m not really obeying His command, regardless of how good my intentions might be. Bowing to God in obeying His command to love my neighbor entails submitting to His description of what love is. He has not left us to define that for ourselves.

“Bowing to God in obeying His command to love my neighbor entails submitting to his description of what love is. He has not left us to define that for ourselves.”

It is not as though God has given us a blank check and said, “I’ve signed it; you fill in whatever amount you want.” No, He calls us to love, and He has revealed to us the variety of forms that true love takes. When many people claim that all religions basically teach the same thing, one of the things they will cite is that various religions have teaching about loving others or some variant of what we call the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. While it is certainly true that the command to love others is common to a number of religious systems, it’s mistaken to assume that all religious systems hold a common understanding of the nature of love.

There is something unique about the Christian conceptualization of love, and it’s important for us to recognize that. If we are committed to following Jesus, if we say that we are His disciples, a question that we should frequently ask ourselves and one another is, “How closely does my understanding of what it means to love correspond to what Jesus taught and modeled about love?”

Jesus’ understanding of love was dependent upon a comprehensive view of the nature of reality—what is real, what is true. It emanated from knowledge about God and people. Jesus’ concept of love is part of a very specific picture of the way things are or, in language that students hear at Cairn very frequently, a particular worldview.

It’s not enough to just use the same word that the Scriptures use and therefore conclude that we’re talking about the same thing that the Scriptures are when they use the word “love.” No, we have to inquire whether we are operating with the same worldview as that of the Bible and understanding love in that context.

What you really believe about the nature of the world greatly influences how you live in it. Another way of putting that would be to say what I am firmly convinced of concerning the nature and structure of reality directs the course of my life and relationships.

Given this, I would like to look at three biblically derived presuppositions about love, things that the Bible says are essential to the nature of love. I will then explore the question, “Is this really how we think about love?”

Presupposition 1: Biblical love presupposes the existence of a real, objective goodness.

Biblical love presupposes there is a true and real goodness that is not dependent upon what I think or what I feel but has an existence that is completely independent of me. Obviously, that goodness is an expression of the real God. Biblically speaking, love cannot be separated from holiness and truth. We see this in a number of places in the Scriptures. For example, when Paul is describing love in 1 Corinthians 13, he says that it “does not rejoice at wrongdoing”—and you would expect him to say it rejoices at righteousness. But what he says is, “but it rejoices with the truth.” Truth, righteousness, and love—biblically speaking—are inseparable. When Paul is writing to Titus, and he’s explaining to him the various qualifications someone who is aspiring to be an elder should possess, he says this: “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for a gain, but hospitable, a lover of good , self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined” (1:7–8, italics mine). That presupposes that there is a true goodness that we are to conform to.

“Truth, righteousness, and love—biblically speaking—are inseparable.”

When he writes his second letter to Timothy, he warns Timothy that in the last days there will be increasing corruption among his people: “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be l overs of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:1–4, italics mine). It is interesting that love permeates that passage: what it is that people are going to love and what it is that they are not going to love. Notice that he says, “not loving good” and “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” He is not thinking that goodness has any existence independent of God. But he is saying that there is a standard of what is really good that, as we conform to it, is actually profitable for us and beneficial to us and fosters flourishing, well-being, and thriving.

The reason that this has become such an area of interest to me is because over the years that I have taught, I have been increasingly alarmed by the skepticism that I have seen amongst even professing Christians as to whether or not there is actually an objective standard of goodness. They entertain the idea that goodness is simply in the eye of the beholder—goodness as I deem it to be. We call this moral relativism. Relativism denies that there is any such thing as objective, knowable, real goodness. This is hostile to and incompatible with biblical love. If there is no real good, no knowable design for optimal human flourishing, then there is no real love; there can only be indifference. Moral relativism is adversarial to biblical love. It is destructive to it. Biblical love presupposes the existence of real, objective, knowable goodness, and it seeks to influence others toward it and by it. To love biblically is to seek, to move one toward and to move one by the goodness that God has revealed.

“It is incoherent to affirm the biblical command to love your neighbor while denying the Bible’s insistence that there is a divinely revealed moral structure to reality that is intended to foster our flourishing as we conform to it.”

It is incoherent to affirm the biblical command to love your neighbor while denying the Bible’s insistence that there is a divinely revealed moral structure to reality that is intended to foster our flourishing as we conform to it and submit to it. If there really is a true and objective goodness that exists outside of us—and if our thriving as human beings depends upon us knowing and conforming to that—then it simply isn’t loving to encourage people to live as they please or to rely on themselves as the standard of what is good. We might say concerning this point that biblical love presupposes the existence of an objective and absolute authority as well, because that goodness has an authority. In Matthew 22:37–40 and Romans 13:8–10, Jesus and Paul are speaking about the divine, authoritative commands to love. Love and law (in terms of God’s authoritative instruction) are intertwined. The command to love one’s neighbor as oneself is part of God’s law, and God is the authority who establishes what love looks like.

Presupposition 2: Biblical love presupposes that there is something of greater value than my immediate comfort, convenience, or pleasure.

Years ago, I read a book co-authored by the late Christian psychologist Larry Crabb and Dan Allender called Encouragement: The Key to Caring . In it, they say the following: “It is most natural to maintain a commitment to our own interpersonal comfort, a commitment that creates a feeling of uneasiness whenever we are tempted to risk authentic involvement in someone else’s life. Most of us are simply afraid to threaten our sense of comfortable well-being.” In Loving God’s Way , a book that describes the various “one anothers” of the New Testament, author Gary DeLashmutt notes:

“Our culture has largely rejected the legitimacy of moral absolutes and therefore equates moral correction with unloving intolerance. According to today’s secular climate, we are capable of healthy moral self-direction, and external moral correction renders us dysfunctional. Admonition is therefore unnecessary and even harmful. Unfortunately, many Christians have assimilated this mentality to a remarkable degree. They view encouragement as mandatory to spiritual growth, but admonition is tragically absent from their view of love.”

Think about it: If there is a true, objective goodness that is necessary for you to really thrive, it is not inherently mean of me to seek to move you toward it and to involve myself in your life to some degree if I think you’re diverging from it. We can think about this with respect to evangelism. We can think about this with respect to Christian living and mutual discipleship. Do people abuse this? Of course, but let’s not allow the pendulum to swing so far to the other end that we entertain a view of love that is not biblical. Any conception of love that precludes, that does away with the idea of any kind of moral correction, or that automatically equates such with hatred or hostility is unbiblical.

The author of Proverbs says “Better is open rebuke, then hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (27:5–6). There are people who will never do you any harm in terms of never emotionally causing any sting. They will flatter you to death, but do not think that is necessarily an indication of love. Someone who is a faithful friend will sting you at times—not out of hostility, but because they care about you and want God’s good for you. The author of Ecclesiastes says, “it is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise, then to hear the song of fools” (7:5).

Presupposition 3: Biblical love presupposes God-trusting courage.

