Romantic Love Essay

To define ‘romantic love’ is a daunting task. A cursory search on the internet reveals a myriad of answers: “Love is like the measles, we all have to go through it.”, "Love is not what we become, but what we already are." and even "Love is like a bird, you never know when it is going to come and shit on your face.”. As such, perhaps the task would be easier by stating not what romantic love is, but what it clearly is not. I believe we can all agree that romantic love is not simply altruism and it is not mere sensuality.

That romantic love is not just altruism is evident. We do not describe the relationship between a father and his daughter as romantic. We can call it an altruistic love, but the term romantic love seems reserved for a different

In the New Testament, Jesus responds to a question about easy divorce by telling his opponents that since God himself directed and formed that relationship, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” And the Quran declares that marital relationships are the result of the direction of God who “created for you mates from among yourselves that you may dwell tranquilly with them and He put love and mercy between you” One of the Hadiths even record the Prophet Mohammad himself boldly proclaiming that “Marriage is my Sunnah(religion)”.

The institution of love

We can thus see that the ideal of romantic love most certainly corresponds to the idea of love found in the Abrahamic faiths, in practice, however, tension appears to exist between the religious customs and

While I do not deny this, I believe that a total lack of customs and tradition is just as inimical to the practice of romantic love. A number of studies have shown that in America, where an increasing number of couples live together before marriage, the marriages of these cohabiting couples are more likely to fail than those who have never lived together before marriage. Even other studies which cast some doubt on this agreed that “couples who cohabited prior to engagement were more likely to have marital problems and less likely to be happy in their