Category Archives: love in different cultures

Consanguineous Marriages for Cultural Homogeneity Preservation

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Throughout the history of human civilizations, endogamy—the custom of marriages within communities of tribes, clans, extended families, and kin—has been common in many societies. These were consanguineous marriages between men and women who were closely related to each other.

These types of marriages were largely due to some historical, socio-economic, and cultural factors. They were practiced among the nobility, like kings, queens, and tsars. Commoners practiced consanguineous marriages for different reasons. Many families preferred their children to be married this way due to the advantages it offered in social and financial status. In these kinds of cultural settings, it is easier to maintain familial assets, structures, and alliances (Akrami et al., 2009; Hamamy, 2012; Shawky et al., 2011). 

What Are Consanguinity Marriages?

In consanguineous marriages, the man and woman marry each other within a circle of extended family and kin. Generally, in these cases, a potential partner is descended from the same ancestor as another person and belongs to the same kinship. They are the family members who are first cousins, first cousins once removed, and second cousins. Marriages between double first cousins are practiced among Arabs, and uncle-niece marriages are practiced in South India (Hamamy, 2012).

These are rarely cases of incest. Nevertheless, the substantial genetic similarities between spouses often cause the risk of inbreeding. Consanguinity in mating is a cause of a high rate of birth defects, stillbirths, abnormalities, and health complications in offspring (Heidari et al., 2016; Fareed & Afzal, 2014; Maghsoudlou et al., 2015).

Consanguineous Marriages in Modern Times

Nowadays, such consanguineous traditions in marriage have greatly declined in many modern societies. However, these marital relationships are still prevalent in some countries and communities across the world. According to some estimates, in the early 2000s, about 20% of the human population of the world still lived in communities practicing endogamy. And around 8.5% of children were born from consanguineous marriages (Akrami et al., 2009; Obeidat et al., 2010).

Consanguineous marriages are socially and culturally preferred among some communities across South India, West Asia, the Middle East region, and North Africa. They represent around 20–50% of all marriages in those societies. In these consanguine relationships, couples married to first cousins account for about one-third of all marriages (Bittles 2011; Hamamy, 2012; Heidari et al., 2014; El-Hazmi, Al-Swailem, Warsy, Al-Swailem, Sulaimani, & Al-Meshari, 1995; Tadmouri et al. 2009).

These cultural traditions of consanguinity have been enduring among emigrants from these cultural regions who now live in North America, Europe, and Australia. In their communities, the initiation of such relationships is also common.

These practices are more prevalent in rural areas where people are less educated. So, they are not aware of the inbreeding consequences for their offspring. Living in rural areas, they have low socio-economic status, low social mobility, and a large family size. They commonly marry at a younger age. Another reason is that these conditions cut down on the number of potential mates who could be good mating partners (Heidari et al., 2014; Masood et al., 2011; Sedehi et al., 2012; Tadmouri et al., 2009).

An Example of Consanguineous Marriages in Muslim Societies

In Muslim societies, cultural attitudes toward relationship initiation and marriage arrangements are very conservative. So, endogamous and consanguineous marital relationships are still relatively widespread. One such example is Saudi Arabian Muslim society.

Initiation of a marital relationship begins through matchmaking, in which personal kinship connections and consanguinity are preferred. Consanguinity arrangements are culturally highly important (Al-Dawood, Abokhodair, & Yarosh, 2017; El-Hazmi, Al-Swailem, Warsy, Al-Swailem, Sulaimani, & Al-Meshari, 1995).

Consanguineous Marriages Oppose Intercultural Relationships

Consanguineous marriages in the past have traditionally served the purposes of social and cultural preservation. In the cases of traditional conservative societies, they still work the same way despite the changing social contexts. The modern world is becoming more multicultural and intercultural in many regards, including intercultural marriages. The old tradition of consanguineous marriages continues to persist even when conditions have changed, like in modern America.

There is an increasing trend of intercultural marriages in America and many other societies become conducive to intercultural marriages.