The more I delve into what the Bible has to say about real love, the more I have to conclude that a good deal of what passes for love, even in my own life, is actually self-indulgence in disguise. A lot of what is called “love” is motivated more by self-protection than by genuine concern for the true well-being of others. Might it be that I want to believe definitions of love that require the least of me, those that minimize the possibility of being rejected? If love means never making someone experience discomfort, then I don’t have to worry about experiencing their potential rage. If love is simply being nice and never seeking to move someone closer to what is truly good by questioning or correcting them, then I remove the risk of being misunderstood, or worse, ridiculed or even despised.

“A lot of what is called ‘love’ is motivated more by self-protection than by genuine concern for the true well-being of others.”

What’s more, I can write off anyone who might be seeking to love me by offering faithful wounds as a legalist or a judgmental hater. We are often so afraid of being called a “hater” that we fail to love each other in biblical ways. If our hearts are captivated by those fears, we will not love each other as we ought. And we are living in a culture that incessantly feeds those fears through such things as social media. We are living in a culture that is constantly telling us that what matters most is that you do not get “canceled.” And to the degree that I buy that, I am going to reject God’s call to love.

In Crabb and Allender’s book, they note that there is a paradox to love. They say that “to love a person, I must be willing to lose my relationship with him. Dependently holding on to anyone or anything but God is, in its final form, idolatry. Idolatry is at root a fear of the wrong God.”

As Christians, we know ultimately what love is by the person of Jesus Christ. The Apostle John wrote “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus acknowledged that there is a real good, and He was willing to go to great lengths in order to bring us to it. And He did so, as the Scriptures tell us, by entrusting Himself continually to Him who judges righteously.

There was a God-dependent boldness and courage that led Him to love as He did. “He committed no sin,” Peter writes, “neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Pet. 2:22–25).

It is my hope that we will, individually and collectively, frequently ask the question that I mentioned earlier: “How closely does my conception of love approximate that of Jesus?” Doing so is an integral part of our being conformed more to His likeness.

Dr. Keith Plummer is the dean of the School of Divinity. He can be reached at [email protected]

14 Modern Literary Passages That Beautifully Describe Every Part Of Love

• https://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=653218

1. “‘I am,’ he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. ‘I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.’”

– The Fault In Our Stars , John Green

2. “People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.”

– Wild Awake , Hilary T. Smith

3. “No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater … The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that’s the key. It’s like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.”

— This Lullaby , Sarah Dessen

4. “I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me.”

— The Amber Spyglass , Phillip Pullman

5. “I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.”

— Everything Is Illuminated , Jonathan Safran Foer

6. “All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.”

– A Widow For One Year , John Irving

7. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”

– The History Of Love , Nicole Krauss

8. “His examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning…to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.”

— Love in the Time of Cholera , Gabriel García Márquez

9. “Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.”

– Delirium , Lauren Oliver

10. “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.”

— Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , J.K. Rowling

11. “Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.

Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it – which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

I don’t know.”

― Eleven Minutes , Paulo Coelho

12. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

– The Velveteen Rabbit , Margery Williams

13. “A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing— not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.”

— The English Patient , Michael Ondaatje

14. “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

Liz was born, raised, and schooled in the Chicago area. Every year, she is sure the Cubs will win the World Series, and one of these years, she’ll be right.

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True love: more made than found. Rome, 1994. Photo by Steve McCurry/Magnum

What is love?

Forget the modern romantic notion of ‘the one’. true love means looking beyond the couple and out towards life.

by Mark Vernon   + BIO

It is a telling statistic that the ­most frequently ‘what is…?’ question typed into Google last year was: what is love? This fact probably reveals more about the society that asks an internet search engine such a thing, than any answer reveals about the nature of love. But if not Google, then where else can we look to understand love? The fantasy-making machines of Hollywood and Bollywood insist that there is only one answer worth indulging: the romantic kind. Most people, it would seem, agree, if only by default. They are dragged into seeking the person who will make them ‘whole’ via a dating website, or by a less tangible, though no less keenly felt urge cultivated by the same, dominant culture that insists we must find ‘the one’. Not that its origins are modern. Ever since the poet Sappho wrote, in the seventh century BCE, of love rippling under her skin like wind through trees, romantic love has been imagined as irresistible, a crucial experience that marks the peak of human existence.

Yet, the Google stats suggest that there is also a silent global search underway — many of us are clearly not satisfied with romance as an answer. The real problem, then, might be that contemporary culture leaves us unprepared for thinking about love in anything other than a one-dimensional mode. Just as marriage has seized the monopoly on public affirmations of love, so a notion of romance has restricted what we can imagine as a loving relationship.

The ancient Greeks, unlike us, did not have a single word for love but many. As is often noted, they had philia (friendship) and eros (desire), storge (affection) and agape (unconditional love). Perhaps that is another part of our problem. Our language invites us to think of love as a single, unified thing, when it is nothing of the sort. I suspect that words are not enough to address this modern deficiency. What we need is a new sense of the variety of love’s experiences. Fortunately there is another storehouse we can draw on from our ancient forebears: and it is not their words, but their myths that can enlighten us.

I n a sense, we are lumbered with the dominance of romantic love; it can’t simply be sidestepped in favour of friendship, for example. That would never work: the erotic is simply too powerful. But the ancient myths can help us realise why romance is such a successful sell, if short-lived. Perhaps the myth that best captures the allure of romance is Aristophanes’ idea about soulmates, from Plato’s Symposium The story goes that human beings originally had two heads, four arms and four legs. We were shaped like round balls and tumbled across the face of the Earth at great speed. The gods grew alarmed at this display of power. So Zeus hatched a plan. He would cut human beings in half, leaving each with just one head, two arms and two legs.

These mutilated halflings were a pathetic sight. In particular, they developed the habit of devoting considerable amounts of their now limited energy searching for their lost halves. The desire to find the missing other was irresistible. Individuals sustained the search in spite of repeated break-ups and romantic disasters in the indefatigable belief that the right person — ‘the one’ — was out there. The promise of love, they felt, was nothing less than wholeness.

The myth has had a long life, accurately describing to this day the inner experience of those who feel life is incomplete without such love. In fact, it wasn’t until the 18th century that Aristophanes’ way of thinking about love reached its logical conclusion, when Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote of how he fell in love as a young man. Only after that experience, he mused, could he be sure that he had genuinely lived. The upshot was that romantic love had become the goal in its own right. It matters not who you fall in love with, so long as you have fallen in love. The experiential ideal usurps the complex personal reality. That is why romance has us so much in its grip and empties us out in the process. It is the same with the dogmatic pursuit of happiness.

Crucially, however, Plato’s original myth about soulmates ends not with an elusive, illusory happiness, but with a twist. And here it might have something to teach us, suggesting an escape hatch out of the romantic stronghold. Zeus takes pity on the halved humans. He moves their genitals round so that when they meet they can embrace and find a little release for their passion. Sex is a temporary taste of unity, and it helps, though only to a degree. So when Hephaestus, the god of craftsmen, passes by and promises the couples a wish, these tragic figures speak with one voice. Weld us together, they cry: melt us one into the other!

