Monthly Archives: August 2022

Several Fascinating Facts about Emotional Experiences in Religious Cultures

Posted on by

Religious cultures teach their followers about various aspects of the world and life. Religious teachings also educate people about the human mind, emotions, and behavior, among other important things in their lives.

So, believers’ emotional experiences, expressions, and even their overall emotional well-being have always been heavily influenced by the religious cultures and communities in which they were raised and lived (e.g., Saroglou, 2010; 2011; Tsai et al., 2013; for a review, see Karandashev, 2021a).

Desirable and Undesirable Emotions in Religious Cultures

Cross-cultural researchers explored the desirability of happiness, pride, love, gratitude, and jealousy; and sadness, shame, guilt, and anger. Some emotions are of special interest to us in this context. Researchers discovered that Christians more often than Buddhists and Muslims prefer to experience love ideally. At the same time, Christians tend to experience love in real life more frequently than people of the other two religious groups.

On the other hand, Muslims tend to consider sadness and shame more normative in daily life compared to Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus. Muslims also tend to experience these two emotions more frequently in their real lives than Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus.

Another interesting finding is that Buddhists experience fewer dips or peaks in any emotion in comparison with the emotional experiences of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Buddhism teaches people that life is full of suffering, sorrow, and grief. And to achieve the state of “enlightenment” is the best way to end this suffering in our daily lives (Kim-Prieto & Diener, 2009; Smith, 1991).

What Religion Tells Us About Gratitude in Life

According to many religious cultural norms and practices, experiences and expressions of gratitude are possibly the most valuable elements of a person’s daily emotional life.

A cross-cultural study found that religious people tend to have a grateful attitude in their lives. This is how they perceive themselves and how their peers perceive them. Religiously spiritual people feel more thankful in their daily dispositions and moods than others.

For instance, Christians believe that expressions of thankful joy, gratitude, and love toward God are indications of people’s sincere emotional experiences. (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; McCullough et al., 2002). From a small study of Catholic priests and nuns, it was found that gratitude and love are the two feelings that people have toward God the most (Samuels & Lester, 1985).

The religious cultures of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam also greatly praise the values of emotional gratitude. For them, it is among the important and desired emotional attitudes for people to live a good life (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000; Kim-Prieto & Diener, 2009).

What Religion Tells Us About Forgiveness in Life

Religious culture also teaches people about other desirable prosocial emotions. For example, people who are religious place a higher value on being forgiving than people who are not religious (Rokeach, 1973). It is important for us to keep in mind that the concept of forgiveness might have different connotations depending on the religious culture (Cohen et al., 2006).

What Religion Tells Us about Values of Negative and Positive Emotions in Life

Cultural attitudes toward experience and expression of guilt and anxiety vary within Christianity. It would appear that those who adhere to Catholicism are more motivated by emotions of guilt and anxiety than those who follow Protestantism (Hutchin­son, Patock-Peckham, Cheong, & Nagoshi, 1998).

When compared to Catholics in Europe, Protestants in the United States of America have more emotionally positive personality traits, such as high extraversion and low neuroticism. They feel less discomfort encountering new challenges, and they are more open to new experiences in their lives. This is in contrast to Catholics in Europe (Saroglou, 2010).

Here are the three summaries of other interesting findings: Dispositional attributions are more common among Protestants than Catholics in situations they encounter and emotions they experience. They are more likely to attribute their experiences to their own internal and personal qualities than to external circumstances (Li et al., 2012). This can explain why, in the case of marital divorce, Protestants experience fewer and less extensive negative emotional effects than Catholics (Clark & Lelkes, 2005).

Protestants in Germany experience deeper and more frequent trust in other people in various circumstances of life than Catholics. And both Protestants and Catholics have more trust in others than non-religious people (Traunmiiller, 2011). Christians and Buddhists are similar in some respects, while they are different in others. People who identify themselves with Christian or Buddhist religious culture value the positive emotions of low arousal and intensity. In addition, there are some religious and cultural differences. Christians are more inclined than Buddhists to support high-arousal positive states. Christians are also less likely than Buddhists to support low arousal positive states (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, 2007).

What Do Religious Cultures Teach Us About Emotions?

Posted on by

Religious and cultural traditions have a big impact on how people experience and express emotions in their lives. Religions teach them what feelings are moral, good, and desirable and what actions are right, ethical, and appropriate in specific situations and contexts. Religions also teach them what feelings and actions are bad, undesirable, immoral, sinful, and should be avoided (Karandashev, 2021).

Religions not only tell us which emotions are appropriate, but also which are preferable. Religions advise people how intense feelings should be and teach how a person can cultivate intense positive emotions while regulating negative emotions.

