I begin this essay with a poem by way of admitting that a devotee of rationality faces peculiar difficulties when writing about love.  Perhaps these difficulties explain why, until recently, standard psychology textbooks had not a word to say about love.  Now that a few "studies" have been done, I find the treatment academic psychology has given to this subject far from satisfying.  Will the day ever come when a scientific account of love is reprinted even once, let alone 128 times?  Why has Kahlil's book been so popular?  Its popularity rests on its truth and on the emotions many readers experience when reading it.

     Love has indeed beckoned me, and I have followed him and found his ways to be hard and steep.  I have yielded when his wings enfolded me, and I have been wounded by that hidden sword.  He has spoken to me, and I have believed him, and I have experienced the shattering of dreams.  Haven't we all?  And that is one of the questions to be considered: are there people who do not love?  If so, what is the balance of genetic and environmental factors?

     The emotions that lovers experience are suggested by such words as "beckon", "wings enfolded", "yield", and "dreams."  Is it possible to study love from a scientific perspective, or was Bishop Fulton Sheen right when he said that a mother's love could never be put into a test tube?  Unless we define love at the outset (or as philosophers are fond of saying, a priori) as being inaccessible to objective study and analysis (mystical), it is quite possible to study it from a rational, scientific perspective.

     One of the first difficulties is that the word has been used with extreme promiscuity, if I may be allowed to use that word.  One is said to "love" everything from ice cream to Mozart.  This essay shall only concern romantic love between two people, though one of our readers took exception to this.  On June 26th, 2001, Mr. Freedom U.S. wrote :

Remi, I pointed this out to you after I read you love position essay. You clearly make a point that love is A&B and although you touch on loving an animal you don't speak of loving multiple beings; why is that?

It seems to me that the more we love the greater our capacity for love. Is your opposition to multiple lovers religious in nature or do you lack the capacity and energy for multiple partners (I am NOT refering to sexual energy)?

Understandably a long term loving relationship whith one person is difficult enough, but what is the reason for limiting our love to one person? Many cultures have plural marriages and it seems to work. Maybe we here in the United States would be better served by eliminating the so called one love forever standard. Maybe if one could love many then children wouldn't come from broken families, they would come from families that grow with love.

Just my 2 cents.
Mr. Freedom U.S.

       Polygamous lifestyles may have their merits as well, and my lack of comment on that subject should not be interpreted as disapproval.  Perhaps Mr. Freedom U.S. should compose an essay on polygamous love and post it in the message board.

       The word "love" as used in everyday life can only provide a starting point for an objective analysis and clearly cannot be accepted uncritically.  Consider the word "insect."  As used in everyday language it may be synonymous with "bug" and includes, incorrectly, spiders.  Biologist classify insects into many different sub-categories, but do not include spiders which are arachnids.  Similarly, the common usage of the word "love" is vague at best.

     As a biologist will tell you, insects all have six legs and wings (although the wings may be vestigial).  Love also has a consistent pattern: a beginning, a middle, and an end.  It has associated behaviors, emotions, and cognitions.   It always involves two humans--at minimum, Mr. Freedom!  I am tempted to include animals, because love relationships with animals can indeed be quite intense and long lasting and can resemble human love in many particulars.  But if we include love of a human for an animal we will have to discuss love of an animal for a human and love between animals, and a great many problems will have to be confronted that perhaps are better left to the future.  There should be no implication that I am attempting to outlaw the use of the word "love" in its popular context.  I am only limiting its meaning here for purposes of discussion.

     No discussion of love would be complete without the obligatory reminder that the Greeks recognized three types of love: philia, eros, and agape.  Philia is brotherly love, eros is sexual love, and agape is selfless love of the whole of mankind in one sweeping embrace.  Or as Schiller expressed it, "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!"   (This quote is from the "Ode to Joy" used by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony.  It means "Be ye embraced, you Millions!"  It's just a big hug for the whole world!)  The great beauty of love has inspired libraries full of poetry, and the transcendental qualities of love have spilled over into religion.  It has even gone so far as to be identified with God, as in the famous Bible quotation, "God is love."  (John 4:8 and also John 4:16.)  On the assumption of the permutivity of the identity relation "is" we could equally well say, "Love is God."  This version of the aphorism is congenial to lovers who often feel so exalted by the love experience that they feel closer to God or more in tune with the Universe.  The love I am going to discuss here is primarily eros but with inclusions from both philia and agape.