For love to have a future, couples need to be able to move from falling in love to standing in love

Hephaestus obliges. The two become one. And the new situation reveals another way in which love gets stuck. Glued together, gazing only into each other’s eyes, the lovers lose touch with the rest of life. Not caring for anything else, death takes on an attractive hue, and they dream of sharing a last single breath together — a fantasy that lives on in the French euphemism, la petite mort , and in the romantic climax to Romeo and Juliet . But as the psychologist Erich Fromm put it in The Art of Loving (1956), for love to have a future, couples need to be able to move from falling in love to standing in love. Lovers must learn to embrace what lies outside their cosy twosome in order to survive. As Freud made explicit, dyadic love can be nurturing, but can equally be claustrophobic and alienating, and Aristophanes’ tale suggest it must be transcended.

The question is, how? How can the energy that romantic desire releases be directed outwards so that it feeds a passion not just for life together, but for life itself, led together. An answer is given by another ancient myth, one that is almost forgotten today. It concerns the infant god of love, familiar to us as Eros, but it also introduces us to another, less familiar figure, his brother.

Eros was born to Aphrodite and at first all seemed well. But then, Aphrodite noticed something that disturbed her. The child was not growing. His wings stayed as buds. His chubby flesh failed to develop muscles. It was as if he was possessed by a spirit that clung to infancy, refusing to step into maturity. Aphrodite became anxious and consulted her sister, the wise Themis. The goddess of good counsel (whose name translates literally as ‘what works’ ) advised her to have another child, this time by Ares, the brave god of war. Themis instructed that the second infant be called Anteros — he would be the equal of Eros. Aphrodite did as her sister said, and it worked. The two sons were rivals. They joshed and scrapped and fought, yet loved one another, too, and, as long as they played side by side, Eros developed normally. Yet, when they were apart, Aphrodite noticed that Eros would regress.

What Anteros brings is difficulty, a romantic equivalent to the sibling rivalry that young children hate so much in their jostling for a parent’s attention even though, like the tensions in an adult relationship, it can be the making of them, when sensitively handled. Anteros brings the courage required to resist the oceanic fantasy of disappearing into another’s arms, and instead embarks on the difficult process of making a life out of love. What he stands for, we might say, is the healthy spiritedness that lies behind lovers’ tiffs and rows which, if they can be reflected on and learnt from, make for maturity. The 16th-century proverb conveys this Anterotic dynamic: ‘The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love’. If Eros is the god of love who shoots people with his arrows and turns them mad with desire, Anteros is the god of love who opposes the madness with a mix of his aunt’s pragmatism and his father’s strength.

To onlookers, it is unclear whether the two are making love or locked in some form of mutual violation

But the myth tells us more. Anteros’ aunt Themis was also known for her skill in bringing conflicting energies into a healing alignment. Today, her successors are couples’ therapists: they tend to be more interested in how troubled couples handle the emotions unleashed by their rows, rather than how to avoid rows in the first place. The anger and hate, fear and vulnerability of difficult relationships can be an opportunity. This is not your lost half, the therapist implies, but it is someone with whom you might find more integration and wholeness for yourself. Life is not perfected through love, as the romantic fantasy implies, but through love you can find more of life. Conversely, an inability to handle conflict is a good predictor of divorce.

It’s worth reflecting on the detail that Anteros helped his brother only while they played together. When they were apart, Eros regressed. Perhaps this conveys the value of commitment in relationships, a commitment that provides a container for the ups and downs, allowing them to be worked through. There is no static ‘happily ever after’, but a continuing need to play together. It suggests that a good relationship comes from the future, not the past, as Aristophanes’ myth implies. Love is more made than found.

I n his book Anteros: A Forgotten Myth (2011), Craig Stephenson gathers evidence that Eros’ brother might not have vanished after all. He discusses Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem, ‘Hero’s Lamp’ (1875), which speaks of a lamp that is dedicated to Anteros and can only be lit when a love lasts a lifetime — unlike the mad love Leander had for Hero, which led him to attempt to cross the sea to reach her too many times and drown.

Meanwhile, the famous wrestling scene in DH Lawrence’s novel, Women in Love , can be read, Stephenson argues, as a depiction of the rivalry between Eros and Anteros. Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich wrestle ‘swiftly, rapturously, intent and mindless at last’. Birkin learns from the aggression, safely but fully expressed in the fight: his marriage to Ursula Brangwen will have to combine elements of unity and adversity to work. Separateness in union can be achieved only by holding opposites in tension, as the critic Frank Kermode has read into Lawrence. Lovers must reach ‘an equilibrium beyond the ordinary notion of sexual love’.

Fundamentally, the myth of Eros and Anteros is about a triangular form of love. The brothers fight as siblings, vying for the attention of Aphrodite. It is this kind of love that is life-giving, because Eros and Anteros can desire something outside their immediate dyadic concerns. Their love is triangular: it is fired by someone or something beyond their love for each other. Their rivalry draws them towards external elements in life — which is to say, life itself. Hence, Eros matures.

Plato built the myth of Anteros into one of his dialogues. The triangular element it seems, particularly interested him. In the Phaedrus dialogue, he describes what happens when individuals fall in love (this much is familiar): romantic urges compel them to rush together, propelled by desire. To onlookers, it is unclear whether the two are making love or locked in some form of mutual violation. But some lovers are blessed by what Plato calls an Anterotic dynamic. It is as if they are able to prise themselves apart from one another, stand back a little, and observe what is going on. A third space opens up between them. It brings an essential capacity for self-awareness.

A couple can work out not only how to live together but how to live well together

This gap has a dramatic effect on the relationship. No longer are they just driven by their lust for one another. Instead, in time, a more expansive intimacy develops, which has a quality akin to friendship. The words of the French writer and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry come to mind: ‘Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.’ As lovers, two people look only into each other’s eyes; as friends, they can look ahead together. They begin to see a life that lies beyond them and, supported by one another — now standing in love — they have the resources to step into the future together.

What is interesting about Plato’s account is that he believes this life-enhancing friendship is the result of erotic love. His philosophy is not a denial of eros , but its skilful channelling, tricky as that is to pull off. This explains the original meaning of the phrase ‘Platonic friendship’ — not that the erotic was never to be felt between such friends (an idea that would have been regarded by Plato as a form of denial), but rather that the sexual expression of the romantic element is incorporated and transcended. In Freudian terms, the erotic instinct is sublimated. Its energy becomes available for the passionate pursuit of philosophy — an attractive possibility given that, for Plato, philosophy meant the cultivation of a life that makes for flourishing. To capture the same sentiment in a less highfalutin way, such a couple can work out not only how to live together but how to live well together.

Triangular love, where space is made in a relationship for life (and love) beyond the confines of the couple, is the highest form of human love because it makes a good life possible. As the philosopher Anthony Price puts it in Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle (1989), ‘in a promising soul well prompted, it is receptive of, and responsive to, the opening of new vistas’. It is a less fearful and self-obsessed love than that of Narcissus, and has space for others unlike Aristophanes’ glued-together lovers. To use Iris Murdoch’s phrase in her reading of Plato, this love has ‘an increased awareness of, sensibility to, the world beyond the self’.

