Love is an emotion, so strong and complex that even science has a hard time understanding it. Love is easier to understand when Shakespeare is describing it through his characters or when Whitney Houston is serenading us with her voice. Throughout history, scholars from different disciplines, may it be, Biologists, Social and Behavioural Scientists, Psychologists, Physiologists, Religious Theoretician’s and even tracing back to the Greek Philosophers, have endeavoured to bring forth an understanding of what love is. In the most simple terms, love is a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Love is considered a basic need, close to water and food. Behind this four-letter word lies decades of research on What happens when we feel this emotion? How does it manifest itself? How does it continue to grow? How is one form of it so lasting and another fleeting? What happens to the mind and the body when one falls in love? We are sure that our readers know the answers to all these questions, but truly putting it down in words is hard. For a long time, many people suggested that love was simply something too primal, mysterious, and spiritual for science to ever fully understand (Cherry, 2020). But, we have been successful in understanding parts of this dynamic and fragile emotion.
In 1886, the German physician and pioneering sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing identified five types of love: true love, sentimental love, platonic love, friendship, and sensual love. In 1954, Albert Ellis, the profound psychotherapist, provided us with different types and degrees of affection, such as conjugal love, parental love, familial love, religious love, love of humanity, love of animals, love of things, self-love, sexual love, obsessive-compulsive love and many more. In one of his famous lectures, titled – Conquering the Dire Need for Love, he provided the idea of rational thinking in love. In the past few sentences, we have already covered 16 types and 3 separate ideas related to love. This is only from two scholars and the buck does not stop there.
In 1988, Robert Sternberg, introduced three basic components to love – intimacy, passion and decision/commitment. Three components, related to each other by love, form a triangle, also known as The Triangular Theory of Love. Each component is defined by its distinct nature, affective, motivational and cognitive respectively. The three components combine in different degrees to produce eight different types of love relationships – Nonlove, Liking, Infatuation, Empty love, Romantic love, Companionate love, Fatuous love, Consummate love. In 1973, psychologist John Lee, combined the ideas of primary colours with love. Hence, he proposed 3 primary styles of love:
- Eros (Greek word) – Describing the ‘passionate’ or ‘erotic’ aspect of love
- Ludos (Greek word) – This word means ‘game’. The playful and fun side of love
- Storge (Greek word) – Describing the ‘natural affection’ within us
Similar to the previous theory, The Colour Wheel Model of Love, shows how these primary styles of love combine to form 9 different secondary styles of love, to name a few – Mania (Obsessive love), Pragma (Realistic and Practical love), Agape (Selfless love). Psychologist Elaine Hatfield, along with her colleagues put forth two basic kinds of love – Compassionate Love which represents mutual respect, affection and trust between people and Passionate Love which is more focused on intense emotions and sexual attractions.
Moving away from Psychology and towards the Biology of love, we see how the Pituitary Gland and Hypothalamus are responsible for secreting, regulating and producing hormones such as Dopamine, Oxytocin and Vasopressin, the all-important hormones we experience when falling in love. In the same process, the Amygdala moderates feelings of stress and fear. The Neurobiology of love by Semir Zeki, provides us with a comprehensive step by step understanding of ‘The Science of Falling in Love’
After reading the former paragraphs we are sure that you agree with our opening statement – “Love is easier to understand when Shakespeare is describing it through his characters or when Whitney Houston is serenading us with her voice.” Even with decades of research in trying to concretely structure and define love, there are so many areas where we still cannot comprehend its meaning. It is important to note that the scope of our research related to love can only keep growing and evolving. With 7.9 billion people currently in this world, one day, we may have a simple and direct answer to ‘What is Love?’, or maybe not.
– Urveez Kakalia and Ferangiz Hozdar.