Category Archives: love in different cultures

Two African Societies with Matriarchal Cultures

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Traditional patriarchal societies, which have been prevalent throughout the world for many centuries, are known to many of us. In a patriarchal society, the father is the main owner of a property and the head of a household. Because of this, he is viewed as the leader of a family, along with corresponding male-dominated cultural norms. I explained how a typical patriarchal culture runs elsewhere.

What Do We Know About Matriarchal Cultures?

One may believe that it is the only possible way of social organization and family structure that men are predisposed to be in a dominant position. However, it is not true. Over human history, many societies in the world were matriarchal. Some of them are still ruled this way. Matriarchal societies have different cultural systems of gender relations. In a matriarchal society, the mother is the person in charge of the household and the head of the family. I explained how a typical matriarchal culture runs elsewhere. In another article, I presented three matriarchal cultures of today in Asian societies. Sarah Madaus, an editorial fellow at Town & Country, gave a brief description of a few matriarchal cultures around the world.

Let us consider the examples of the Akan people in West Africa and the Umoja community in East Africa, which, like several other African tribes, have matriarchal cultures.

The Akan Matriarchal Culture of West Africa

The Akan people of West Africa are the largest ethnic group in Ghana. Their social organization is matrilineal. The Akan live in matriclans. The term “matrilineal” refers to kinship that is passed down through the maternal line.

The Akan people have a matrilineal system of inheritance. This social system of tribal organization is based on the Akan traditional cultural beliefs. According to them, a child is related to the mother by blood and related to the father by spirit. Therefore, in the family relations between the mother, the child, and the father, the father is the stranger and outsider.

The matriclan is the central pillar upon which the Akan people have constructed their social order. Matriclan was founded by women, as one can imagine from the name of this social unit. Their politics, money, wealth, inheritance, identity, and major decisions are all discussed within the matriclan.

It is important to note, however, that within the Akan matriclan, men do in fact hold positions of authority and leadership in some issues of social life. Nevertheless, women are in queen mother roles among the Akan people in Ghana.

The Umoja Matriarchal Culture of East Africa

The Umoja tribal community is a recent development of matriarchal culture. The matriarchal community of Umoja village is located in Kenya, a country in East Africa. It is a modern, all-female matriarchal village that was established in the early 1990s as a sanctuary to shelter homeless female survivors of violence against women and young girls running from forced marriages. The name of Umoja is derived from the Swahili word for “unity.”

Women who have been victims of sexual or other forms of gender-based abuse call this village their home. Men are not allowed to live there. Therefore, the Umoja tribe is a genuine “no man’s land.” Men are allowed to visit the village but not to live there. Only men who were raised in Umoja as children are permitted to sleep in the village. Women, children, and older people living in the community give tours to visitors and spread awareness of the villagers’ human rights.

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

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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?

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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.

The Cultural History of Erotic Love

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The term “erotic” is derived from the Greek word eros (érōs). The ancient Greek word “eros” was first used to describe a desire for beauty and an appreciation of art (Lomas, 2018).

“Erotic love” refers to the perception of a lover’s beloved as a beautiful object worthy of aesthetic admiration. “Erotic love is about aesthetic pleasure, while sexual love is about sensual (sexual) pleasure.” (Karandashev, 2022a). Both are surely interconnected. In sexually stimulating situations, erotic can readily shift to sensual and sexual sensations. These sensations naturally overlap because human emotions are complex.

The cultural concepts of erotic art and literature have been portrayed in painting, sculpture, music, lyrics, dances, theater, and fashion. These artistic mediums convey the aesthetic values of bodily form and motion, facial structure and expression, and musical melody and rhythm.

Throughout the history of art, different cultures have presented erotic art and erotic love in various ways.