But this raises an important question. If we want a way out of romantic confines, where can we pay homage to Anteros today? Craig Stephenson points out that what we popularly call the statue of Eros on the Shaftesbury memorial fountain in Piccadilly is actually Anteros. It was made in 1893 by the sculptor Alfred Gilbert who felt his own life mirrored the struggles of the rival brothers of love. Gilbert saw a reflection of his impulsive character in Eros and longed to know for himself more of the realism associated with Anteros. He must have felt that Anteros was the more suitable god to invoke in the heart of that romantic part of London. Personally, I offer Anteros a surreptitious, reverent bow each time I pass. It is in cautious thanks for the tricky side of love.

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'Tattooist of Auschwitz': The 'implausible' true love story behind the Holocaust TV drama

Spoiler alert! The following story contains major plot details about the Peacock miniseries “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” (now streaming).

In 1942, a young Slovakian Jewish man named Lali Sokolov was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was assigned a job inking numbers on prisoners’ arms.

One day, he struck up a conversation with a woman he was tattooing named Gita Furman. It was the beginning of a 60-year romance marked by unspeakable horrors and pain but rooted in deep love and resilience. Their story was eventually told in Heather Morris’ 2018 book “ The Tattooist of Auschwitz ,” which has now been adapted into a gut-wrenching TV series on Peacock.

“It felt so unique and surprising and implausible. It’s not a story we’re used to hearing,” says Jonah Hauer-King (" The Little Mermaid "), who plays Lali in the six-episode drama. “Allowing yourself to open your heart and love someone in a place like that felt very brave, almost like an act of resistance.”

'They're the definition of soulmates'

The show recounts their clandestine courtship while imprisoned at Auschwitz, where an estimated 1.1 million people were killed. Lali, who was granted special privileges as a tattooist, would smuggle letters and extra rations to Gita (Anna Próchniak). On Sundays, when neither was forced to work, they met secretly in Lali’s private sleeping quarters.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Screening the series earlier this year, “the intimate scenes were hard for people to believe, like, ‘Really? They made love in Auschwitz?’” director Tali Shalom Ezer says. “That’s something people thought we dramatized for this, but from our research and from Heather, it really happened.”

Morris, a first-time author, was introduced through mutual friends to Sokolov, who emigrated to Australia after World War II. She spent three years listening and speaking to him as he told his story. Although the book became a bestseller, "Tattooist" drew criticism from some Holocaust historians upon its release over inaccuracies.

“We’re very clearly telling a story from one person’s point of view,” clarifies executive producer Claire Mundell, noting that Sokolov recalled his memories of Auschwitz to Morris more than six decades after the fact.

'We Were the Lucky Ones': WWII and Holocaust dramas are more important than ever

Nevertheless, the “Tattooist” team worked with historical and cultural consultants to ensure their depiction was as factual as possible. For instance, while the book suggests Lali was the lone tattooist at Auschwitz, the series makes clear that he was one of several working at the camp. When Gita falls ill with typhoid fever, Lali helps find medicine for her that was available at the time (not the penicillin described in the book, which wasn’t widely accessible until after the war).

Perhaps more than anything, Ezer hopes viewers recognize the couple's courage and compassion, as well as the unique ways they supported each other: Lali, who was sensitive yet resourceful; and Gita, a headstrong force of nature.

“They’re the definition of soulmates,” Ezer says. “When Lali was losing hope, Gita gave him hope. And when she was very near to giving up, he was holding the strength to keep going. There is something about the match that is magical.”

'How could we possibly know how we would act?'

“Tattooist” toggles between the 1940s and early 2000s, as an older Lali (Harvey Keitel) shares his story with Heather (Melanie Lynskey). The series presents a nuanced look at the immense survivor's guilt Lali felt: While at Auschwitz, he was ostracized by some of his fellow prisoners, who considered his forced labor as working for the Nazis. But for Lali, his elevated status allowed him to sneak other inmates food and water.

“There’s a tension in it,” Hauer-King says. “On some level, he’s benefiting from that role: He’s given more rations and has his own place to sleep. But when it comes to profound evil, the temptation sometimes is to see heroes and villains.”

Instead, he says, we should recognize that Lali and “other victims of this horror were put in these impossible positions. How could we possibly know how we would act? Ultimately, Lali was anchored by this belief that while he was alive, he could help others.”

Sokolov regularly met with Morris until his death in 2006 at age 90. “My impression is that the time they spent together was incredibly difficult and challenging, but it was also very cathartic,” Hauer-King says. “So many survivors are unwilling or unable to talk about their experiences because it’s too painful, so I would really like to think in sharing his story he found some peace.”

'They celebrated life'

In 1945, as the Germans were losing the war, the lovers were separated when Gita was sent on a death march. Lali was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria but eventually escaped. He made his way back to Slovakia and waited two weeks at a train station for returning survivors, holding out hope that he would one day spot Gita there. Sure enough, they miraculously reunited and married later that year.

“It’s unimaginable,” Ezer says. “It’s just incredible that’s how it happened.”

After relocating to Melbourne in 1948, the couple developed a successful textile business and had one son, Gary. They had many friends and a beautiful apartment and enjoyed a long and happy marriage until Gita’s death in 2003.  

“They celebrated life,” Mundell says. “They had others they spoke with who had experienced the same trauma, but one of the many things that’s so inspiring about them is that they got on with life. When you see photographs of them as a young couple after the war, or in the later years of their marriage, they’re just so together.

“Lali had an expression Heather told us about, which was, ‘If you wake up in the morning, it’s a good day.' He carried that with him for the rest of his life.”

Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives Secrets Only True Fans Know

"Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" is one of the most successful Food Network programs ever. At time of writing, the show is on its 48th season and has received numerous Emmy award nominations. Triple D, as it's known to fans, has garnered millions of views over the years, catapulting its host Guy Fieri to national stardom and allowing him to open nearly 100 restaurants . Despite both the show and Fieri's fame, there remain many secrets about "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" that only true fans know. In this article, we highlight these secrets, providing you with the insider knowledge needed to go from casual fan to Triple D expert.

Fieri's bombastic on-screen persona has won him many fans and more than a few haters as revealed by  a survey Daily Meal performed . It's also led many people to believe that Fieri is all show, a celebrity first and chef second. This misconception has led many to overlook various aspects of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," from Fieri's deep culinary knowledge to the crew's painstaking research process. All of this means that Triple D is one of the most secret-laden TV shows out there.

Fieri's 1968 Camaro is trailered to each city

Fans of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" know that every segment begins with Guy Fieri standing by his 1968 Camaro and introducing the restaurant where he is about to eat. Slick editing would have us believe that Fieri drives about in this classic car, traveling from one city to another and stopping off to try some incredible burgers along the way. Of course, the reality is quite different.

Instead of being driven by Fieri from location to location, this iconic vehicle is transported across the country by trailer and is almost exclusively used as a prop. A crew member ensures that the Camaro is set up outside the restaurant prior to shooting. All Fieri has to do is pretend to get out of the car as part of the introduction to each restaurant.

There are a few times when Fieri is filmed actually driving the car. In these shots, Fieri is usually talking to a cameraman in the seat next to him. The size of the camera equipment is one of the main reasons why Fieri and his crew chose a convertible for the program. Quite simply, all the filming equipment couldn't fit in anything else.