     Eric Kraft, in his book Little Follies writes, "In the manner of a chowder, which is a complex and subtle mixture of elemental foodstuffs, the emotion that we call love is a bewildering and varied concoction of more elemental emotions: lust, friendship, curiosity, guilt, and fear, among others. Tastes in chowders vary from person to person, from nation to nation, from region to region; one's own taste in chowder changes over the course of one's lifetime, and it may even shift from day to day. So it is with tastes in love. Some like theirs chock full of voluptuous scarlet tomatoes; others prefer something rarer, more exotic, heady with saffron; and still others like theirs bland and sturdy, with cream and potatoes."

     Freud and his followers pretended to have solved the problem of "object relations" and imagined that there was no further need for investigation.  Psychoanalysis does make a valiant attempt at describing these phenomena, but it does so against the background of a severely flawed theory.  It has failed spectacularly to account for homosexual love, for example, despite many examples ancient and contemporary, such as the one Byron wrote about in 1810:

From Don Leone (Lines 315-18): Nay, e'en our Bard*, Dame Nature's darling child, Felt the strange impulse, and his hours beguiled In penning sonnets to a stripling's praise Such as would damn a poet now-a-days.               --Lord Byron, 1810     "our Bard": William Shakespeare

     Let us create on the scaffold of our imagination two lovers, "A" and "B".  To render these lovers more familiar to us, we shall assign them the names of "Alfred" and "Beatrice."  (Their names could just as well be "Alfred" and "Bradley" or "Anita" and "Beatrice.")  These two people will kindly demonstrate for us the progression of a love relationship.

• The experience of love is always a major event in a person's life.  It can never go unnoticed.   It can never be experienced as a routine event.
• Love starts when Alfred notices Beatrice in a special way.  Alfred finds Beatrice fascinating and attractive.  Alfred finds himself thinking about Beatrice often and feels a "thrill" or frisson when Beatrice appears.  We have selected a poem by Walt Whitman composed during the American Civil War to illustrate this special attraction.




O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE BOY O tan-faced prairie boy, Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift, Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last    among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give - we but look'd    on each other, When lo ! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.               --Walt Whitman, 1864



• The attraction includes but is not limited to Beatrice's physical features.  It includes the sound of Beatrice's voice, the way Beatrice expresses herself, the way Beatrice moves, frowns, laughs, smiles, or talks.
• Alfred will find that he wants to come into physical contact with Beatrice.  If he is very young, there may be no awareness of a sexual component, but experienced lovers entertain more or less extended fantasies of love-making including sexual behavior.
• Extended fantasies occur for both experienced and inexperienced lovers.  The only difference is that the inexperienced lover may not have specific fantasies of a sexual nature.  This fantasy period is probably the time when the bed of roses is created that the lover will later have to lie in, thorns and all.  (Is this a mixed metaphor or what?)   Images are entertained and idealized.  It is the period of "angelification,"  the process of re-perceiving the loved person and so emphasizing the good parts and so de- emphasizing the bad that the resulting Gestalt, if it could be seen by an impartial observer, would bear very scant resemblance to the person who inspired it!
• Soon, Beatrice becomes aware of Alfred's fascination.  What happens next will determine the future course of the love of Alfred for Beatrice.  If Beatrice is not similarly fascinated or attracted to Alfred, she may rebuff Alfred who may suffer feelings of depression.  If Beatrice maintains her rejecting attitude, eventually Alfred's preoccupation with Beatrice will decline, then disappear.  People differ markedly in the ease with which they accept rejection (click the link to find some advice on handling rejection).  Some individuals seem unable to shake off the depression and may even commit suicide.  Others find that they recover in a few days or weeks.  A third pattern (quite rare) is one in which Alfred accepts Beatrice's rejection but continues to love Beatrice and accepts the fact that the love he feels will never be returned.  The depression recurs from time to time but is evaluated as being "worth it."  This may lead to a sort of "friendship" in which the ardent desire of Alfred for Beatrice is restrained.  Such friendships have been known to continue throughout life, but they rarely do so.
• If Beatrice returns Alfred's attentions both Alfred and Beatrice will begin to be preoccupied with each other.  Alfred's perception that his affection is returned by Beatrice will fortify Alfred's feelings, making them more permanent in nature. We choose this assumption for the remainder of the essay.
• Alfred and Beatrice now take every opportunity to be together.  They form a mutual admiration society.
• Physical contact begins, perhaps mere touching at first, but becoming more intense and prolonged, eventually leading to sexual behavior.  Some love relationships never reach full sexual expression.  They most often occur between individuals who fear a sexual relationship.   Societal disapproval often reinforces these fears and prevents the relationship from becoming frankly sexual.  Walt Whitman alluded to this situation in the following poem:




A GLIMPSE A glimpse through an interstice caught, Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around    the stove late of a winter night,    and I unremark'd seated in a corner, Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently    approaching and seating himself near, that he may    hold me by the hand, A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of    drinking and oath and smutty jest, There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking    little, perhaps not a word.               --Walt Whitman, 1859



• Jealousy is almost universal in love relationships.  Two kinds of jealousy exist: angry jealousy and depressed jealousy.  These two are not mutually exclusive but can be experienced serially or together.  Occasionally a love relationship without jealousy can be found, but such things are rare, despite what proponents of polygamy may claim.  One cognitive component of jealousy is a belief that somehow one cannot continue to exist if the loss of the other's love occurs.  Over nine hundred years ago, Marbod composed a poem intended to instill jealousy in his lover.




TO HIS ABSENT LOVER If there is something you love in the city you inhabit, something    you do not wish to lose, And if you love it truly, stop worrying about the court. End all delays. Your fault increases by the hour. And this fault, being irreparable, is grave. Put aside everything which keeps you in Calonne- You are losing more in this city than you are gaining in that one. What can there be of as much value as a boy faithful to his lover ? But any more delay, and he who is now loyal may become unfaithful, Since he is being tempted even now with much flattery- And when someone is tempted, there is reason to fear he may fall. Hurry back if you want to keep what you love. Abandon the castle if you want to hold on to the city.           --Marbod, the Bishop of Rennes (France, 1035-1123)



• Often, but alas not always, there is a striking altruism.  This means that Alfred's pleasure is in seeing Beatrice's pleasure or knowing that Beatrice is having pleasure.  This can be seen in the sexual relationship and also in gift-giving and other self-denying acts.  Where this phenomenon is intense, even jealousy disappears and one lover is happy to give the other permission to enjoy another relationship because of the intense pleasure he gets seeing the other one happy.
• The typical love relationship is exclusive, but it is by no means impossible to love more than one person at a time, and old love relationships which seem to have reached their end can frequently revive.   In fact there is a subset of lovers whose loves never die but remain active or at least easily reactivated throughout their lives.
• As the emotions of love increase, Alfred may want to prove the strength of his love in some extraordinary way by performing favors for Beatrice that consume much of his time and energy.  The giving of expensive gifts can express this desire.  It is not uncommon for lovers to believe that they would sacrifice their lives for each other.
• The attitude the lovers have toward other people may go through an early period in which efforts are made to keep their relationship secret.
• But there is a well known stage at which one or both of the lovers wants to advertise their love--to "shout it from the roof top."
• Almost always there exists some person or persons who opposes the love relationship.  Most often this is a parent of one of the lovers but it can also be a friend or former or current lover.  This feature of the love relationship seldom harms, and may even assist the relationship in some cases, because lovers like to prove their love and defy "the world."  The attitude "It's us against the world!" sometimes occurs spontaneously without any actual provocation from "the world."
• Lovers in the early stages of a love relationship experience elation and an increased appreciation for the joys of life.  Their friends can almost always notice that they are unusually happy and may be described as "walking on air," as illustrated in the following upbeat verse.




