Romantic love

Romantic love is a form of love that is often regarded as different from simply sexual love, or lust. Romantic love generally means both an emotional and sexual love, as opposed to Platonic love. There is more emphasis on the emotions than on physical pleasure.

Related Topics:
Love - Sexual love - Lust - Platonic love

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Western society has historically emphasized romantic love far more than other cultures in which arranged marriages are the rule. However, the globalization of Western culture has spread Western ideas about love and romance.

Related Topics:
Western society - Arranged marriage - Globalization

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Romantic love became a recognized passion in the Middle Ages, when insurmountable barriers of morality or convention separated the lovers. The effect of physical attraction and impossibility of intimacy resulted in an excessive regard of the beloved as extremely precious. Winning the love, or at least the attention, of the beloved, motivated great efforts of many kinds, such as poetry, song or feats of arms.

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Properties of romantic love purported by Western culture that might not appear elsewhere include:

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• It must take you by surprise
• It cannot be controlled
• It is not predicated on sex as a physical act
• It should be the basis for a lifelong commitment
• It is the highest form of self-fulfillment

See:

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• romantic love and marriage, romantic love vs. marriage
• romance novels
 
Romantic love: See also ►