Fieri doesn't talk with proprietors before filming

Guy Fieri's ability to easily interact with a variety of people is one of the reasons why "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives" is so popular. Although these interactions seem completely natural, Fieri and his production team go to great lengths to ensure that their authenticity is maintained. One of the main ways they do this is to ensure that Fieri doesn't meet the proprietors prior to shooting. Ann Kim, the co-owner of Pizzeria Lola, a restaurant that was featured on Triple D, explained this to Twin Cities Business , saying, "Guy doesn't like to meet people before the taping. He is focused on it being as spontaneous as possible. They're super-serious about it being authentic."

The owners of Cafe Nooner , another establishment that was featured on "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives," explained that their interaction with Fieri was also limited before the camera started rolling. Mike Morris, one of the show's field producers, explained to the owners of Cafe Nooner that Fieri and his team didn't take this approach during early iterations of the show. However, in these episodes, they found that conversation between Fieri and his proprietors didn't flow as naturally. The result was several awkward and slightly jarring segments.

Patrons featured in the show are regulars

During "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" segments, restaurants are full of customers. Despite what some people believe, these are not random patrons who happen to be in the restaurant at the time. In fact, the restaurants are actually closed during filming and these customers have been specially invited to star in the segment by the restaurant's proprietor. As a result, the crowd is usually made up of the proprietor's friends, family, and faithful regulars. Those customers who agree to partake are required to be familiar with the restaurant's menu and must be willing to discuss it if and when they are interviewed.

Unfortunately, not all of these individuals are interviewed by Guy Fieri himself. As executive producer Frank Matson explained to People , "In addition to Guy interviewing people, we continue to interview other people once Guy has left and that then is edited together with the customers that Guy has interviewed within the final piece." Happily, all customers have a good chance of appearing on national television. They also get to enjoy some free food to boot.

He invites Make-a-Wish children to the show

Guy Fieri is as a charitable individual who volunteers his services for a variety of causes. For example, Fieri recently headed a chef fundraiser to raise money for Maui fire victims . His most enduring charitable effort, however, is with the Make-a-Wish Foundation, a non-profit that grants the wishes of critically ill children. As an incredibly famous celebrity, Fieri gets more than his fair share of requests from the Make-a-Wish Foundation and he does his best to grant them, often inviting the critically ill children and their families to tapings of "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives." In an interview with Delish , Fieri said, "I know what the family is going through, to some degree. I know that heartache and I see that, and if there's anything I can do to help enlighten or empower those kids, I want to do it."

Fieri's dedication to the Make-a-Wish Foundation has seen him honored with the Chris Greicius Award. This award is only given to people who have done a great deal to aid the foundation's mission and helped many children's wishes come true. As Fieri tells it, the wishes he grants aren't limited to bringing children on set. Often, he visits them in hospital and recreates famous dishes from "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" for their entertainment.

They shoot several locations a day

The way in which "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives" is shot has changed markedly over the years. Initially, the crew would spend days in one place, working on a single show. By 2009, the team had developed a two-crew system. This allowed shooting to take place both before and after Guy Fieri was on location, enabling them to cover double the number of restaurants. This process was explained by David Page, the man who created "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" in an interview with Heavy Table . "The crews will shoot ahead of time," Page said. "Guy will then come in and do his visit to each of these restaurants, which is half a day at a time. He'll do two restaurants a day for three days."

In 2019, it was revealed that the crew had started covering even more ground. The team now consists of two 10-man crews that manage to film at three or four restaurants in one day. Fieri is very forthright about the importance of his crew and has even said that when filming without these familiar faces, shooting isn't the same.

Restaurants must share their health inspection report

Despite the show's name, "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" does not feature any old establishments. In fact, the selected restaurants must meet certain criteria to even be considered for the show, including that they make just about all food from scratch. It's not just the quality of the food that the Triple D team checks before shooting at the restaurant, but its cleanliness too. When being considered for the show, restaurants are asked to supply a copy of their most recent health inspection report. Anything less than a stellar report and the restaurant will not be considered.

The focus on cleanliness does not abate once the restaurant is accepted. Many proprietors repaint, deep clean, and generally spruce up their establishment so it looks its best on shoot day. Fail to do so, and the shoot might be canceled. As David Page highlighted to Heavy Table , "we're very, very good in the research department, but still you can be surprised. And to be candid, we have gotten to town and canceled places because the key to the show is that they have to meet that bar." Aside from making good TV, the high standard of these vetting processes means that some of our favorite restaurants featured on Triple D are actually among the very best restaurants that the United States has to offer.

Shoots last two days and are expensive

Although the average segment on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" only lasts eight minutes, it takes a production team of 10 people hours of shooting to get all the content they need. As a result, the featured restaurant has to be closed to the public for at least two days. Some proprietors have even stated that they were closed for up to four days due to Triple D shoots.

Closing for this amount of time is not easy as proprietors are giving up on a lot of potential sales. What's more, shooting a segment of "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives" necessitates a huge amount of food be cooked, with some chefs saying they cooked the entire menu three times over when filming their segment. While some of this food is eaten, the vast majority is wasted incurring huge costs for the business. Eric Goerdt, who owns the Triple D-featured Northern Waters Smokehaus, a place known for its sandwiches, highlighted this in an interview with Twin Cities Business , saying, "I was reluctant. I think it cost us nearly $15,000 in wasted product and costs associated with cleaning." Thankfully, the huge uptick in sales that inevitably occurs after the episode is aired — known as The Fieri Effect — more than makes up for these losses. Some establishments even report revenue doubling after their episode airs.

Fieri cares about the restaurants they feature

Guy Fieri takes a very active role in the restaurant selection process for "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." In fact, after producers put together a list of potential establishments, Fieri picks not only which of them will feature on the show, but also which dishes he will try at each. Aside from ensuring he doesn't have to eat eggs, his least favorite food , Fieri also takes part in this process to ensure the show focuses on small, mom-and-pop establishments run by dedicated, hard-working individuals. Fieri obviously feels a duty to these people and frequently mentions that providing employment, and opportunities for local communities is why he continues to host "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."

Fieri is known to check up on the proprietors of restaurants featured on the show, perhaps because of the affinity he has for them, and the fact he chose the restaurants himself. As Griffin Bufkin, owner of Southern Soul Barbeque, said to Thrillist , "Exactly one month after filming our episode, our entire restaurant burned to the ground. And one of the first people to call us — while the place was actually still on fire — was Guy Fieri. He wanted to see how we were, if he could help." If that's not proof of Fieri caring about the restaurants featured on Triple D, we don't know what is.

Fieri doesn't always like the food

Guy Fieri is known for being incredibly enthusiastic just about every time he eats something on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." He often nods with an agreeable "mmmm," and even shouts catchphrases such as "Flavor jets, activate!" after trying the food. Occasionally though, Fieri fails to react in this manner, leading people to suggest that he doesn't actually like the food. For his part, Fieri has done his best to put these theories to bed saying to People , "There are different scales of good, great and awesome. Not every dish is A+. But if I don't like it, you won't see it."