Many examples of erotic and pornographic art have been seen throughout history in various cultures, including classical ancient Greece (5th–4th centuries BC), ancient Rome (1st century B.C.–mid-3rd century A.D.), the Chinese Ming dynasty (14th–17th centuries), the Japanese Edo period of Tokugawa (17th–19th centuries), Korean 20th-century culture, early modern Italy, India, and modern Japan (see for review, e.g., Feldman & Gordon, 2006).

Erotic Love in Ancient Greece and Rome

The sexual cultures of pre-Christian Greece and Rome were open. They were artistically and literarily well-developed. Erotic art and sexual pleasure were highly regarded by them.

The Romans were more sexually liberal than people in subsequent Western cultures. The erotic art was proudly displayed in homes and public spaces, displaying wealth and luxury. Artists sold their erotic works to a variety of consumers, including the wealthy and the poor. (Clarke, 1998; Hubbard, ed., 2013; Nussbaum & Sihvola, eds., 2019; Skinner, 2013; Vout, 2013). The depictions of sex, sensuality, and erotica in ancient Greek and Roman art were very explicit. Beautiful bodies, phallic symbols, amorous poses, and sexual situations of their gods were depicted in sculptures and paintings. Scenes of seduction adorned the drinking cups, oil lamps, and walls. Roman painters represented a variety of human sexual interactions between men and women, women and men, threesomes, and foursomes, demonstrating how the ancient concepts of erotic love, sensual love, and sexual love differed from modern cultural models (e.g., Clarke, 1998; Vout, 2013).

Courtesans and their Erotic Love

In many cultures, erotic love was displayed by courtesans, such as hetaeras, tawaifs, and ji-s, who performed their “love” with artistic charm, elegant conversation, and sexual favors to excite the erotic love of men. The art of the courtesans showed erotic love in beautiful ways.

That erotic love was not the same as the sexual love that prostitutes provided to men (or women) to satisfy their lust. That erotic love was not the same as romantic love because it was not sincere and not personal. The courtesans’ behaviors and expressions were just role-played love. It was perfectly displayed, but it was not personal. Throughout history and across many societies, courtesans performed erotic love for money or other material benefits. Many case studies of courtesans’ art of love depicted in historical research have presented examples of erotic art and erotic love (Feldman & Gordon, 2006).

Courtesans’ Love in China and Japan of the Past

For instance, during the late Ming period of the 16th–17th centuries in China, women in these roles actively participated in elite culture. The literary and artistic works of courtesans significantly influenced new standards of beauty, gender roles, and cultural aspirations (Berg, 2009). Another instance is Japanese culture of the past. During the Edo period of Tokugawa in the 17th–19th centuries, Japanese art extensively made the special erotic art of “shunga”—the “laughing pictures” intended to entertain people with amusing pleasure. The shunga literature and art of those times were esthetically erotic rather than pornographic. Nonetheless, in contemporary Japan, shunga is widely considered taboo (Ishigami & Buckland, 2013).

Erotic Love in Cultures Around the World

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Many laypeople and academics are interested in sexual and erotic themes. The topics of this kind are related to how people experience and express love.

As I said in another article, love and sex are intimately interconnected and sometimes difficult to distinguish. For their better understanding, several questions should be answered. Among those are: What is sex? What is love? What is sexual love? What is erotic love? I recently explained what erotic love is. Here I talk about erotic love across human cultures.

Erotic Art and Erotic Love

People had sex from the early origins of human evolution. It was natural and biologically embedded in their species. However, erotic love appeared on the scene with the onset of culture.

The cultural ideas of erotic art and literature have been depicted in painting, sculpture, music, songs, dances, theater, and fashion design. These artistic mediums conveyed the aesthetic values of body shape and movement, the structure and expressiveness of the face, and the melody and rhythm of music and singing.

What is “erotic” in erotic love?

In the same way that erotic art does, erotic love characterizes the physical attractiveness of a person and the setting in which they are situated. A person who is feeling erotic love looks at the body with admiration. He or she perceives the beautiful body as “nude” rather than “naked.”

