PDF version A milk jug is an object with an evident utilitarian function—consumption. Yet, the nomadic pastoralist women of northwestern Kenya cherish their traditional milk jug, the akirum, as a profound aesthetic masterpiece. What is so special about milk and … Continue reading
Category Archives: What is it?
How the Australian Bullroarer Invokes the Happiness of Sexual Love
PDF version Aboriginal Australians have long held the profound belief that the tjurunga—the bullroarer—brings happiness to both life and lovemaking. But how does a simple ritual object hold such immense power? This fascinating article explores how anthropologists uncovered the symbolic … Continue reading
How You Feel You Are Loved
How do you feel you are loved? Do you? Professor Mengya Xia and her colleagues from the University of Alabama recently conducted an interesting exploratory study on the core elements of love across family, romantic, and friend relationships. This research … Continue reading
How People Experience the Meaning of Gratitude
PDF Version. Reciprocal giving and receiving have the adaptive function of creating interpersonal obligations and maintaining personal bonding between people. In another place, I talked more about what gratitude is and why it is important in our lives. However, the … Continue reading
“Friends with Benefits”: Single Men and Women in Relationships
Throughout the last couple of centuries, traditional ideals of romantic love have suggested people find their soul mate, marry the loved one, have children, and live happily ever after. The cultural beliefs in love marriages have long shaped people’s dreams … Continue reading
Why Is Gratitude Important?
PDF Version. Gratitude is more than just saying “thank you.” It entails recognizing and appreciating the people and what they do for us. It is the appreciation for whatever our lives bring us. Gratitude makes us feel better and lifts … Continue reading
The Need to Belong and Love
Everyone has a “need for love” of some kind. For women and men who believe that love is bonding, the “need to belong” is basically the “need for love.” Those who have a strong desire to belong to a group … Continue reading
What Is Unique About Italian Typological Beauty?
Many Italians believe their people are the most beautiful compared to other cultures and other regions of their own country. The Milanese, for example, claim that the men and women in their cities are the most beautiful. But the Venetians, … Continue reading
Italian Beauty: The 19th Century’s View
The question of research interest is whether the standards of beauty are cross-culturally universal or culturally specific to certain nations. Let us investigate the archival legacy of love scholarship (Finck, 1887/2019). Let us look at how Henry Finck and other … Continue reading
What Is the Storge Love Style?
Numerous researchers who are interested in the topic of love have investigated the six love styles that Canadian sociologist John Alan Lee (1933–2013) identified in the 1970s (Lee, 1973, 1976). His theories of love styles and the development of methods … Continue reading