While Fieri's statement is tactful, it isn't necessarily true. In early seasons of the show, he said plainly that he didn't like certain dishes, including a peanut butter burger served at Triple XXX in Indiana, as this clip on YouTube shows. Fieri doesn't react in this way anymore, but many viewers still believe they can tell when Fieri doesn't like what he's eating on Triple D. According to them, you know he doesn't like something when he starts listing the components of a dish and describing them instead of saying one of his trademark statements.

The crew love to prank one another

Guy Fieri and his crew have been working together for a long time and this is reflected in the way they interact with each other when shooting. According to Fieri, the crew trusts each other's judgment enough to make creative decisions on the fly. This often means pivoting to focus on a different dish or changing the lighting to better suit their style.

Aside from coming up with quick creative decisions, the intimacy between crew members also means that they love to play pranks on one another. Fieri explained one of the games they like to play in an interview with Heavy Table , saying, "We have a variety of little games we play on each other. 'Hide the Meat' is [one], where we take a piece of meat and hide it in someone's gear bag. People have things ditched in their bag that they don't know."

The Jukebox Diner finds new home in Exeter: Time to 'open this beauty up and get cooking'

EXETER —  The Jukebox Diner has found a new spot in Exeter, one that owners Mike and Stephanie Oliveira said would be the food truck’s “permanent” home.

The Oliveiras took to Facebook to announce their 1950s-themed diner-on-wheels will be open from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 11, at 103 Epping Road . The spot is next to Service Credit Union and in front of the bus company.

"Michael and I are excited to announce that we are good to go to open this beauty up and get cooking," the Facebook post reads. “Thank you to all that have welcomed us and shown us so much excitement for our location. It’s a busy area so we are grateful for the opportunity to serve many of you!”

The Oliveiras, who founded and later sold Donut Love , announced the new business venture in March. Initially, the couple was going to set up their food trailer near the Exeter bandstand, but they decided to withdraw their bid with the town so that  Clyde’s Cupcakes could remain at that location. 

Elliott Berkowitz, who owns the 1.5-acre space that Jukebox Diner will be operating on, said he reached out to the Oliveiras after he heard they withdrew their bid for the downtown spot. 

He said he wanted “to do something for a friend.” 

Berkowitz said he first met the Oliveiras when he rented out his building at 113 Water Street for their then Donut Love location. 

“I just wish them lots of luck, and I’m sure they’re going to do very well,” said Berkowitz.

Aside from needing approval for gas and propane tank installation, Doug Eastman, the town's code enforcement officer, said the Oliveiras did not require any additional permit to operate the food truck as its on private property.

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What's on the menu at The Jukebox Diner?

The diner on wheels will offer breakfast staples such as cinnamon rolls and homemade doughnuts to lunch food such as chicken tenders and black bean burgers. Its menu also features milkshakes and floats for a quick treat or to end your meal on a sweet note.

The Oliveiras did not immediately return calls seeking comment. 

However, the couple announced on social media that the Jukebox Diner’s hours of operation will be posted every Sunday on their Facebook page. The couple shared the schedule will be "less consistent” at first but the goal is to be open five days a week by June.

Mike Oliveira previously said the new business venture was extra special because he and his wife thought of the idea together. They both have a love for diners and “all things 1950s.” When they first started dating, they even talked about one day opening their own “retro 1950s diner-type restaurant.”  

The Jukebox Diner, they said, is a dream come true. 

In a Facebook post, they said “Our hope is that when you come and visit, you’ll feel the nostalgia of a bygone era and be transported back into the golden age of rock n roll, poodle skirts and classic Americana. The checkerboard patterns, neon lights, vintage memorabilia, and music will capture the essences of the 1950s diner experience.”

“We love that era,” Mike Oliveira said previously. “We kind of joke all the time, we should have been born during those times.”

More: Exeter's Supreme Pizza reopening after fire caused nearly 3-year hiatus

The Real-Life Murder Mystery Behind Netflix's 'Burning Body'

Who killed Pedro Rodríguez?

The Big Picture

• Rosa Peral's complex life and crime story unfolds through the lens of media sensationalism and personal relationships.
• Conflicting narratives arise between Rosa Peral's portrayals in the fictional Burning Body ' and the documentary Rosa Peral's Tapes , adding layers to the murder case.
• The puzzling case of Pedro Rodríguez's murder delves into suspicion, manipulation, and a love triangle with devastating consequences.

Netflix ’s offerings on the life and crime of Rosa Peral , responsible for one of Spain’s most notorious killings in recent history, presents its pivotal character on similar lines. In the eight-episode retelling of the story behind Officer Pedro Rodríguez’s murder, Burning Body , Rosa Peral is presented in her first appearance as a torn lover desperate to reunite with her partner. On the other hand, in the Netflix true-crime documentary film Rosa Peral’s Tapes , Rosa Peral herself takes the stage to paint herself as a victim of her circumstances. But despite presenting slightly differing perspectives of the crime, which came to be popularly known as el Crimen de la Guardia Urbana (the Crime of the City Guard) , both these latest Netflix releases offer a compelling story that only gets complicated with each passing moment , as a result of the horrifying true story that inspired them.

Although established much later in Burning Body , the media’s attitude toward Rosa Peral becomes the starting point of the narrative presented in the documentary film. The media clearly had a target in front of them — a promiscuous police officer who’s suspected to be the murderer of her partner. In her first interview after being jailed, Rosa Peral clearly points out she was a victim of media sensationalism even before the trial began. In Burning Body, Rosa (played by Money Heist star Úrsula Corberó ) faces a similar realization during her trial. But Rosa’s biggest hurdle in clearing her name was her own past, marked by a series of incidents that cast serious suspicion on the character and intentions of the former police officer.

Burning Body

When a police officer is murdered and set on fire, all eyes focus on two other agents; his girlfriend and her lover. Inspired by true events.

Who Is Rosa Peral from 'Burning Body'?

Burning Body ’s story starts when the charred remains of 38-year-old Guardia Urbana de Barcelona officer Pedro Rodriguez ( José Manuel Poga ), were found inside his burnt car in the Foix reservoir. Although Pedro’s partner at the time, Rosa Peral, and her on-and-off lover, Albert López ( Quim Gutiérrez ), tried to focus the authorities’ attention on Rosa’s ex-husband Rubén, named Javi ( Isak Férriz ) in Burning Body , eventually the investigators were able to catch Rosa and Albert’s role in the crime. Burning Body dives into the turbulent past of Rosa Peral to find possible justifications for her crimes — an approach even the prosecution and media adopted during the real-life trials.

Rosa’s relationship with Rubén began in 2000 and the couple got married in 2013. From the marriage, Rosa had two daughters. Burning Body capitalizes on some real rumors that spread around Rosa’s early life when the news of her involvement in Pedro’s death first broke out. It was falsely rumored that Rosa worked as a stripper in a club where she met Rubén, adding to her seductress persona painted by the media. Burning Body shows Úrsula Corberó in this light, trying to seduce her future husband through a sensuous dance. As a result of her toxic relationship with Rubén, Rosa grew closer to Albert, her patrolling partner. However, she did not pursue her relationship with Albert due to their differing perceptions of the future.