Look at the dictionaries, and you’ll see the meaningful differences between the two. The impression of a beloved’s nude form is about the presence of his or her attractive physique, but the impression of a naked figure is about the absence of clothes. Both can have various connotations hidden beneath the surface.

When you are in a museum of sculpture and painting, you look at the nude figures and admire their beauty. Looking at a nude figure in the museum, you don’t experience sexual arousal every single time, don’t you? It is because you experience erotic love, not a sexual one. You experience erotic feelings, but usually non-sexual ones. Both together are not compatible in that context.

In the same way, when you are alone with your beloved being without clothes in bed, looking at her or him, you see them nude and experience erotic feelings. Yet, you don’t feel sexual arousal every single time you look at them. You feel erotic rather than sexual love.

At another time, however, you can experience both erotic and sexual love for them, perceiving them both naked and nude. One of these experiences can prevail over another or not. 

Two Examples of How Erotic Love Was Represented in European and Eastern Cultures of the Past

In the course of the history of art across different cultures, a wide variety of cultural models of erotic art and erotic love have been portrayed. Both men and women were depicted as the objects of erotic love in ancient Greek and Roman art, as well as in Indian art, yet in different cultural contexts and settings. They can still be seen today in the form of paintings and sculptures in the museums of the world.

European Examples of Erotic Art

The depiction of nude women and men in art during the Renaissance period was fashionable and generally conveyed positive associations. Erotic images of women and men can be found in the works of many poets and painters. In nude figures, artists personified their ideals of beauty, graciousness, soul, and love. During the Renaissance, great artists like Giorgione, Leonardo, Titian, Michelangelo, and Veronese created works that praised erotic beauty.

For instance, the “Venus of Urbino” painting depicted “a humanly beautiful nude woman whose pose is borrowed from the idealized beauty of Gorgione’s “Sleeping Venus.” This love allegory represents a European cultural model of love of that time, depicting the victory of love over temptation and time (Grabski, 1999, p.9).

Eastern Examples of Erotic Art

The Sanskrit aesthetic philosophy and art of Indian culture elevated the feeling of “shringara,” one of the nine rasas. “Shringara” means “erotic love” as an attraction to beauty. This feeling is related to the feeling of “rati,” meaning passionate love and sexual pleasure. Nevertheless, these two feelings are still emotionally different.

The love lyrics in Sanskrit and ancient Indian paintings and sculptures beautifully portrayed the stunning pictures of shringara, an Indian culture of “erotic love.” The concept was described as being evidently different from “kama” as presented in ancient Indian medical literature. The diverse feelings of kama were about desires and sensual pleasures of the body (Orsini 2006, p. 10). The Kamasutra, an old Sanskrit text dated to 400 BCE–200 CE, presented a lot of ancient Indian knowledge and wisdom about sexuality, erotic pleasure, and emotional pleasure. This literary text identified and vividly described four types of sexual experiences. Those distinctively referred to sex, sexual love, erotic love, or associated feelings.

Four types of sex and sexual love in “Kamasutra”

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Sex and love are among the topics of great interest for many, yet in different ways. Laypeople and academics believe that sexuality and love are inextricably linked to one another. Numerous authors in the scholarly literature frequently consider these two concepts together.

Researchers in many scientific areas have different ways of conceptualizing the connections between sexuality and love. Some academics believe that “love is really sex,” while others believe that “sex is really love.” Still others believe that these two experiences are distinct yet connected. Opinions about how they are connected also vary.

Although their forms and expressions are behaviorally similar, sex and sexual love have distinct psychological roles. Therefore, it is worthwhile to distinguish them (Karandashev, 2022a). To put it briefly, these two concepts have the following different meanings:

Sexual desire is easily aroused, fleeting, and short-lived. Any attractive individual is capable of satisfying sexual desire. Sexual love is a collection of more intimate and complicated feelings related to a certain other person. Only a specific individual can fulfill a person’s sexual urge.

