Romantic love. A human universal and possible honest signal

Abstract

Some forms of love have the ability to transform perfectly normal people into seemingly powerless victims. The tragic example of one of the richest women in Germany whose love to a professional gigolo has profoundly unsettled her life reminds us of the powerful mechanisms bringing about what is rightly termed “falling in love”. Most representatives of the arts and humanities are convinced that such “romantic love” can only be felt by members of modern societies and historically only came about to be a specific mind-set when modernity started. If contemporary citizens would be asked in the street, whether a woman or man in traditional society could and would experience the kind of special states of mind and soul connected to falling and being in love, many would probably intuitively say: “That may well be possible. Why should they be so different from us in such essential aspect?” When one talks to academic colleagues, the situation is, however, different. The authoritative view of some of the great scholars of sociology and related disciplines has created the firm conviction: “Romantic love is specific for our kind of modern”, and many would add: “occidental, society”. In this essay, this concept of cultural specificity is challenged and examples from written and oral literature are presented, as well as findings of crosscultural evolutionary biology which, altogether, render this sociological concept obsolete. To conclude, romantic love has to be regarded a human universal phenomenon and may serve as honest signal of one's deep emotional involvement, thus influencing mate-choice.