Researchers elucidated the diversity in religious teachings about emotions. They show how cultural aspects of different religions impact people’s emotional lives (e.g., Koopmann-Holm, 2013; Silberman, 2003).

Love, in a variety of its meanings and types, is a central tenet of many religious beliefs. Therefore, religions teach people how to experience and express love, admiration, and gratitude (Karandashev, 2021a).

Conservative Religious Values of Positive and Negative Emotions

In general, people prefer to experience positive emotions. On the other hand, they wish to avoid negative emotions. Between these two opposite desires, they tend to prefer to avoid negative feelings more than to experience positive feelings. Religions and cultures have different ideas about what is normative and good about pursuing or avoiding certain desires and feelings. Religions usually follow their cultural traditions of emotional life over the centuries. Many are conservative and advocate moderation in the pursuit of pleasure, novelty, and excitement. For instance, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and Muslims discourage their religious followers from experiencing the emotions and motivations associated with pursuing change, novelty, and excessive pleasure in life. The religious teachings of Dutch Roman Catholics, Dutch Protestants, and Israeli Jews advise more traditional, reserved motivation and discourage hedonistic motivation.

Cultural Variations in Religious Teachings about Emotions  

There is still some difference between religious cultures. For example, lexical content analyses of Christian and Buddhist classical texts showed that Christian teachings are more likely than Buddhist teachings to encourage positive states of high arousal.

Some cultural variability is still evident. In North America, where most people are Christian, and East Asia, where most people are Buddhist, the importance of happy feelings with high and low levels of arousal is different.

According to lexical content analyses, Christian texts more frequently than Buddhist classical texts praise high arousal positive states. The ancient basic texts of the two religions show that in the Gospels in Christianity and the Lotus Sutra in Buddhism, “high-arousal positive emotions, such as excitement, are valued more, whereas low-arousal positive emotions, such as calm, are valued less in Christianity than in Buddhism.” (Tsai et al., 2006).

These differences are consistent with the findings of empirical studies about ideal affective states in both Christianity and Buddhism. When researchers compared the ideal affect of Christian and Buddhist practitioners, they discovered that Christian and Buddhist texts and practices have a significant influence on their ideal affect. The findings of the studies showed that Christian practitioners place a higher value on high-arousal positive affective states and a lower value on low-arousal positive affective states in comparison with Buddhist practitioners (Tsai, Miao, & Seppala, 2007).

Cross-National Variation in Religious Emotional Experiences

Emotional cultural norms vary across national cultures, even within the same religion. For instance, Muslim people in the countries of Egypt and Bali have different dispositions toward experience and the expression of emotions. Egyptians regard emotional expressions as a cultural norm that is essential for good health. The Balinese believe that showing emotions is a threat to others and to themselves because it makes it hard to make rational decisions. Emotional reactions to death also differ between these two national cultures. People in Bali react calmly to the death of a child, whereas people in Egypt react with intense emotional reactions (Wikan, 1988).

Religions in Cultural Perspectives

Posted on by

How Are Religious Cultures Different from National Cultures?

Religious cultures are similar to national cultures yet differ in several ways. Religion, like national and ethnic cultures, can be thought of as a type of culture and a cultural system (Cohen, 2009; Saroglou & Cohen, 2013).

Religious parameters of culture can strongly correlate with other cultural dimensions of the country. Such a correlation between the religious elements of culture and other cultural characteristics makes it difficult to disentangle the unique function of religion from that of other aspects of cultural life. Nevertheless, I argued in another article that the main reasons why religions should be considered as cultures with their own sets of cultural meanings, values, norms, and practices.

Cultural experts believe that religion has a considerable impact on the cultural characteristics of societies, but cross-cultural researchers overlook this factor (e.g., Cohen, 2009; McCutcheon, 1995, see review Karandashev, 2021a).

Four major cultural dimensions of religions

Researchers identified four major dimensions of religious cultures, which are present in many religions and denominations with some cultural variation (see Saroglou & Cohen, 2013 for a detailed review). These are

  1. Fundamentalist (orthodox) expression vs. questing expressions of religious beliefs and practices.
  2. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic reli­gious orientations.
  3. Traditional reli­giousness vs. modern spirituality.
  4. Mystical dimension of religion, focusing on the spirituality of the mystics

For example, the distinctions between fundamentalist and questing expressions of religious beliefs and practices are identified among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. The differences between intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations are found among Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. Variations in the dimension of organized traditional reli­giousness vs. modern individual spirituality are discovered in many religious cultural contexts. The mystical dimension of religion, centered on the spirituality of the mystics, appeared to be common to many religions. In particular, it was found that mystic experiences are similar among Iranian Muslims and American Christians. They are also similar in religiousness among Indian Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, and Israeli Jews (see for a detailed review, Saroglou & Cohen, 2013).