What is “Kamasutra”?

Ancient cultures of the far past were quite elaborate in this regard. The Kamasutra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text that comprehensively describes what sexuality, erotic, and emotional pleasure are.It is widely known as a sexual manual for men and women. People could learn from the book about different ways to enjoy sex in different positions and with different sexual techniques.

The ancient Indian Hindu Sanskrit text of the Kama Sutra, dated to 400 BCE–200 CE, was attributed to the Indian philosopher Vatsyayana. The book was largely not about sex positions or sexual techniques. Instead, it was written first of all as a guide to the art of living well, the nature of love, finding a right life partner, keeping your love life going, and other things that have to do with the pleasure-seeking parts of human life.

How many types of sex and sexual love can we distinguish?

In the book of Kamasutra, Vatsyayana writes about sexuality, sexual and erotic love, and emotional fulfillment in their intricate relations. The Sanskrit word “kama” conveys several connotations, variously meaning “desire, pleasure, longing, love, and sex.” It is also the name of the god of erotic love and desire.

The text of Kamasutra clearly distinguished four types of sex and sexual love:

  • “First was a simple love of intercourse that resembles a habit or drug.
  • Second was like a separate addiction to specific aspects of sex such as kissing, embracing, or oral intercourse.
  • Third was the love consisting of mutual attraction between two people, instinctive, spontaneous, and possessive.
  • Fourth was the kind of one-sided love that often sprang from the lover’s admiration for the beauty of the beloved.” (Tannahill 1992, p. 203).

According to the text, satisfaction of the first and second types of sex depends just on physical proficiency in intercourse and adherence to the rules and techniques. These are mostly sexual interactions between lovers. The third and fourth types of sexual experience represent true sexual love. These kinds of sexual love are above and beyond the rules. Lovers should just follow their sensual intuition of love and natural feelings of sexual harmony (Karandashev, 2017, p. 71).

Love among Savages

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The questions of great anthropological interest are whether the savages of the old times loved; what kind of love and sexual relations they had; and how they loved each other.

Cultural anthropology of the 20th century has made tremendous progress in the study of love in many remote tribal societies of the world (Karandashev, 2017, 2019). Despite these great advances, we still have limited knowledge of how people in societies without the influence of modern civilizations lived and loved.

We have especially limited access to the knowledge of the previous centuries. The old times of savages have been increasingly disappearing from our reach. So, the availability of the old archives of love studies from the past is especially precious.

Let us explore those old archival treasures of love scholarship (Finck, 1887/2019).

Who Are Those Strangers to Love?

Here are some of the interesting evolutionary observations of Henry Finck:

“In passing from animals to human beings we find at first not only no advance in the sexual relations, but a decided retrogression. Among some species of birds, courtship and marriage are infinitely more refined and noble than among the lowest savages; and it is especially in their treatment of females, both before and after mating, that not only birds but all animals show an immense superiority over primitive man; for male animals only fight among themselves, and never maltreat the females.”

(Finck, 1887/2019, p. 55).

The Surprising Evolutionary Anomaly in the Sexual Relations of Savages

The author explained this evolutionary anomaly in sexual relations in the following way:

“The intellectual power and emotional horizon of animals are limited; but in those directions in which Natural Selection has made them specialists, they reach a high degree of development, because inherited experience tends to give to their actions an instinctive or quasi-instinctive precision and certainty. Among primitive men, on the other hand, reason begins to encroach more on instinct, but yet in such a feeble way as to make constant blunders inevitable: thus proving that strong instincts, combined with a limited intellectual plasticity, are a safer guide in life than a more plastic but weak intellect minus the assistance of stereotyped instincts.”

(Finck, 1887/2019, p. 55).

What about Romantic Love of Savages?

