Love was clearly a more practical thing in Olden Times. The Love of Man and Woman was in many ways a power negotiation, marriages being for opportunity, and gain. The marriage welded alliances and served to keep the generally smaller social units intact and viable. They were just too busy. Romance sprang up among those able to sit down and conceptualize a Higher Love, the rich and those who served them.
Romantic love is clearly a function of greater affluence and less time consuming labor.
In this, Love is freedom. With the body freed from the drudgery of endless work, the business of survival, the soul is freed to find a better way. Romantic love is a more spiritual way for humans to interact, and this freeing of the soul following the lessening of life's burdens spread throughout society. The story continues, and familiarity breeds a kind of contempt as love becomes a commonality. Romantic Love has seen a lessening of its spiritual component in the modern commoditization of emotion.