History Of Love. Love is a New Concept Marrying for love, rather than practical reasons like money, favor, power, or family is a new concept. North Americans.

History Of Love

Love is a New ConceptMarrying for love, rather than practical reasons

like money, favor, power, or family is a new concept.

North Americans especially use romance as the reason to marry to an unprecedented degree.

Neolithic Love In 2007 we found a pair of Neolithic skeletons

in a joint burial.

Marriage took place on holy sites, such as stone circles.

We see the first ideas of property ownership..we can only speculate that this was the beginning of arranged marriages.

The Near East and Hammurabi It was a signed contract and conducted like a business

“If a man marry a woman and she bear him no sons; if then this woman die, if the “purchase price” which he paid into the house of his father-in-law is repaid to him, her husband shall have no claim upon the dowry of this woman; it belongs to her father’s house”.

“If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who as borne him children; then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the field, garden and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children….She may then marry the man of her heart.”

This tells us that the woman’s desires were important.

First time we have poems written about “love”. Epic of Gilgamesh

EgyptBegin to see more than one wife with

Pharaohs/leaders

“To hear your voice is wine to me: I draw life from hearing it. Could I see you with every glance, It would be better for me than to eat or to drink.”

Marriage was contracts and the contracts have been found in tombs.

Ancient GreeceHeroes in Greek myths were the models, but

most time, love didn’t work out.

Passionate attraction was considered a form of madness.

Platonic love characterized by nonsexual adoration was considered ideal.

Greece…..Sappho

“As a wind in the mountains

assaults an oak,

Love shook my breast

You came, Atthis, you did so good

You refreshed my heart that was burned by desire”

GreeceZues is an emblem of the Greek acceptance

and celebration of sudden passionate love, without paying heed to the consequences.

Most poems and songs were about wild and unrestrainable emotion and the result was heartbreak.

Roman – from idealist to realists! “Give me a thousnad kisses, a hundred more, another

thousand, and antother hundrend, and when we have counted up the many thousnads, confuse them so as not to know them all, so that no enemy may cast an evil eye, by knowing that there were so many kisses.” Catullus

Love was written about, but marriage was still NOT for love, but for wealth and status.

The rise of Christianity and Judaism led to ban on divorce.

12th CenturyCourtly love – idea that knights sought love as

a “noble quest”. Knights were expected to be unmarried, and the female was expected to be married to someone else.

Marriage was not considered romatic, but instead a matter of politics and property.

The NEXT 500 yearsLove is desired, but often seen as unattainable

because lovers have to marry other people.

17th and 18th century – English began to believe that occassionally love could have a happy ending. But the idea that one must feel love towards spouse was not widespread.

The Twelve Chief Rules in Lovefrom The Art of Courtly Love by Capellanus

Thou shalt avoid avarice like the deadly pestilence and shalt embrace its opposite.

Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest.

Thou shalt not knowingly strive to break up a correct love affair that someone else is engaged in.

Thou shalt not chose for thy love anyone whom a natural sense of shame forbids thee to marry.

Be mindful completely to avoid falsehood.

Continue……. Thou shalt not have many who know of thy love

affair.

Being obedient in all things to the commands of ladies, thou shalt ever strive to ally thyself to the service of Love.

In giving and receiving love's solaces let modesty be ever present.

Thou shalt speak no evil.

Thou shalt not be a revealer of love affairs.

Thou shalt be in all things polite and courteous.

In practising the solaces of love thou shalt not exceed the desires of thy lover

The Art of Courtly Love by Capellanus Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.

He who is not jealous cannot love.

No one can be bound by a double love.

It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.

That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.

Boys do not love until they reach the age of maturity.

When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.

No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.

No one can love unless he is propelled by the persuasion of love.

Continued…… Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.

It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry.

A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.

When made public love rarely endures.

The easy attainment of love makes it of little value: difficulty of attainment makes it prized.

Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.

When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.

A new love puts an old one to flight.

Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.

If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.

A man in love is always apprehensive.

Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.Jealousy increases when one suspects his beloved.

He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little.

Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.

A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.

Continued……Love can deny nothing to love.

A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.

A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.

A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.

A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.

Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.

So what do we think of love today?Property and alliances have started to play a

smaller role in marriages.