At this time, Rosa found another pillar of support in Pedro Rodriquez, an officer who was, in the past, accused of committing an act of violence toward a biker. But it’s the support given to Rosa by Pedro when Rosa found herself amidst a trial that really made her choose him. In 2008, Rosa ended up having an affair with another officer named Óscar, unbeknownst to her husband. When Rosa tried ending the relationship, Óscar allegedly sent a mass email with compromising pictures of Rosa, according to Rosa’s version. It was believed by some within the police department that Rosa herself sent the pictures. Rosa’s multiple relationships during this period and the “revenge porn” trial only contributed further to her femme fatale image once she became a suspect in the death of Pedro. Also, Rosa’s continued relationship with Albert, who according to Rosa is the guilty one , between 2013 and 2017, further landed her in trouble, at least in the public eye. The love triangle, which came to light after Pedro’s death , did not assist Rosa Peral in her endeavors to claim innocence.

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Rosa and albert's relationship proved lethal for pedro.

Rosa Peral denied her relationship with Pedro in front of Albert after Albert appeared at her house and found that Rosa and Pedro were staying together in January 2017. Although Rosa later claimed that she did it because she felt threatened by Albert , it only cast more doubt on her intentions and solidified her image as a woman trying to develop multiple relationships. Later in April, Albert and Rosa met again at a coffee shop in the presence of her friends. As shown in Burning Body , Albert offered a ring to Rosa, which she happily accepted, according to her friends.

Although in the series there remains some shadow of doubt regarding whether Rosa invited Albert to the café, the documentary film makes it clear that it was Rosa who sent her location to Albert. One of the friends present at the location later confirmed during the trial that Rosa chose Pedro for the moment. Also, as per the friend’s testimony, the scene in which Úrsula Corberó’s Rosa can be seen wearing both rings from Albert and Pedro respectively, actually happened.

According to Rosa, she chose Pedro because he had accepted her daughters — something she could never see Albert doing. But despite Rosa’s continued insistence, many exchanges over emails and WhatsApp messages reflect Albert’s close association with Rosa and their unhealthy relationship . A particular audio message, which does not clearly suggest the planning of Pedro’s murder but does hint that Rosa was in contact with a person (most likely Albert) and was planning to do something soon, became pivotal evidence from the prosecution’s perspective. Although the audio message did not explicitly hint at Pedro’s murder, it provided enough footing for the prosecution to stand on , especially considering the contradictions in Rosa’s claims regarding her relationship with Albert.

The very next day, on April 20, Albert bought a phone that was used on two occasions , one being the day on which Pedro was allegedly murdered . Moreover, the telephone records helped place Albert in the vicinity of Rosa’s house, cementing the suspicions that Albert and Rosa were in continuous contact days before the gruesome murder was carried out. In total, there were phone calls exchanged between Rosa and Albert, lasting a total of 28 minutes. However, there’s little solid evidence to suggest that Rosa and Albert conspired to murder Pedro during these calls or during their meeting at Rosa’s house on April 25.

Did Rosa's Daughter Witness the Crime?

Fast-forward to the night of April 30, Rosa and Pedro returned from a family dinner. Minutes later, Rosa called Albert, apparently after seeing a ton of messages from him. After the initial call, Albert then called Rosa again from the other phone he had bought on April 20. Thereon, it is assumed that Rosa drugged Pedro before Albert joined him at the house to carry out the final act: Pedro Rodríguez’s murder. According to Rosa’s lawyer Olga Arderiu’s interview in Rosa Peral’s Tapes , this theory was a consequence of the testimony by Antonia , Rubén’s partner at the time of the trial .

As Rosa’s minor daughter did not testify, even Antonia was not allowed to give a proxy testimony. However, she was able to mime what Rosa’s daughter had suggested she had seen , giving the impression to those present that Rosa’s daughter had seen an intoxicated Pedro on the night of the events. According to Olga, despite the judge’s insistence that the testimony should not be recorded, it did have an impact on the jury’s decision. In Burning Body , it is strongly hinted that Rosa’s daughter, named Sophia in the series, did strongly suspect her mother. In real life, however, Rosa emphasizes that her daughter never directly said anything , and only Antonia, who did not share a cordial relationship with Rosa, propagated this lie.

After the crime was committed, Rosa and Albert played along to make it look like Pedro was alive , through various messages. In Burning Body , it is even suggested that Rosa went to the extent of making payments on Pedro’s behalf. Another attempt in this direction was Rosa’s father’s fake testimony about seeing Pedro alive on May 2. Although in Burning Body, Rosa’s mother breaks under the pressure of the interrogation room, it was Rosa’s father who later confessed that it was a lie.

Who Killed Pedro Rodríguez — Rosa or Albert?

In the interview, Rosa claimed that she did not see what Albert did to Pedro before she was forced to accompany Albert to the location where Pedro’s car was eventually burned. During all this, the prosecution mainly questioned Rosa’s inability to call for help despite being a police officer. After the car was burned, Rosa was threatened and dropped at her home by Albert. According to Rosa’s version of the events, mainly presented in the documentary film , Rosa did not seek help or reveal to anyone the circumstances that led to Pedro’s death out of fear for her and her daughter’s life.

On the other hand, Burning Body sheds greater light on the version of the story presented by Albert during the trial than the true crime documentary does . During the trial, while Rosa maintained that Albert planned and carried out the crime out of jealousy, Albert López claimed that the crime was committed by Rosa alone and Rosa forced Albert to support her in her actions, which he did out of love for the woman. Albert’s version of the story supports the image of Rosa put forth by the media , that of a manipulative and shrewd “Black Widow."

Although it was never conclusively proved who actually killed Pedro, the evidence and circumstances suggested that Albert and Rosa shared the guilt , in some capacity or other. They both were present the night Pedro was brutally burned to death. Accordingly, the jury sentenced Rosa Peral to 25 years in prison and Albert to 20 years in prison . Presently, Rosa Peral is serving her sixth year at the Mas Enric prison in Tarragona.

