Love

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Love is a condition or phenomenon of emotional primacy, or absolute value. Love generally includes an emotion of intense attraction to either another person, a place, or thing; and may also include the aspect of caring for or finding identification with those objects, including self-love. Love can describe an intense feeling of affection, an emotion or an emotional state. In ordinary use, it usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience usually felt by a person for another person. Love is commonly considered impossible to define.

The concept of love, however, is subject to debate. Some deny the existence of love, calling it a recently invented abstraction. Moreover, approximately 13 percent of cultures reportedly have no word for love. Others maintain that love exists but is indefinable; being a quantity which is spiritual, metaphysical, or philosophical in nature. Love is one of the most common themes in art.

Overview

Love has several different meanings in the English language, from something that gives a little pleasure to something that one would die for. And in contrast to the definition at the top, frequently people use the verb "love" to indicate want or desire for themselves as opposed to for another. For example: "I love ice cream," does not refer to desiring wellness for ice cream, but rather to the desire for ice cream. The word also frequently indicates elevated appreciation or admiration: "I love that artist," Laura stated.

Cultural differences make any universal definition of love difficult to establish. Expressions of love may include the love for a soul or mind, the love of laws and organizations, love for a body, love for nature, love of food, love of money, love for learning, love of power, love of fame, and love for the respect of others. Different people place varying degrees of importance on the kinds of love they receive. Love is essentially an abstract concept, easier to experience than to explain. Many believe, as stated originally by Virgil that "Love conquers all", or as stated by The Beatles, "all you need is love". Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of 'absolute value', as opposed to 'relative value'.

Types

Courtly love – a late medieval conventionalized code prescribing certain conduct and emotions for ladies and their lovers
Erotic love – desire characterized by sexual desires
Familial love – affection brokered through kinship connections, intertwined with concepts of attachment and bonding
Free love – sexual relations according to choice and unrestricted by marriage
Platonic love – a close relationship in which sexual desire is nonexistent or has been suppressed or sublimated
Puppy love – romantic affection that is not "mature" or not "true". The term reflects a bias that love between youngsters is somehow less valid.
Religious love – devotion to one's deity or theology
Romantic love – affection characterized by a mix of emotional and sexual desire
True love- love without condition, motive or attachment. Simply loving someone for the sake of loving them.
Unrequited love – affection and desire not reciprocated or returned

Scientific views

Throughout history, predominantly, philosophy and religion have speculated the most into the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. Recently, however, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have begun to take centre stage in discussion as to the nature and function of love.

Biological models of sex tend to see it as a mammalian drive, just like hunger or thirst. Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg explains that love has three different components. Intimacy is a form where two people can share secrets and various details of their personal life. Intimacy is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment on the other hand is the expectation that the relationship is going to last forever. The last and most common form of love is simply sex, or passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love.

Cultural views

Although there exist numerous cross-cultural unified similarities as to the nature and definition of love, as in there being a thread of commitment, tenderness, and passion common to all human existence, there are differences. For example, in India, with arranged marriages commonplace, it is believed that love is not a necessary ingredient in the initial stages of marriage – it is something that can be created during the marriage; whereas in Western culture, by comparison, love is seen as a necessary prerequisite to marriage.

Religious views

Whether religious love can be expressed in similar terms to interpersonal love is a matter for philosophical debate. Religious love might be considered a euphemism, more closely describing feelings of deference. Religions may use the term love to express the devotion of a follower to a deity, who may be a living guru or religious teacher, as in the Bhakti traditions of Asia. This love may be expressed by prayer, service, good deeds, and personal sacrifice. Some traditions encourage the development of passionate love in the believer for the deity.

Reciprocally, many eutheistic followers may believe that deity loves the followers and all of creation. Many believe that this type of love that God has for all of creation, often defined as charity, is an unconditional and ultimate, or infinite, form of love.

Definitional issues

Dictionaries tend to define love as deep affection or fondness.Oxford Illustrated American Dictionary (1998) + Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (2000). In colloquial use, according to polled opinion, the most favoured definitions of love include the words:'04 Poll of 250 Chicagoans – Institute of Human Thermodynamics (Chicago)

life - someone or something for which you would give your life.
care - someone or something about which you care more than yourself.
In common use, care refers to a mental or emotional state of predisposition in which one has an interest or concern for someone or something. To care for someone, may also refer to a disquieted state of mixed uncertainty, apprehension, and responsibility; or a cause for such anxiety. Caring for an object, such as a house, refers to a state of attendant maintenance; or may also refer to a state of charge or supervision, as in under a doctor’s care.
friendship - favoured interpersonal associations or relationships.
union
family - people related via common ancestry.
bond.

References

Roger Allen, Hillar Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor, eds. Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature. London: Saqi Books, 1995.
Shadi Bartsch and Thomas Bartscherer, eds. Erotikon: Essays on Eros, Ancient and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Helen Fisher. Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love
Gabriele Froböse, Rolf Froböse, Michael Gross (Translator): Lust and Love: Is it more than Chemistry? Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry, ISBN 0854048677, (2006).
Thomas Jay Oord, Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2004.
R. J. Sternberg. A triangular theory of love. 1986. Psychological Review, 93, 119–135
R. J. Sternberg. Liking versus loving: A comparative evaluation of theories. 1987. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 331–345
Dorothy Tennov. Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love. New York: Stein and Day, 1979. ISBN 0812861345
Dorothy Tennov. A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence": The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov. Greenwich, CT: The Great American Publishing Society (GRAMPS), ^*
Wood, Wood and Boyd. The World of Psychology. 5th edition. 2005. Pearson Education, 402–403

External links

Kissing, Dating, Love and Marriage

Virtues | Love

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