According to anthropological observations from those times, the sexual relations and emotional life of savages were too crude to be called “romantic”:

“If neither intellect nor instinct guide the primitive man to well-regulated marital relations, such as we find among many animals, so again his emotional life is too crude and limited to allow any scope for the domestic affections. Inasmuch as, according to Sir John Lubbock, gratitude, mercy, pity, chastity, forgiveness, humility, are ideas or feelings unknown to many or most savage tribes, we should naturally expect that such a highly-compounded and ethereal feeling as Romantic Love could not exist among them. How could Love dwell in the heart of a savage who baits a fish-hook with the flesh of a child; who eats his wife when she has lost her beauty and the muscular power which enabled her to do all his hard work; who abandons his aged parents, or kills them, and whose greatest delight in life is to kill an enemy slowly amid the most diabolic tortures?”

(Finck, 1887/2019, p. 55).

Were These Romantic Courtships?

As it appears, romantic relationships among savages were not very romantic:

“Or how could a primitive girl love a man whose courtship consists in knocking her on the head and carrying her forcibly from her own to his tribe? A man who, after a very brief period of caresses, neglects her, takes perhaps another and younger wife, and reduces the first one to the condition of a slave, refusing to let her eat at his table, throwing her bones and remains, as to a dog, or even driving her away and killing her, if she displeases him? These are extreme cases, but they are not rare; and in a slightly modified form they are found throughout savagedom.”

(Finck, 1887/2019, p. 56).

The Sentiments of Love Appeared to Be Unknown by Savages

Henry Finck concluded that “Love” was a sentiment unknown to savages. And it was often mentioned in the works of anthropologists and tourists of the 19th century. He cited several observations and comments on this. Here are some of them.

When Ploss remarks that the lowest savages “know as little about marriage relations as animals; still less do they know the feeling we call Love,” he did a great injustice to animals.

As the sociologist Letourneau remarked: “Among the Cafres Cousas, according to Lichtenstein, the sentiment of love does not constitute a part of marriage.”

In speaking of a tribe of the Gabon, Du Chaillu wrote, “The idea of love, as we understand it, appears to be unknown to this tribe.”

Speaking of the polygamous tribes of Africa, Monteiro wrote:

“The negro knows not love, affection, or jealousy…. In all the long years I have been in Africa I have never seen a negro manifest the least tenderness for or to a negress…. I have never seen a negro put his arm round a woman’s waist, or give or receive any caress whatever that would indicate the slightest loving regard or affection on either side. They have no words or expressions in their language indicative of affection or love.”

(cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 56).

Spencer commented on this passage, “This testimony harmonises with testimonies cited by Sir John Lubbock, to the effect

  • that the Hottentots “are so cold and indifferent to one another that you would think there was no such thing as love between them”;
  • that among the Koussa Kaffirs there is “no feeling of love in marriage”;
  • that in Yariba, “a man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting an ear of corn—affection is altogether out of the question.” (cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 56).

A Couple of Words in Evidence of Love among Savages of the Past

Winwood Reade suggested an alternative view on savage love. He wrote to Darwin that the West Africans

“are quite capable of falling in love, and of forming tender, passionate, and faithful attachments.”

The anthropologist Waitz, speaking of Polynesia, wrote that

“examples of real passionate love are not rare, and on the Fiji Islands it has happened that individuals married against their will have committed suicide; although this has only happened in the higher classes.”

As Henry Finck noted,

“in these cases we are left in doubt as to whether the reference is to Conjugal or to Romantic Love; conjugal attachment, being of earlier growth than Romantic Love, because the development of the latter was retarded by the limited opportunities for prolonged Courtship and free Choice.”

(Finck, 1887/2019, p. 56).

The Stories of Nigerian Love in the 1960s

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The transformations of West African societies in the mid-20th century substantially changed the social conditions of people’s lives. Increasing urbanization was among those. Western cultural influences had affected the modernization of cultural life in Nigerian cities.