Burning Body is currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix

907 episodes

Reddit True Crime Podcasts 2024 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls, Police Stories and Unsolved Mysteries Reddit Podcast r/TrueCrimePodcasts: Reddit True Crime Podcasts 2022 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls, Reddit True Crime Podcasts 2024 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls, Police Stories and Unsolved Mysteries Reddit Podcast True Crime 411 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls, Police Stories and Unsolved Mysteries Reddit Podcast True Crime Podcast 2023 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls and True Police Stories Podcast Welcome to the Police Interrogations, 911 Calls and True Police Stories Podcast. This podcast will feature real-life stories from police officers, crime scene investigators, survivors of violent crimes and more. We'll share stories about how police investigate, assess and solve criminal cases, how 911 calls can provide valuable information to police and how crime victims can seek justice. Every episode will feature a different story, providing a unique insight into the world of law enforcement and crime. We'll bring you interviews with experts from the police force, crime scene investigation teams, prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims and more. We'll explore the impact of crime on individuals and communities. We'll also examine the ethical and legal issues that arise in criminal cases, and the efforts of police to protect the public and bring criminals to justice. We'll be discussing the latest news and developments in the criminal justice system, and the implications of new laws and policies on the safety of communities. We'll also provide valuable resources to help those affected by crime, and look at the impact of crime on the mental health of communities. We hope you'll join us as we explore the world of crime and justice, one episode at a time. true crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 percent focus on tales of serial killers. As much as we love listening to a celebrity interview or cultural discussion, there’s nothing quite like a true crime podcast to keep you hooked for hours on end. There’s a reason why so many true crime series have climbed the podcast charts over the years – from the genre-defining brilliance of Serial to the unexpected twists and turns of Sweet Bobby, true crime is the genre that just keeps on giving. True crime has never been more popular than it is today, as evidenced by the astonishing number of podcasts, TV shows, and documentaries dedicated to the genre. At its core, however, true crime is a type of nonfiction literature. From influential works like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966) to modern-day investigations such as Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2018) or Elon Green’s Last Call (2021), such narratives are unique in the way they connect with their readers, precisely because they explore harrowing real-life events that could happen to anyone. Want to know more about true crime? Here we define the genre, take a fascinating look at its origins, and cover some of its common themes. The Definition of “True Crime” It seems like the definition of true crime would be obvious: A story about a crime that actually occurred. Indeed, most true crime books explore dark and distressing subject matter, and reader discretion is advised. Granted, the first rule of true crime is that the narrative must include as many nitty-gritty facts about the case as possible: Readers expect the actual names of people involved and the correct time and place, information about what they did, and as many details of the crime and its investigation as the author can dig up. True crime books can be about a single event, like a kidnapping. They can also be about the collective crimes of serial killers, thieves, or cult leaders. However narrow or broad the focus, the best true crime books deliver

True Crime Podcast 2024 - Police Interrogations, 911 Calls and True Police Stories Podcast True Crime Podcast 2022

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The Murder Of 12-year old Stephanie Ann Crowe True Crime Documentary

The Murder Of 12-year old Stephanie Ann Crowe True Crime Documentary Stephanie Ann Crowe, 12, was severely slashed with a knife at her house in Escondido, California, in the early morning of January 21, 1998. She had nine stab wounds on her body. Police initially focused on her younger brother, Michael, who was just 14 years old at the time. Stephanie Crowe was sleeping comfortably in her bed when an unknown attacker stabbed her nine times in the head and chest. Evidence indicates that she tried to flee her assailant, sustaining stab wounds on both the right and left sides of her body. Her grandma discovered the small girl later that morning. On the floor of her bedroom, she was dead, motionless, and cold. Stephanie had crawled to her bedroom door and collapsed. Her alarm clock was still blaring. She'd died of a suffocating suffocation. Officers from the local police department were dispatched to the site. They were unable to locate any evidence of forced entry into the bedroom or the residence after doing a walkthrough of the property. The Crowes, on the other hand, frequently left the door to their laundry room open, allowing access to the outside. The coroner assessed her death time to be between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. during the autopsy. The Oceanside Police Department's interrogation methods in her case were dubious, and four people would wind up on trial for Stephanie's murder. stephanie ann crowe,stephanie crowe,san diego,child endangerment,michael crowe,richard tuite,escondido,stephanie crow murder,disappeared,taken,pedophile,predator,child predator,predator monster,amber alert,kidnap,kidnapped,child kidnapping,abducted,abduction,child abduction,girl abducted,girl kidnapped,kidnapping kids,abducting kids,child murder,child homicide,cold case,cold case murder,missing kids rescued kids,missing kids,missing children Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-podcast-2024-police-interrogations-911-calls-and-true-police-stories-podcast--5693470/support.

• MAY 9, 2024

Police Interrogation of Man Who Brutally Killed His Ex-Girlfriend, Unborn Child, and a Police Officer

Police Interrogation of Man Who Brutally Killed His Ex-Girlfriend, Unborn Child, and a Police Officer Markeith Loyd shot and killed his wife, along with their unborn child in December 2016. During the manhunt for Loyd, he also fatally shot Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton as she attempted to confront him outside of a Walmart. He was arrested days after. Loyd was convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, carjacking with a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Loyd was sentenced to death in March 2023. Watch Markeith Loyd's full interrogation. True Crime Podcast 2024 Police Interrogations, 911 Calls True Police Stories Podcast Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-podcast-2024-police-interrogations-911-calls-and-true-police-stories-podcast--5693470/support.

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Full Police Bodycam - Exotic Dancer Tries to Seduce Cop, Throws ‘Drunk’ Tantrum and Relieves Herself in Squad Car

Full Police Bodycam - Exotic Dancer Tries to Seduce Cop, Throws ‘Drunk’ Tantrum and Relieves Herself in Squad Car Bodycam footage shows a 20-year-old exotic dancer attempting to seduce an Ohio police officer after repeatedly throwing tantrums while being arrested in April. The Brunswick Police Department said Grace Spoonamore allegedly crashed into another vehicle while driving intoxicated and assaulted an officer by spitting on him during the traffic stop. Spoonamore initially denied drinking, then admitted to consuming “two doubles” of tequila before later upping the number to “three doubles.” Officers referred to her as "drunk" numerous times throughout the incident. Spoonamore called the arresting officer a “handsome man” and later asked him to tase her because she “likes it kinky.” She was charged with OVI, speeding, obstruction of official business, and assaulting a police officer. True Crime Podcast 2023 Police Interrogations, 911 Calls and True Police Stories Podcast Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-podcast-2024-police-interrogations-911-calls-and-true-police-stories-podcast--5693470/support.

• MAY 8, 2024

Drunk Teen Caught By Police Drinking Underage Makes Matters Worse

Drunk Teen Caught By Police Drinking Underage Makes Matters Worse Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-podcast-2024-police-interrogations-911-calls-and-true-police-stories-podcast--5693470/support.

• MAY 7, 2024

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• MAY 6, 2024

CRAZY Interrogation Most Evil Child in History, Gripping FBI Interrogation.

CRAZY Interrogation Most Evil Child in History, Gripping FBI Interrogation. The Broken Arrow Family Murders | Robert and Michael Bever The Bever family were a quiet, reclusive gang living in Broken Arrow, OK. Oldest son Robert, started to develop a fascinating with murders, and soon, his obsession just wasn't enough and he wanted to join the big leagues. One night in 2015 Robert and his brother Michael would do something horrific. that chapter,broken arrow,michael bever,robert bever Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-podcast-2024-police-interrogations-911-calls-and-true-police-stories-podcast--5693470/support.

• 1 hr 41 min
• © True Crime Podcast 2022

Customer Reviews

Love listening to these while in school.

Yes I listen to scary stories , true crime , and ghost stories during I’m in school (no one’s knows SHHH) lol I don’t really like the robot voice it’s kinda good voice but bad

90% advertisements 10% content

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I'm not sure which podcast....

I find it strange that some of these episodes seemed to be almost identical to a bunch of other podcasts, every episode has a different narrator I am slightly confused if this is like a montage of popular stories recorded by other people originally or if the people recording these is reading almost word for word and using almost identical voice tuning... confusing. Plus it goes 9 months without anything then they spam post and a lot of the episodes were previously already posted. I noticed the notifications say 'modified 1 day ago' rather then 'New post 1 day ago' ... date line does this too but they don't change the titles to make it seem to be a different episode.. I don't know there is a lot going on here...

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