How Do Religious Cultures Influence National Cultures?

National cultures are the sets of cultural meanings, values, norms, and practices that have evolved due to the impact of various cultural factors, such as ecological, ethnic, social, political, and religious ones. All those variables, in a historical perspective, merged to form specific national cultures. On a daily basis, religions interact with other cultural factors, affecting people’s emotional and cultural lives.

Religious cultures have profound ties with national and ethnic cultures. Religions and religious cultural variables are among the strong factors that determine the national cultures of countries. So, countries with similar Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist religious cultures can have a lot in common with each other culturally.

Religions have historically shaped the cultural patterns of nations. However, the opposite effects have also occurred when a country’s culture influenced religious development in some ways (Norris & Inglehart, 2004). Religious culture comes into the national culture being modified and transformed.

For example, according to anthropological studies, Islam in different countries advocates different cultural values. The Muslim populations of Egypt and Bali maintain different cultural traditions, despite sharing the same faith and adhering to the same Islamic principles (Wikan, 1988).

The Ways How Religious Cultures Shaped Eastern and Western Civilizations Let’s look at how cultural differences between the West and the East have evolved and persisted for hundreds of years, in part because of their shared religious history.

The difference between individualistic Western societies and collectivist Eastern societies is the most well-known cultural difference between the West and the East.

Eastern societies tend to be largely collectivistic cultures, while Western societies are mostly individualistic.

The Buddhist religion is quite collectivistic in many respects. This can explain why Japanese culture tends to be a collectivistic culture. And generally, collectivistic cultural values and beliefs are commonly associated with Eastern religions. The cultural worldviews, social perspectives, and schools of thought of Eastern societies are substantially determined by their religions. Confucianist societies tend to be collectivistic, while Islamic societies are frequently hierarchical. On the other hand, Christianity, and Protestantism in particular, is strongly related to individualistic values and beliefs. This can explain why many Western European and European American societies are individualistic cultures. For instance, Protestant societies are often individualistic and egalitarian. Many aspects of Western national cultures and their worldview biases are substantially shaped by Christianity. Their scholarly, social, cultural, and political approaches to the modern world are Western and Christian-centric (Basabe & Ros, 2005).

The Religious Cultural Values of Interdependence and Independence There are several ways in which religious values can predispose people to think and feel in certain ways. For instance, in general, religious people are more interdependent than those who are not religious (Cohen & Rozin, 2001; Cukur, de Guzman & Carlo, 2004, Triandis, 1995). Religions differ in their values of interdependence. Those who are monotheistic are more self-sufficient, while non-theistic are more interdependent (Basabe & Ros, 2005).

Here Are the Main Reasons Why Religions Are Cultures

Posted on by

What is religion and why can religion be considered as a culture? Actually, religion is a set of cultures, each of which follows its own cultural values, principles, norms, and practices. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism are among the largest world religions. Let us consider the main reasons why religions should be considered as cultures (Karandashev, 2021a).

What Is Culture?

Many authors have defined the concept of culture over the last several decades from different disciplinary perspectives and from different methodological positions. Despite the variety of definitions, they all revolve around the same general concepts.

Culture is a system of historically derived and socially constructed information, ideas, and meanings shared by a group of people. This cultural system is passed down from one generation to the next through values, beliefs, practices, languages, rituals, artifacts, and so on (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952; Markus & Conner, 2013; Matsumoto & Hwang, 2012).

Culture teaches people what is good and bad, what is right and wrong, and what is moral and immoral. Culture teaches them what is and is not acceptable in daily life (Markus & Conner, 2013; Shweder, 2003). Culture includes several aspects of cultural reality. Material culture describes the ways in which people share services, goods, and technology. Subjective culture is the ideas, knowledge, and beliefs that a group of people share with each other. Social culture constitutes the institutions and social rules that they share (Chiu & Hong, 2006). Let us see below how religions fit to these criteria of culture in all aspects of material, subjective, and social culture. Religious cultures are shared by large groups of people across several countries or by a group of people within one country.

What Is Religion? And Why is It a Culture?

Generally speaking, religion is a cultural realm that is devoted to the search for meaning and significance in relation to some sacred things, such as values, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions, which believers recognize as “holy,” which are set apart from everything else, from the ordinary, and worthy of veneration and respect (Pargament, Magyar-Kussell, & Murray- Swank, 2005, p. 668). Religious beliefs are about the mighty nature of the Deity and the merciful power of God. Prayers bring a person a strong emotional experience of closeness to the sacred. Prayers to God impact the emotional well-being of devotees (Silberman, 2003).