Modern and Traditional Models of Relationships in Spain

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Interest in love studies has been on the rise among Spanish researchers in recent decades. Scholars explored the general processes of love relationships and culturally specific aspects of Spanish cultural models of love (Karandashev, 2019, 2022). Let us look at the modern and traditional models of relationships in Spain, considering the examples of Spanish couples and Moroccan immigrants’ couples.

The recent article “Love, Relationships, and Couple Happiness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Among Spanish Couples and Moroccan Couples in Southern Spain” by Encarnación Soriano-Ayala, Verónica C. Cala, Manuel Soriano Ferrer, and Herenia García-Serrán recently reported the study of multicultural models of love in Southern Spain (Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021).

Modernized Spanish Culture and Relationships in Spain

The authors show that love relationships are sociocultural constructions, and the differences in cultural models of relationships in Western and Arab countries play their roles. Moroccan immigration comes from Arab society. It is Spain’s largest foreign cultural group that brings with it the Arab culture of relationships. Due to this large immigration, people in Spanish society observe the coexistence of two models of relationships: modernized Spanish and traditional Moroccan cultures.

Modernized Spanish culture has changed along with the country’s social and economic changes. There is less religious influence and more open public discussion to support freedom of choice in relationships. Attitudes towards relationships and love have become more liberal, flexible, and open to diversity. Spanish men and women tend to have a greater number of partners, with a shorter relationship duration and less predisposition to marriage. The more fluid forms of love govern these patterns of relationships. Despite such modernization of relationships in Spain, “familism” is quite distinctive to Spanish culture. Some estimates indicate that Spain is the most family-centered country in the European Union. Nevertheless, only one-third of the Spanish stated that their family had a strong influence on them. This fact can reflect the loss of the importance of the family as an institution among the Spanish.

Traditional Arab Islamic Culture and Relationships in Spain

Traditional Islamic societies have remained largely conservative in these regards. In their cultures, religion defines many of the normative prescriptions for love relationships. Although Arab Islamic societies have traditionally valued eroticism, pleasurable sexuality, and love, they considered them separate from marital relationships. In the matter of marriage, their views were opposite, with the restriction on freedom of choice and sex being focused on its reproductive function and the maintenance of social roles and status. Moroccan immigrants tend to have more stable and lasting relationships in which marriage plays an important role. Moroccan couples residing in Spain have the highest marriage rates. Marriages continue to serve a social status that immigrant Islamic communities highly value. According to some estimates, more than 90% of the Moroccans stated that their family had had a strong influence on them.

How Happy Are Spanish Couples and Moroccan Immigrant Couples in a Relationship?

Based on their analysis of earlier research, the authors identified some sociocultural differences in how happy couples feel in their relationships. They claimed that:

“The enormous changes in affective-emotional relationships in Europe and the United States have been accompanied by decreased marital happiness and satisfaction within the couple, particularly among groups with low socio-educational levels and minority ethnic groups. These groups experienced the lowest satisfaction.” “Conversely, family, sexual and matrimonial forms in Arab countries have experienced transformations in affective relationships that are tempered by the role of religion, thus maintaining greater stability in family, marital and gender structures, although younger generations are beginning to demonstrate changes in that stability.”

Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021

So, from these two excerpts, we see two main tendencies, which are difficult to judge in terms of good or bad. In the first case, it is about relationship satisfaction, while in the second case, it is about marital stability—two incomparable parameters of relationships.

Acculturation in Relationships

A main question for this study is, “What happens to couples from non-western countries, such as Morocco, when they migrate to Western countries, such as Spain?”

The authors reviewed a few studies that examined post-migratory changes in couple relationships when they migrated from traditional to modernized cultures. Those studies showed that couples continue to maintain their own cultural norms while adopting the new cultural norms of the society from which they migrated. They gradually develop a hybrid cultural model of relationships. Some immigrants acculturate to a new cultural model of love sooner than others.