JOHNNIE JACKET Hie! Johnnie Jacket! Ho! Johnnie Jacket! Young Johnnie Jacket, Come and sail wi' me; For there she lies at anchor, The 'Fire Queen,' the spanker, And the tide is like a millrace by Penmwar and out to sea. Hie! Johnnie Jacket! Ho! Johnnie Jacket! Lad Johnnie Jacket, Come and bathe wi' me; For the water's all a-bubble, A-churn, a-moil, a-trouble, Where the breakers come a-rolling in the cove below Penlee. Hie! Johnnie Jacket! Ho! Johnnie Jacket! Young Johnnie Jacket, Come and live wi' me; For life may be a folly, But we two will make it jolly, If we sail and swim together, and can live like you and me.               --Horatio Brown, 1900



• An almost invariable feature of a love relationship is that objects or places that remind Alfred of Beatrice will produce the frisson accompanied by a galvanic skin response or GSR.)  The song, "On the Street Where You Live" exemplifies this.
• Inevitably, though, the intensity of all these emotions gradually subsides.   Here again there are marked individual differences.  Some lovers maintain a high degree of emotional euphoria for months or even years, but usually within a few months the intense elation subsides to nearly normal levels.
• Next follows a middle period in the love relationship.  During this middle period, the love is less preoccupying and the involved individuals return to the normal activities of their lives to a large extent.  The frissons still occur, however, and love making may be very passionate at times!
• Sadly (for those who expect love to last forever) the frissons and the passion abate.  This usually takes place gradually.  The duration of the middle period varies widely with individual lovers, but a period of seven years is usually long enough for the lovers to notice a diminution of passion.  Unfortunately, many married couples think that when the passion goes out of their relationship that they should get a divorce.  This is often a very serious mistake since it may break up a home and interfere significantly with the lives of their developing children.  At this point it is desirable if loyalty and friendship can step in and preserve the family.  Attempts to deceive each other into thinking that love is deeper than it is almost inevitably leads to increased tensions and sometimes frank outbreaks of hostility, as Yeats describes in his chilling poem.




THE MASK "Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.' 'O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold." 'I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit." 'It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind.' 'But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire.' 'O no, my dear, let all that be; What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?'               -- W.B. Yeats, from The Green Helmet and Other Poems, 1910



• Human love normally recurs.  Usually, before marriage, there have been several relatively short-lived love relationships.  The common expectation that once marriage has taken place that further love episodes will not occur is a naive and dangerous, because in all likelihood other episodes will occur.  The occurrence of another love episode after marriage should not be grounds for divorce unless there is an egregious dereliction of responsibilities.  Perhaps extramarital love episodes can avoid actual sexual involvement and perhaps not.  This distinction is not as important as the jealous spouse may think it is!
• The number of love episodes in a lifetime vary greatly from person to person.  Some people, for better or worse, apparently have never experienced one of these episodes.  For others there will have been dozens by the time they reach the end of their lives.

     The late stages of love relationships are quite different from the early stages.  The frissons and passion have largely disappeared.  Love poems are not written to old people!  But it is fairly common for people to stay together because they remember their earlier love and are still loyal to each other.  They can provide helpful mutual support for the declining years of their lives.  Married people would do well to keep this in mind.

     Love is a naturally occurring complex of behaviors, emotions, and cognitions.  Religious ideas about what love should be often lead to needless conflict.  This is not a blanket endorsement of "free love" or libertine disregard for social responsibilities.  But requiring people to feel a certain way when feelings are substantially involuntary is an exercise in futility.

     Alfred and Beatrice are ordinarily of similar ages.  However, love episodes occur between people of widely disparate ages.   There is much irrationality about such relationships, especially when one of the participants is very young.  It is widely believed that a relationship between a teenager and an "adult" always is damaging to the teenager.  Not always!  The value and "morality" of each relationship should be assessed on an individual basis when disputes arise.  This is a part of human behavior that is not well suited to the enactment of laws which tend to treat everyone as if they were exactly alike.  In an enlightened society there will be a great degree of flexibility in the interpretation of what laws may exist, taking into account the many variables which simply cannot be captured in a law.  Unfortunately, many religious groups are especially fond of laws and attempt to force all people into the same restrictive mold.

THE GARDEN OF LOVE I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this chapel were shut, And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore; And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be; And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires.                     --William Blake, 1793

     This has been an attempt to make a brief summary of a very large topic.  Love is a natural feature of human life and is largely programmed by the genes.  Patterns of love will be found to be heritable.  This naturalistic view of love is submitted as a first step in removing at least some of the horrible suffering that has been brought on by belief systems that are insensitive to individual differences and ignorant of real human nature.  It is unknown to what extent these sufferings are caused by ignorance and intolerance and to what extent they may be an inevitable part of the phenomenon itself.  All comments will be welcomed!

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