“Loving God, I pray that you will comfort me in my suffering, lend skill to the hands of my healers, and bless the means used for my cure. Give me such confidence in the power of your grace, that even when I am afraid, I may put my whole trust in you; through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”

— Enriching Our Worship 2

Beliefs in God and prayers transfer to subsequent emotional attitudes towards other people in close and broader social circles. For example, the positive emotional dispositions of love, gratitude, humility, forgiveness, hope, and self-control are highly valued in Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, traditions. They have been extensively explored in many studies (see for review, Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003).

Thus, one can see that all world religions fit very well into the definitions of culture as I described it above.

The Key Cultural Elements of All Religions  

All religions across history, even nontheistic religions, include (1) believing, (2) behaving, (3) bonding, and (4) belonging, along with corresponding perceptions and emotions. All religions have these parts, though they look different in different cultures and religions. Furthermore, all these world religions entail:

(1) Spiritual beliefs, cognitions, and emotions involved in the person’s perception of transcendence,

(2) Moral values, norms, rules, and practices associated with religion

(3) Collective and individual cultural rituals associated with those beliefs, dispositions, and norms

(4) Religious ceremonies, combined with emotions, foster close bonds between people as well as transcendence.

(5) Spiritual feelings of personal identification with profoundly valuable and timeless groups, as well as with deity

(Saroglou, 2011).

What Does the Song of Songs Tell Us About Hebrew Love?

Posted on by

Did romantic love exist in ancient Hebrew times?

It appears that the Bible does not mention romantic love, neither in the Old nor in the New Testament.

Conjugal love was frequently mentioned and encouraged. Other types of family ties were also repeatedly praised and supported. Yet, in the remaining passages, the word “love” was always used to mean religious reverence or respect for a neighbor or an enemy. And this is consistent throughout all of the passages.

Was the Song of Songs About Love?

But what about the Song of Songs, which is also known as the Song of Solomon? Isn’t that a love song? Is it an exception?

Johann Herder, a German theologian, philosopher, poet, and literary critic of the 18th century, analyzed the text in detail and declared that it depicts love “from its first origin, from its tenderest bud, through all stages and conditions of its growth, its flowering, its maturing, to the ripe fruit and new offshoot.” (cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 71).

However, Henry Finck asserted that the love which is referred to in the Song of Solomon is more likely conjugal affection. He noted that it is an intriguing fact that none of the great theologians from Germany, England, or France who have produced comments on the Song of Songs seem to agree with one another on their interpretation of the story’s meaning and the role it plays in the Bible.

Was the Song of Songs Really Written by Solomon? Additionally, it is now generally accepted that the Song was not written by Solomon but rather was composed a while after his death. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that a king who had a thousand wives and whose feelings must have been broken up into a thousand pieces and was not very strong could have written these beautiful lines:

“For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”

This passage sounds remarkably modern and romantic—so modern and romantic, in fact, that it could have been written by Shakespeare. Readers need little knowledge of Hebrew to recognize that the English translators are responsible for this current tone. Throughout the Song of Solomon, English translators idealized the language of passion in accordance with modern ideas on the subject.

The more literal version by Luther appeared to be much more traditional. When one reads Luther’s translation, one begins to comprehend why the Talmudists of the past forbade Jews before their thirtieth year to read this book.

What the Song of Songs Actually Tells Us About Love

Henry Finck (1887/2019) remarked that the explanation of the Song of Solomon provided by M. Chas. Bruston in the Encyclopaedia des Sciences Religieuses was perhaps the most clever and consistent of the many interpretations (ii. 610-612).

He provides an explanation for the repeated flattery that occurs throughout the poem. Bruston demonstrated that the second time they allude to a princess of Lebanon, whom Solomon married, rather than Sulamite. Therefore, he asserted that the repetition is less of a literary flaw and more of an indication that “combien est vil et méprisable l’amour sensuel et polygame, qui prodigue indifférement les mêmes flatteries a des femmes différentes.” The imaginative and poetic language used to describe feminine charms in the Song of Songs demonstrates that at least the sensual facet of the personal admiration overtone was well developed among ancient Hebrews. However, it was not strong enough to led them to sculpt their ideals of feminine and masculine beauty in marble like other ancient civilizations (Finck, 1887/2019).

What Was Surprising About Ancient Hebrew Love?

Posted on by

Love has been an enduring Hebrew idea since Biblical times. What about romantic love? What do the Old and New Testaments tell us about it?