The change in the affective and relational models of couples shifts the immigrants’ attitudes in favor of the romantic model of love, towards more freedom of choice and less dependency on family ties.

Couple Relationships in Morocco

In Morocco, such basic cultural values as honor, religion, traditional gender roles, and family stability significantly influence couple relationships. However, the gradual transformations in Moroccan society, such as the modernization of interpersonal relationships, continue.

Among those are legislative measures such as the “Moudawana” family code, which allowed divorce, set a minimum legal age for marriage, and started to punish sexual harassment.

A liberal romantic understanding emerged that recognizes marriage as a choice and the fruit of love. This new cultural value admits new forms of intimacy.

All these mixtures of modern norms and practices with traditional ones evolve into ambivalent and contradictory modern models of relationships. Some people experience a liberalization of their lifestyles linked to modernized sexual and social patterns. The other people tend to preserve their traditional Arab Islamic norms and practices, which are linked with puritanism and conservatism in gender and sexual relationships. Scholars also consider controversial interpretations of these changes (see for review, Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021).

Some speak of a Moroccan sexual and democratic revolution due to Western ethnocentrism. They explain the changes that occur as the result of progressive steps forward for the family, romanticism, and intimacy. Many scholars, however, focus on more traditional and folk ways of life, which give rise to rigid stereotypes about sentimental relationships in Arab and Muslim couples.

How Are the Relationships in the Couples of Spaniards and Moroccan Immigrants in Spain?

A recent survey study showed that Spaniards perceive their relationships as less stable. The relationships are influenced by a variety of factors. However, they reported spending a greater amount of time with their partners than Moroccan couples. The relational patterns of Spaniards reinforce the new, discontinuous forms of couple relationships. Those patterns are consistent with a weakening of interpersonal connections in Western societies (Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021).

Spanish women tend to highly value love in their lives. They consider intimacy especially important and rate their happiness in couple relationships highly. The Spanish women felt happier and more satisfied. However, the Moroccan women did not feel this way. Moroccan women tend to be in favor of romantic love. They give high priority to commitment, intimacy, and passion. However, someone may doubt the validity of such self-reports from Spanish and Moroccan women considering the other findings described above.

The results of a recent survey study found that the Moroccans in Spain are more influenced by religion and family. Despite the migration to different societies, they consider religion a very important factor of socialization for the Moroccan communities. They tend to maintain more stability in relationships (Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021).

For Moroccan men and women, the maintenance of social relations and communities, such as family or religious practice, is of high importance. These social values displace the importance they place on couple relationships. Couple relationships for Muslim women are based more on socio-economic materiality than on intangible sentimentality, such as love and couple relationships. Even among immigrants, love does not occupy the vital role in their lives that is culturally attributed to it. They would rather establish strong emotional bonds with other women. The stereotype of the submissive woman may not be quite adequate.

Gender-unequal stereotypical roles are considered

the “feminine mystique” and represent women as “emotional beings who are responsible for giving and expressing love to men”

(Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021, p.82)

In summary,

“The Spanish love style appears as a transitional style between the romantic model of the twentieth century and new neo-liberal forms linked to love, sexual poly-consumption and female empowerment.” “The love model presented by the Moroccan people corresponds to the traditional forms of love. In immigrant couples, the liberalisation of love that is taking place in large Moroccan cities is not observed to any significant extent”

(Soriano-Ayala et al., 2021, p. 84).

Cultural Features of Mangaian Romantic Love

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Early anthropological studies portrayed the sexual culture of Polynesian love. Those studies downplayed the love and emotions of indigenous people in the South Seas. For example, the cultural anthropology of Mangaian love presented the freedom of sexual intimacy and love among Mangaian people of Polynesia.

Later anthropological studies of the 20th century, as I noted in another article, showed that Polynesian women’s and men’s emotional experiences demonstrated that their feelings and relationships were romantic, according to the Western concept of romantic love (Karandashev, 2017, 2019).