Let us consider the examples of romantic love from the ethnographic field study of Leonard Plotnicov, which he conducted in urban life in Nigeria. He presented several illustrative cases of romantic love from Nigeria between 1960 and 1962 (Plotnicov, 1995).

Romantic Lust or Romantic Love?

From Plotnicov’s observations and conversations, it appears that romantic love was of little interest for many men and women. The expression of lust, however, was an important part of the masculine gender role. For many Nigerian men, talking about sex and lust was more exciting than talking about love. Philandering was a common male behavior in relationships with women.

For some men, fulfilling their lust was like pursuing a favorite sport; they did this with great and passionate interest. They, however, had little interest in real romantic love and serious relationships.

Many Nigerian marriages did not involve love, both during courtship and during marital life. Love was rather an extramarital affair.

Many men had girlfriends and lovers before being married or during their marriages. But only wealthy men could afford to engage in frequent philandering. Men usually make an effort to keep their womanizing secret from their wives.

Nevertheless, the majority of women appeared to be aware of these indulgences of their husbands when they happened. Many wives had reason to be suspicious of their husbands’ womanizing. However, some were reluctant to voice their jealousy or protest against such extramarital relationships. In their spare time, men shared tales of philandering over rounds of canned beer in the neighborhood taverns. Occasionally, men told how their wives made trouble when they learned who their girlfriend was.

The Nigerian Men’s Stories of Romantic Lust

For example, Isaac, Musa, and Olu never experienced real romantic love. They preferred philandering and womanizing. Olu appeared to be a staunch traditionalist and a good Christian. He had no formal education, did not speak English, and always got dressed in traditional style. Unlike Olu, Isaac and Musa had an extensive Western education. Both were proud of their good command of the Queen’s English. Isaac always wore western attire, while Musa preferred to dress in traditional styles. However, both Isaac and Musa were modern-oriented men. However, terms like “modern” and “traditional” were not imperfectly precise in these cases (Plotnicov, 1995).

The Nigerian Men’s Stories of Romantic Love

Some other Nigerian men had little interest in womanizing behavior. They were more serious in their relationships.

In the other four cases, which Plotnicov portrayed, men had fallen in love. They were culturally conservative. Their descriptions evidently indicated that they experienced real romantic love. But the love of these men showed no evidence of Western cultural influences involved in the way they loved. This romantic love appeared to be culturally specific. And what was interesting was that the Western and modern-oriented Nigerian men expressed their experience of love in the same way as the culturally conservative men. Their romantic love was the fervent, ardent, and passionate desire for another, without whom a man felt utterly incomplete (Plotnicov, 1995). These examples were illustrative to show the cases of romantic love in Nigeria, where romantic love under traditional Nigerian conditions was unexpectedly present. As Leonard Plotnicov demonstrated in those anthropological cases, for the most part, these occurrences of romantic love could not be attributed to the Western influence of romantic love ideas. The cases could not also be attributed to other exogenous influences. Thus, Nigerians had their own endogenous cultural understanding of romantic love (Plotnicov, 1995).

Modern Western Love in Nigeria in the 1960s

Nevertheless, many instances of romantic love among modern-oriented men in Nigerian cities, which Leonard Plotnicov described in his ethnographic reports, reflected Western cultural penetra­tion and acculturation. Modern-generation men were typically younger, worked in trades or occupations introduced from Europe, and preferred to live in cities. They were commonly fond of various Western cultural products.

Romantic Love in the Taita Marriage Culture

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The Taita are an East African ethnic group that has lived in Kenya for four or five hundred years. They are also known as Wadawida or Wataita. The Taita are mostly farmers who reside in the southern mountainous region of the country. The Taita tribes consist of small communities known as clans and extended families.

In another article, I talked about the three kinds of love the Taita have: infatuation, lust, and romantic love. Each of these has its own feelings and ways of expression.