A Hebrew word for “love” is אהבה (ahavah, pronounced ah-ha-VAH), while a Biblical Hebrew word for “to love” is אהב (ahav, pronounced ah-HAV, with the final bet pronounced as a “v”). It should be noted that “ahavah” and “ahav” denote a broad range of love meanings. A book by Henry Finck (1887/2019), first published more than a century ago, shed some light on this question. Let’s look into it.

Why Did the Bible Not Mention Romantic Love? When you look at a Concordance of the Old and New Testaments, it is surprising to see that there is not a single mention of romantic love in the whole Bible. If ancient Hebrews felt this way, as their descendants do today, it’s clear that it couldn’t have been left out of the Book of Books, which talks so eloquently and poetically about everything else that’s important to people. Conjugal love, which seems to come before romantic love in every country, is often mentioned and encouraged, as are other family ties. However, the word “love” is always used in the rest of the passages to mean religious reverence or respect for a neighbor or an enemy.

The Ancient Hebrews Respected Women. Even more surprising is that there is no mention of romantic love when you consider that ancient Hebrews respected women more than any other ancient or modern Oriental nation. So, Cyclopedia of Biblical and Other Literature by M’Clintock and Strong told us that,

“the seclusion of the harem and the habits consequent upon it were utterly unknown in early times, and the condition of the Oriental woman, as pictured to us in the Bible, contrasts most favourably with that of her modern representative. There is abundant evidence that women, whether married or unmarried, went about with their faces unveiled. An unmarried woman might meet and converse with men, even strangers, in a public place; she might be found alone in the country without any reflection on her character; or she might appear in a court of justice.” The wife “entertained guests at her own desire in the absence of her husband, and sometimes even in defiance of his wishes.”

cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 70.

Since the Hebrew woman was not “the husband’s slave but his companion,” how do we explain the absence of love?

Ancient Hebrew Polygamy

The fact that polygamy was common, which is contrary to the growth of love, sheds some light on the situation. Even though not everyone did it, the Mosaic law did allow polygamy, except for priests.

“The secondary wife was regarded by the Hebrews as a wife, and her rights were secured by law.”

Abraham and Jacob both had more than one wife because their wives asked them to,

“under the idea that children born to a slave were in the eye of the law the children of the mistress.”

Finck, 1887/2019, p. 70.

So, if a woman asks her own husband to get another wife, there must be no jealousy or monopoly in such a relationship. These two parts of romantic love carry over into married love without weakening.

The Liberty of Ancient Hebrew Women

As I noted above, Hebrew women had a lot of freedom to move around alone in towns and in the countryside. However, this probably just means that they could care for sheep and get water at the well.

“From all education in general, as well as from social intercourse with men, woman was excluded; her destination being simply to increase the number of children, and take care of household matters. She lived a quiet life, merely for her husband, who, indeed, treated her with respect and consideration, but without feeling any special tenderness toward her.”

Finck, 1887/2019, p. 70.

Why Did Romantic Love Not Exist in Biblical Times?

This quotation above suggests the main reason for the non-existence of love in Biblical times. The young had no gatherings, no opportunities for courtship, an essential condition of love that requires time and space to develop. But even if they did, the young women and men could not benefit much from them. Both the daughter’s and the son’s choices were neutralized by parental command.

“Fathers from the beginning considered it both their duty and prerogative to find or select wives for their sons (Gen. xxiv. 3; xxxviii. 6). In the absence of the father, the selection devolved upon the mother (Gen. xxi. 21). Even in cases where the wishes of the son were consulted, the proposals were made by the father (Gen. xxxiv. 4, 8); and the violation of this parental prerogative on the part of the son was ‘a grief of mind’ to the father (Gen. xxvi. 35). The proposals were generally made by the parents of the young man, except when there was a difference of rank, in which case the negotiations proceeded from the father of the maiden (Exod. ii. 21), and when accepted by the parents on both sides, sometimes also consulting the opinion of the adult brothers of the maiden (Gen. xxiv. 51; xxxiv. 11), the matter was considered as settled, without requiring the consent of the bride”

M‘Clintock and Strong, cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 70.

An Invisible Swedish Romance

Posted on by

How romantic are Swedish people? What does love look like in the cold climate of this Nordic culture?

There are two possible planes of reality to consider in this regard: ideal and real (Karandashev, 2022a). The first one concerns how love is presented as a cultural idea in literature, art, cinema, and other social media, which create cultural love models.

The second one concerns how love is really experienced by people in their daily lives.

This article considers the first plane of love in how romantic love is represented in literary genres of Swedish literature and what popular romance looks like in a Swedish cultural context. According to Maria Nilson and Helene Ehriander, the scholars at Linneaus University’s center for research in popular culture in Sweden, popular romance has been a challenging genre in Swedish literature for many years (Nilson & Ehriander, December 21, 2020).

