When love is thought of simply as feelings of the individual subject directed toward various person-objects, the possible variations are almost infinite, because the linkages are acquired and not inborn. Human beings live in groups, however, and certain things are true of group living whether the members of the group are Hottentots, Wisconsin farmers, New York suburbanites, or howler monkeys. For example, all groups develop leaders and followers and rules of possession. The very nature of the group narrows the range of possible behavior, but it also enriches and intensifies experience within these limits.
Author: datingromance
Love and Frustration
There is a strange tendency among some thinkers to consider love, especially romantic love, as a product of the frustration of one of its elements -the desire. Love is a striving — of the total person — toward another person as object. It is biological in origin, cultural in pattern. Once it has passed the…
The Romantic Complex
Romantic love is a total love dominated by the element of thrill or excitement, but it is more than that. It is a total pattern of love behavior and relationship which is said to have come into our Western culture with the Moorish occupancy of the Iberic peninsula, the French troubadour complex of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the Celtic myth of Tristan and Iseult.
How well matched? An exploration of dating
In our society the main purpose of the engagement is to facilitate, by allowing a certain intimacy and privacy, the testing of personalities in order to see how well suited mates are to each other. This is more important than in the case of the formation of other dyadic relations, in as much as marriage is less revocable and lasts longer than do most other pair groupings. Such a period of exploration is more important in our society than in most others because of our emphasis on individual choice of marriage partner in a social universe characterized by extreme heterogeneity of cultural elements and extreme mobility from class to class.
Getting off to a good start
If adjustment is at the crux of the problem, as we assume, then our central task ought to be that of trying to understand how men and women can best get along with each other and with society. Wholesome mate adjustment is blocked by neurotic traits in husbands and wives, more, perhaps, than by anything else. Mental hygiene, when practiced, makes for mature and well-balanced personalities; it tends to prevent undue tension and conflict in the social situation; it is the only way around marital difficulties, the only road leading to genuine adjustment.