The third type of love, “romantic love,” is of particular interest to us in the context of this article. The Taita “romantic love” is an intricate emotional experience that combines passion and affection. This type of romantic love, as opposed to infatuation, is a more enduring affectionate bond. For the Taita, “romantic love” unites the characteristics of passionate romantic love and companionate romantic attachment. It seems that Taita does not distinguish between “romantic love” and “companionship love.” According to the Jim Bell’s anthropological field study, love is still present in the Taita marital relationships, even though some of them are arranged marriages, some are polygamous (Bell, 1995).

The Respected Taita Family System

The Taita culture follows a patrilineal pattern of descent that prioritizes the interests of the larger lineage over those of the individual. People accept and respect the passion that makes up folklore love stories. Although they respect the passionate feelings of youth, they encourage men and women to keep these strong emotions apart from the conventional marriage arrangements. They strive to limit individual passion so that these strong emotions do not disturb a normal relationship and the societal order.

Family Responsibilities Are the Priority in the Taita Marriage Culture

The people of the older generation encourage young and unmarried Taita men and women to keep their romantic and passionate relationships within limits to avoid diminishing their commitments to the extended family. So, many Taita men and women do their best to fulfill their responsibilities to the lineage and their family. They comply with their duties in an arranged marriage.

How Romantic Love Fits in the Taita Culture of Marriage

Once the responsibilities of an arranged marriage are fulfilled, romantic love may start to play a major role in choosing a new wife. Those who were in arranged marriages, not being romantically interested in their wives, might be in love with their “outside lover.”

Many Taita men admitted wanting to be in a relationship with another woman. However, they were frequently directed at someone unattainable. Only a few men admitted to being really in such a relationship. Nevertheless, these “affairs of the heart” often happen in Taita society.

One man who Jim Bell interviewed commented that

“it can happen that your heart is lost to one you can never marry, but you love that person for your life.” A middle-aged parent con­curred, saying that “this notion is not a rare one.” Many older men expressed their love for a woman who “belonged to another man.” Some informants assured me that they had lovers elsewhere or that some of the children I had interviewed were the offspring of lovers who “played in the forest together.”

(Bell, 1995, p.159).

How Taita Men and Women Manage Their Extramarital Affairs

The Taita keep their extramarital affairs very private, following elaborate rules. Taita lovers are discreet in their relationships and rarely show their emotions or affectionate relationships in public. They act as if they are strangers whenever they meet.

Usually, Taita strive to balance their family obligations and personal desires. They acknowledge that there are various reasons for keeping men and women in marriage. They are doing everything possible to express their emotions and love without undermining the existing social order.

The first and second marriages are intended to honor family responsibilities. After that, a man can allow himself to make his love the primary interest by taking on a new wife.

Dramatic Love Stories of the Taita Past

An old Taita woman admitted, recalling her younger years, that she was infatuated with three or four men at different times during her early teenage years.

“Her father had, however, arranged a marriage for her with one of hispeers. She had eight children. Several old men remembered their affairs in sharp detail, as though theyhappened yesterday, rather than some forty or fifty years earlier. A woman, also in her seventies, stressed (through an interpreter) that “even when I was a young girl, women were having babies before marriage. And others had lovers in the forest after marriage. “

(Bell, 1995, pp.160-161).

In private conversations with anthropologists, the old Taita people openly expressed their views on infatuation, lust, and love. They compared the stories from when they were young with modern life. They agreed that the Taita’s attitudes toward love had shifted with the passage of time and social conditions. (Bell, 1995).

Three Types of Love in the Taita Culture

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The Taita are an ethnic group from East Africa that has lived there for about four or five hundred years. They are often referred to as Wadawida or Wataita. The Taita are mostly farmers who live in a mountainous area in the south of Kenya. The Taita tribes are organized into separate groups called clans, living in their own hilly areas. Clans consist of extended families. The Taita people fully engage not only in sex but also embrace love.