Why Literary Romance in Sweden Was Invisible?

In Sweden, there is a strong literary tradition of realistic novels. Occasional romantic fiction was written and published but attracted little interest among Swedish readers. did not attract much readability. Popular romances were rarely discussed in public. The genre was generally invisible in scholarship as well as in the cultural arena. For many years, Swedish literature has had a poor tradition in the romantic love genre. Until recently, few romance titles appeared in the Swedish book market. Romance has been and continues to be viewed as a static genre comprised of poorly written books that are strikingly similar and simplistic in plots and characters. Generally, popular romance in the country is a genre with a “bad reputation.” Romantic writing has been seen as being an endless repetition of essentially the same plots, as old-fashioned as it gets. Authors and readers of romantic novels have been largely women. Some consider the romantic genre as literature that strengthens old patriarchal norms and ideals.

Some may theorize that the traditional unpopularity of romance in Sweden could be related to the cold climate of the country or the reserved character of people in Swedish culture. In any case, this can be related to the culturally normative ways in which Nordic people experience and express emotions.

The range of fiction commonly read in Swedish schools and universities is traditional. The same selection of classics, as it was in the 1980s, is still in the curriculum. Popular romance novels are not covered in the “main” literature course. The romance genre is frequently considered as old-fashioned, patriarchal, or subversive (Nilson & Ehriander, December 21, 2020).

The Origins of Nordic Romance Novels in “Chick Lit”

The Nordic genre of “chick lit” is related in some ways to the genre of romance. It is a sort of “subgenre” of popular romance. The “chick lit” genre was also associated with “women’s fiction” in the 1970s by Erica Jong and Marilyn French.

Chick lit came to Sweden with Bridget Jones’s Diary by Fielding. After the success of this romantic novel, several other books were translated into Swedish. Then, several Swedish writers also began writing Swedish chick lit with the conflicting desires that characterize this genre. Nordic chick lit novels have typically featured conflicting desires, a distinct writing style with distinct presentations of speech and thought, and distinct tones and settings.

The Swedish welfare state has had a significant influence on Swedish chick lit. The “non-western” novels of chick lit in Nordic cultures have shifted their genre. These books changed and developed the genre, rather than just mimicking American bestsellers. The heroes of Swedish chick lit embodied so-called “modern men” who have no problem with washing up the dishes or changing diapers. The chick lit heroines in Swedish authors’ novels are more concerned with their love interests, female friends, and careers than with their families. The classic chick-lit themes are reimagined in terms of Nordic social conditions, gender roles, and cultural contexts.

The Rise of Swedish Interest in “Popular Romance” In recent years, the genre of “popular romance” has gradually appeared in public view and in the Swedish cultural context. Simona Ahrnstedt is a bestselling author who has extensively written her books as romances. She started out by writing historical romances. Yet, her big breakthrough was the love novel En enda natt (All In). She actively promoted this genre in Sweden (Nilson & Ehriander, December 21, 2020).

Free Scandinavian Love

Posted on by

For many Scandinavians, love is a free relationship between independent individuals. Their national cultural ideas and policies of freedom, independence, and equality in interpersonal relations encourage their culture of love. The free Scandinavian love in the countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland is in accord with the egalitarian cultural values of their societies.

The High Value of Love in Scandinavian Cultures Having a wonderful, long-term relationship or becoming a parent is important. Many Scandinavians believe that love and relationships nowadays are stronger than ever in their countries. For example, Danish sociologist Birthe Linddal Hansen, a researcher at the Copenhagen Institute of Future Studies, said that

“True love is still very popular as an ideal, and people are getting married more now than they did years ago.”

Scandinavians do not shy away from the words “I love you.” The Danish “jeg elsker dig,” the Norwegian “jeg elsker deg,” and the Swedish “jag älskar dig,” pronounced something like “yah-g el-scar d-eh” are still widely used by people in those countries. In Finnish, it sounds like “minä rakastan sinua,” or in the shortened “mä rakastan sua,” in the spoken language. Yet, men and women used these love words sparingly due to their reserved Scandinavian character. When it comes to expressing their feelings, they do so in a reserved manner. In their interpersonal relationships, they are typically less emotionally expressive than people in some other, more expressive cultures, like those in Mediterranean and Latin American societies. The Nordic people of Scandinavia tend to be less lively in their facial and body expressions. They smile and laugh in moderation.

