My own research indicates that the separation between sexual desire and romantic love is especially common in societies where sexual intercourse is regarded as an act of violence and domination, or where sexuality is associated with pollution and spiritual danger. Such societies may also have elaborate notions of the complementarity of love relations that reverse the actual sexual asymmetry of male-female relations. We decry the polarization between an idealized virgin and a degraded whore, and try to unite the two by seeking to have sex with the one we adore. But it is evident that in other societies idealization and sexual desire are conceptually and actually separated. The cross-cultural study of love is in its infancy.
Social scientists can no longer pretend that love exists only as a modern delusion.
About the Author Charles Lindholm is University Professor and Professor of Anthropology at Boston University.