How Love Is Different from Sex in the Taita Culture

The topic of sexuality was prevalent in early missionary and ethnographic accounts of African social life and gender relations. Observers did not mention anything about love in relations between young men and women.

Therefore, European and American anthropologists were ethnocentric in their views and thought that Africans could not love romantically, only sexually. They considered their “native” love and sex as primitive. Christian missionaries taught them about romantic love, “proper” sexual conduct, marital values, and family virtues. They refined and acculturated the Taita people’s understanding of sex, lust, and love. So, African indigenous beliefs and Western values come together in the African culture of gender and family relations (Bell, 1995; Kenyatta, 1938/1953; Jablow & Hammond, 1977).

Culturally sensitive anthropological investigations discovered that people in East African societies had their own unique beliefs about sex, lust, and love before Europeans arrived. It appears that their traditional love stories and folk narratives have often been romantic, not only sexual (Bell, 1995).

A field study in the early 1990s among the Taita of Kenya showed that cultural ideas of romantic and passionate love were natural for East African culture. The Taita words “ashiki” and “pendo” already distinguished “desire” and “love” in Taita culture prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries. In their folk tales, both love and sexual affairs are common (Bell, 1995).

What Are the Three Kinds of Love in Taita Society?

According to Bell’s study (1995), the Taita people discern the three kinds of love, which differ in their styles of romantic expression. These are (1) infatuation, (2) lust, and (3) romantic love.

The First Type of Taita Love

The first kind of love – “infatuation” – is portrayed as a strong attraction toward someone, an emotional longing, accompanied by irresponsible feelings. At first, it appears like passionate Western love, even though the Taita do not perceive infatuation in this way. The Taita people of the older generation consider this type of passionate feeling “a kind of sickness” or misguided infatuation. This type of love typically characterizes the emotions of youth in their early years of 10–12 or older. These feelings usually last for a few weeks or months before they wane away.

The Second Type of Taita Love

A second kind of love—”lust”—is described as a sexually motivated yearning for someone. It is a sort of love primarily based on sexual desire, not romantic love. The Taita recognize that this love does not persist for a long time.

This type of love among young men and women can be solely in their sensual imaginations. When these relationships happen in real life, cultural norms place strong control and censorship on their possibility. The Taita society limits the partner’s choice.

Many young Taita men of 18–24 years old feel a sexual desire for women in their 30s or 40s. On the other hand, young women of 15–17 years old favor mating with men who are of their age at 18–22 years. However, they are rarely able to marry them. These discrepancies in attraction and cultural limitations make these sexual longings and yearnings unrealistic.

The Third Type of Taita Love

The third kind of love—”romantic love”—is a complex emotional experience combining the feelings of passionate ardor and deep affection. Different from infatuation, this type of romantic love is a more enduring affectionate bond. The Taita notion of romantic love combines the qualities of passionate romantic love and companionate attachment love. Yet, people still refer to this kind of love as “romantic love” rather than “companionship love.”

The younger generation of Taita can witness such romantic love between spouses, between a husband and a “favorite wife.” It is adoration and affection of “love out of the heart” or “love for life.” Young Taita men and women consider it to be “the best type of love” that one could dream of in their life.

Young men believe that the desire for this kind of love motivates men to look for and marry a second, third, or fourth wife. Young women like to speak of the “luck” of those older siblings who married for love. When a man and a woman are in a romantic relationship but unable to marry each other, they may carry on their affair for years. The Taita people witnessed many stories of such romantic affairs.

Love Is in the Air Among Taita Men and Women

Taita love, whether it is infatuation, lust, or romantic love, motivates men and women to engage in either a short-term or long-term relationship. Love is in the air on any weekend night in the hills of the Taita community.

Some Taita marriages occur out of interest in social alliances or economic benefits. In other cases, men and women marry for love of the heart. Any type of love, whether it is momentary infatuation, strong sexual yearning, or romantic longing, can lead to long-lasting committed relationships and marriages in Taita society (Bell, 1995).