The Swedish Example of Free Love

The Swedish book “Är svensken människa” and its English publication, The Swedish Theory of Love (Berggren & Trägårdh, 2022), present some basic cultural ideas and prototypes of Scandinavian free love. Swedish cultural policies and legislation, on the one hand, emphasize individual autonomy and, on the other hand, trust in the state. Swedish philosophy, cultural studies, and sociology focus on some basic logic and rational principles that the welfare state follows. This is the social idea that people in interpersonal relationships should be independent. Cohesive dependency and subordination cause individual inauthenticity and predicaments for true love. Swedish modern cultural values promote equality and autonomy as preconditions for sincere and authentic affection and love.

To Love or to Marry?

It appears that contemporary Scandinavians are delaying their marriage. Men and women tend to marry later in their 30s, when their education, careers, and relationships are established. Many couples choose to live together without getting married. People in the Scandinavian countries feel free to certify or not certify their marriages. “Open unions” have long been an acceptable practice in Scandinavian societies. De facto unions between spouses are common and even mainstream in today’s society. When it comes to property and inheritance, both couples have rights and duties. Government policies in Scandinavian nations actively encourage equality between the sexes in all areas of relationships.

In Scandinavian countries, legal marriage is seen as a major life milestone. However, these formal events are secondary in importance to having a loving partner, a long-term relationship or becoming a happy parent.

For many men and women, official marriage is rather a symbolic expression of love and commitment to remain together forever or for a long time. These old ideals of stability, love, and commitment, however, haven’t gone out of style, even in progressive and liberal Scandinavian societies.

Scandinavian Weddings

Couples may officially certify their marriage later and even have a wedding. Eventually, some of these couples decide to wed, primarily to celebrate their union with a wedding ceremony and a great party. For instance, in Norwegian folklore and tradition we find wedding formulae that seem to be ancient, i.e.,

“He weds you to honor and to be the lady of the house, to half the bed and to locks and keys … under one blanket and one sheet.“

Perhaps these words go far back in time.

Wedding traditions in Scandinavia are always evolving, with the changes being influenced by customs from other regions of the world. Nowadays, Norwegian weddings, for instance, have many things in common with those of other European countries. A typical bride will wear a long white dress, and her groom will wear a black tuxedo. The same fashion is in Sweden today. Bridal couples wear what we would consider traditional wedding attire: a white dress and tuxedos. Some may return to past Swedish customs, such as wearing the bridal crown. Nevertheless, traditional wedding practices are gradually waning in the modern cultural evolution of Scandinavian societies.

Free Scandinavian Marriages and Free Families

Posted on by

Marriages and families in Scandinavian countries are the free unions of independent individuals. “Open unions” are widely accepted in those societies. Men and women in both certified and uncertified marriages have equal rights and responsibilities.

Do Marriages still Exist in Scandinavian Countries?

The frequently asked question among Scandinavians is whether the institution of marriage is disappearing. Social scientists and journalists began to express such concerns in the early 2000s. For instance, Stanley Kurz, an American conservative commentator, wrote in 2004 in the magazine Weekly Standard that “Marriage is slowly dying in Scandinavia.” He believed that “same-sex marriage has undermined the institution of marriage.” How realistic and adequate are such concerns?

The data, on the other hand, indicates that this is not the case at all. According to the Nordic Statistical Yearbook, the number of marriages in the Nordic countries has increased since 1990, albeit with varying trends and shifts in different societies of that region. This trend can be seen throughout all of the Nordic nations (Love and Relationships in Scandinavia, 2015).

In reality, Scandinavian marriages have just become more diverse than before. People take their right to freedom and interdependence for granted, while still respecting their responsibilities.

We should keep in mind that people in the Scandinavian nations can be in either certified or uncertified marriages. The accepted practices of so-called “open unions” have existed in Scandinavia for a very long time. These kinds of de facto unions of partners are widespread and even prevalent. Both partners have rights and responsibilities concerning their property and inheritance. In a case of separation, both men and women have obligations regarding maintenance payments.

As one Finnish woman noted,

“I have been there, done that. To me, getting married just means finding someone to be with and to be loved, and of course, that is something that everyone wants.”

Scandinavians Highly Value Love, Good Relationships, and Parenthood more than Marriages

In Scandinavia, having a delightful, long-term relationship or becoming a parent is very important to many Scandinavians. Many Scandinavian couples choose to live together without getting married, a practice known as “sambo.” Some of these couples eventually decide to get married, largely to celebrate their union with a wedding ceremony and have a big party.

It is true that modern Scandinavians appear to be waiting longer to marry. It is quite normal for a couple to wait until they are in their 30s after finishing their studies before getting married. However, they also wait longer when they decide to divorce.

