Western European culture and Latin American ideas about gender relations have both influenced the values, rules, and practices of romantic love in Latin American societies. It is often a bittersweet love.

The case of Nicaraguan love is one example illustrating the regional culture of Central America. Here I illustrate how men and women in the small Nicaraguan town of San Juan understand and practice romantic love relationships. Nicaraguan love is romantic, yet it is gender-hierarchical.

The Lexicon of Nicaraguan Love

Nicaragua is a typical Spanish-speaking society. To some extent, the lexicon of love that men and women use in their daily conversations reflects their emotions and relationships. Here are at least some lexical terms that the Nicaraguan people of San Juan typically use to describe their understanding of love. These Spanish words are “amar” (to love), “amor” (love), ser cariñoso (to be loving), querer (to love or care for), ser bueno (to be good), ser tierno (to be tender), and other variants. The love words express their motivations, dispositions, and happy and sorrowful emotions. The word “suffering” is among the key terms. It describes the bittersweet experience of Latin American love. They know that love is “suffering” (Hagene, 2008; Karandashev, 2017).

Latin American Media Representations of Love

Nicaraguan women and men are familiar with the concept of romantic love thanks to TV, movies, and social media. San Juan residents regularly watch romantic films and soap operas on television. Many women, girls, men, and boys watch charming and captivating romantic stories in “telenovelas,” which are fascinating, like soap operas. One of their favorite things to do every day is watch how the romantic stories and plots unfold from episode to episode.

Brazilian, Argentinian, and Mexican studios produce many of these telenovelas. They represent Latin American love in corresponding cultural contexts. Therefore, men and women learn culturally specific scripts and expressions of Latin love.

The main theme of these telenovelas is love (amor), with romantic storylines and narratives that continue from day to day. This is how men and women learn about romantic love. The plots and characters of these telenovelas are regularly mentioned in their everyday conversations.

Thus, people are familiar with romantic themes, plots, and screenplays. These romantic narratives and depictions of romantic expressions teach them about love, emotions, and relationships. In those tele stories, passionate love and sexuality are inextricably linked in romantic love. A relationship implies exclusive commitment to the beloved partner and fidelity. But cheating is still a big part of romantic relationships, as shown in many movies and telenovelas.

Machismo and Marianismo in Nicaraguan love

The romantic love of Nicaraguan men and women reflects the social realities in which they live, such as gender hierarchy, gender inequality, stereotypical gender roles, and gender segregation in many everyday living practices. These values and norms produce culturally specific ways of loving (Hagene, 2008).

Men are considered higher than women in social and gender status. Their roles in romantic and family relationships are unequal. Culturally normative stereotypes of machismo for men and marianismo for women teach them that men are supposed to be dominant and women are supposed to be submissive. Men have more freedom than women in relationships.

Machismo and marianismo are culturally specific ideas that have a big effect on both romantic and family relationships between men and women.

Men’s machismo behavior demonstrates masculinity and some form of dominance, whereas women’s marianismo behavior demonstrates femininity and submissiveness. The machismo cultural norms expect that men should take the initiative and take the lead in romantic love relationships, like courting and dating. Maranismo cultural norms expect women to be receptive, passively synchronous, agreeable, and accept the man’s rules (Karandashev, 2017).

Men’s romanticism is typically expressed through displays of pride, womanizing, and assertive manners, with few spoken sentiments. Sexual interest is evidently dominant in men’s romantic motivations, with little commitment.

“Romanticism” in Nicaraguan Marriage

Romantic love, with its corresponding behaviors and expressions, tends to fade in a marital relationship. Nicaraguan men are often not aware of what to do or what to talk about with women beyond sexual communication. They do not know how to deal with women in a companionate relationship. So, the man’s interest in his wife wanes.

Many Nicaraguan men prefer to spend their time in leisure activities with other men in public places, chatting, drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Their “romantic love” turns to another woman. The cultural role of macho requires a man to have an extramarital affair outside of marriage. If a man does not have a lover besides his marriage, he is in a risky position to lose his macho reputation among his peers.

On the other hand, there are wives whose dramatic stories show their inclinations to tolerate their experience of being maltreated and beaten by their husbands. The male romanticism of dating turns a twist into physical and sexual violence in the marital relationship.

Submissive Romantic Love of Nicaraguan Women

Many women frequently choose to submit to men in the hopes of finding emotional fulfillment in the realm of a man’s love. They approach this challenge in their marriage in different ways. However, many prefer this adversity to being abandoned (Hagene, 2010).

Women tolerate and accept a wide range of men’s maltreatment and behaviors because it is culturally acceptable that a man can abandon and leave her at any time for another woman. Then, despite everything, the woman strives to keep the man. But in many situations, the reality is still hard: the woman has to share her husband with another woman.

Nicaraguan women must accept the situations in which their men cohabit with other women and move back and forth. Women usually describe such love feelings as “amor compartido,” which means “shared love,” or “traición,” which means “treason” (Hagene, 2010).

This “sharing” is painful but unavoidable and occurs against the woman’s will. Many women are torn between submitting to this unavoidable practice and resisting it. They try to break free from this dependency. However, this would imply that the man would be lost.