Theories of Love “Birds of a feather flock together”

The more similar you are the better, same opinions, same habits, same likes and dislikes

Opposite poles attract Humans seek traits they don’t have themselves Opposite characters can complement each other

Is it permanent?Today, unlike the chilvarous stage, we believe

that love is temporary People fall in and out of love at increasing

frequency Everything changes faster so we don’t seem to

“fit” after a while Love is temporary, that is why Institutions such as

marriage have been invented

Underlying Assumptions of love….Partners are consumer goods: they must fit

your lifetyle, timeplan, if the partner doesn’t work you can return him/her

Once you know the partner the relationship gets “boring” and you can just leave

Science is trying to “figure out” the love questions

How do we measure it?Happiness

Duration of relations

Investment, devotions

Couple similarities

Subjectively perceived similarities

Ideas on “Romantic Marriages” Today Commit and never give up

Listen, ask question, give answers, argue constructively

Appreciate, accept, respect

Honesty and trust

Space and togetherness

Compromise

Cultivate romance everyday – Date night

Exercise humor

Forget the past!

Great Love Affairs in HistoryAntony and Cleopatra

Queen of Egypt, mistress of Julius Caesar After Caesars death Mark Antony comes along… Cleo was rather plain, but was captivating with her

wit and intelligence so Antony followed her back to Egypt

Octavian declared war on the two lovers and ended in Antony getting a false report of Cleo’s suicide and he thrust sword into his abdomen and his men carried him to where she was and he died in her arms.

Napoleon and Josephine

As a ruthless and ambition soldier, he took over half of the known world, but he was easily captivated by Josephine.

She was a widowed mother of two and was a socialite who thought he was short and ugly!

She changed her mind and they were married, but she wasn’t faithful…they tried to have children, but she couldn’t so he divorced her and married Marie Louise and had 1 son.

Josephine was devestated. When he was exiled to Elba, she wrote him and begged to join him. He wrote back that it was impossible, but Josephine died before the letter reached her.

When Napoleon returned to Paris he visited the doctor that treated her and asked him why/how she died….the doctor replied “he believed she had succumbed to a broken heart.”

Czar Nicholas II and AlexanderaYoung Nicholas fell in love with her “as soon as

he saw her”. They were inseperable and often engaged in PDA.

They enjoyed lavish royal parties and because of the poverty, the support for them was gone.

On July 16 Russians stormed the palace and arrested the family and sent them to Siberia….they never made it….all bodies were found except speculation of 1 (Anastasia, the youngest)

Prince Edward and WallisEdward, the Prince of Wales and heir to the throne

of England fell in love with Wallis Simpson, a married American.

They met in 1931 and in 1934 she seperated from her husband and Parliament was very nervous. In 1936 his dad died, and he became king.

But, his stay on the throne was brief and he was miserable because of the media frenzy so he abdicated the thrown citing “it impossible to carry the heavy burden” of being king without the support of “the woman he loved.”

They married in 1937 and lived in France the rest of their lives.

Charles Lindbergh and Anne MorrowAn american aviator, he was the first to fly solo

across the Atlantic in 1927. While on a good will trip to Latin America he began seeing Morrow, a very shy dauhter of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.

The two were married in 1929 and she was the first licensed female glider pilot . They even flew from LA to NY when she was seven months pregnant.

The hardest thing they over came was the tragic kidnapping and murder of their infant first son in 1932.

Aberland and Heloise This is a story of a monk and a nun whose love letters became world

famous. Around 1100, Peter Abelard went to Paris to study at the school of Notre Dame. He gained a reputation as an outstanding philosopher. Fulbert, the canon of Notre Dame, hired Abelard to tutor his niece, Heloise. Abelard and the scholarly Heloise fell deeply in love, conceived a child, and were secretly married. But Fulbert was furious, so Abelard sent Heloise to safety in a convent. Thinking that he intended to abandon Heloise, Fulbert had his servants castrate Abelard while he slept. Abelard became a monk and devoted his life to learning. The heartbroken Heloise became a nun. Despite their separations and tribulations, Abelard and Heloise remained in love. Their poignant love letters were later published.

Heloise - "While I am denied your presence, give me at least through your words--of which you have enough and to spare--some sweet sem blance of yourself." She ends the letter with: "I beg you, think what you owe me, give ear to my pleas, and I will finish a long letter with a brief ending: farewell, my only love.”

To her passionate letters, he responds in part: "If since our conversion from the world to God I have not yet written you any word of comfort or advice, it must not be attributed to indifference on my part but to your own good sense... I did not think you would need these things..."