Longer education, career, or the cost of purchasing the apartment are some of the reasons for a late marriage. In addition to that, weddings in Scandinavia have become increasingly elaborate and costly. Church weddings are expensive. Therefore, many Danish couples now prefer a civil ceremony. Legal marriage is regarded as an important step in life among people living in Scandinavian countries. These steps, however, are secondary in importance after having a loving, long-term relationship or parenthood. As one Swedish woman of 27 years old commented,

“Marriage is a contract and a symbolic commitment to remain together forever. At the same time, it is an expression of love. These ideals of stability, love, and commitment haven’t gone out of style, even in progressive and liberal Scandinavia.”

Maria said this when she was in her late 20s, unmarried, and six-months pregnant.

The Free Scandinavian Families

For many Scandinavians, marriage is no longer a precondition for starting a family. It is not necessary, neither normatively nor legally. A nuclear family is changing its form. About 60% of the parents of first-born children are not married. And a marriage certificate is no longer required in order to obtain housing.

It may appear strange to men and women in other cultures that many Scandinavians wait so long before getting married. They may even already have one or two children before marriage, but in Scandinavian countries, it is a cultural reality. In other words, as Danish social scientist Mogens Nygaard Christoffersen of the National Social Research Institute commented,

“What defines and makes the foundation of the Danish family can be said to have moved from marriage to parenthood.”

The “Hygge” Style of Love and Life

Posted on by

The Danes, according to a new global narrative, are happy people. Why Danes? Why are they frequently ranked among the happiest people in the world? The cultural idea of “hygge” could be the answer. “Hygge” is a popular Danish word that describes the Danes’ emotional culture and national character.

This Danish concept, pronounced “hyoo-guh” or “hoo-ga,” approximately translates to the word “coziness,” yet it is built around much more than that. This Danish word cannot be translated into a single English word but encompasses a set of feelings including coziness, comfort, and well-being through enjoying the simple things in life. “Hygge” is a Danish mental attitude, a style of life, and a set of Danish cultural values focused on keeping a person grounded, balanced, relaxed, calm, and happy.

According to Meik Wiking at the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, “hygge” is such an important part of being Danish that it is considered “a defining feature of their cultural identity and an integral part of the national DNA.” (Wiking, 2017). As he puts it, in other words, “what freedom is to Americans, … hygge is to Danes.”

Life in the “Hygge” Style

People in Denmark traditionally tend to look for places and situations that set up contexts conducive to the feelings of coziness, warmth, and emotional well-being. The Danes have a national obsession with all things that make life cozy. Even the smallest and most simple things can bring us happiness, and when we take care of the little things, it often makes a difference in the bigger things as well.

The Danish culture of happiness is different from other cultures. These supposedly happiest people on earth (typically) do not talk or think about life in terms of “happy.” They look at and feel life through a different set of cultural notions and scripts. Their cultural keyword “lykke,” pronounced like “lu-Kah,” is the Danish word for joy and happiness. This Danish happiness word, however, may have different cultural connotations (Levisen, 2014). Danish people have a propensity to cultivate feelings of peace in their minds. They strive to live their lives by nurturing the sentiments of tranquility and calm delight in their thoughts, emotions, and environments. They tend to enjoy the simple pleasures of being together and living in the moment (e.g., Johansen, 2017; Søderberg, 2016).

What Is Hygge Love?

The “hygge” cultural lifestyle predisposes Danish people to love in the same style. As Meik Wiking describes, “Hygge is about an atmosphere and an experience. It is about being with the people we love. A feeling of home. A feeling that we are safe.” “Hygge” is the feeling which Danish men and women get when they are cuddled up on a sofa, in cozy socks under a soft throw in the company of good friends. It is that mood when they are sharing food, comfort, and easy conversation with loved ones. It is the warm sensations they feel in the morning when the light is just right on a clear blue-sky day.

What Can We Get from Hygge‘s Cultural Know-How? Meik Wiking’s “The Little Book of Hygge” is a worthwhile text for people in other cultures of the world to learn about this cultural cornerstone of Danish life and love. This valuable experience can enrich our lives in our homelands. It is knowledge worth sharing and exporting to other societies. Their cultural secrets to happy love and a happy life are simple but beneficial:

“Get comfy. Take a break.

Be here now. Turn off the phones.

Turn down the lights. Bring out the candles.

Build relationships. Spend time with your tribe.

Give yourself a break from the demands of healthy living. Cake is most definitely Hygge.

Live life today, like there is no coffee tomorrow.”

Happy love is everywhere where you set it up. Pick the right lighting. Organize a Hygge get-together. Dress hygge. These are the simple suggestions Meik Wiking gives on how to experience more joy, love, and contentment the Danish way (Wiking, 2017).