Six Things Make Mangaian Love Romantic

Anthropological studies of the 1980s and 1990s showed that romantic love was present in Polynesian cultures (see Jankowiak, ed., 1995), in particular in the Mangaian culture (e.g., Harris, 1995). The word “inangaro” (loving and liking) comes in different forms and contexts, and it is used in many ways, which conveys several core meanings of romantic love.

In other articles, I explained the six key things that made Polynesian love in Mangaia “romantic.” These were

  • (1) intrusive thinking about the partner,
  • (2) a romantic perception of the beloved as an exceptional person,
  • (3) a romantic idealization of the partner and the relationship,
  • (4) a reordering of motivational hierarchies,
  • (5) emotional dependency in romantic love, and
  • (6) care and concern for the other.

See more about these in:

Three Things Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”, and

Three Other Things That Make Mangaian Love Romantic

What Is Culturally Special about Mangaian Love?

In the 1980s, an extensive anthropological field study revealed culturally specific characteristics of Mangaian romantic love. Cultural anthropologists proposed that the Mangaian pattern of heterosexual romantic love differs from the American model of romantic love in its emphasis on specific features of love. The significant differences between these two cultural models of love are in the relative weighting of those features (e.g., Harris, 1995).

The Mangaian cultural model of romantic love is different in many ways from the American model of romantic love

Open Expression of Sexual Love

The two cultural models have different patterns of sexual attitudes and sexual relations. In particular, the Polynesian pattern emphasizes sexual expressiveness while the American pattern minimizes sexual expressiveness.

Polynesian cultures perceive free and open sexual expressions and behaviors as common and central features of sexual relationships and love.

Love Emerges Involuntarily “From the Bowels”

Women and men understand the Mangaian word “inangaro”, with its flexible denotation as “wanting, needing, liking, or loving,” in its specific meaning in the context of heterosexual relationships. It conveys the meaning of “the real love from within, the feeling inside you, from your heart, for someone.” More specifically, love is an involuntary emotional feeling that emerges “from the heart”, even though it literally means “comes from the bowels”. Mangaians believe that the inangaro is “not a choice, but suddenly it is a feeling” that overwhelms a person. Such an involuntary process as falling in love can have both positive and negative consequences. For instance, sometimes relationships that should have been were not because “that feeling” just wasn’t there.

Let us look at one case of this kind,

“Ani was energetically courted by a “good and loving” man who wanted to marry her but for whom she did not feel inangaro. Instead, she fell in love with a man who turned out to be unfaithful to her after they were mar­ried, causing her considerable unhappiness. As she reflected on her life, Ani regretted not being able to love her first suitor, who, in hindsight, would have been a better spouse.”

(Harris, 1995, p.121).

Physical Beauty Is a Powerful Force of Love

Mangaians understand that physical beauty is a powerful driving force of love in heterosexual relationships. Mangaians, like other Polynesians, have a great appreciation for the aesthetics of the human body. They believe that the human physique is the vital trigger of passionate love.

The Mangaian cultural standards of sexual beauty, however, are substantially different from western conventions of physical attractiveness. Different physical features ignite Polynesian love.

For many Mangaians, love at first sight prevails in their culture. The decisive role of physical beauty and the idea of love as an involuntary process are crucial in this regard. Here is an example of how Mangaians described their experiences of sudden and intense attraction to a person they had just met (Harris, 1995, p.122):

“I was in the shop buying some food and I turned and saw him. I got a feeling inside me that I had never felt before with anyone. I had already had a boyfriend and a baby and other boys had come around too. But when I saw this man, I wished that he would be my husband, and this feeling was a surprise because I had never seen him before. Although I had that feeling, I didn’t expect that the feel­ing would come true.”

Mangaian Love as Fate and Destiny

While in North America, “looks count” and “love for beauty” are important factors in falling in love (Tennov, 1979), in Mangaian culture, these factors are recognized as superficial and insubstantial foundations for a relationship (Harris, 1995).

Love and attraction derive from something more important. This is the fate of a supernatural power that is beyond a person’s control.

In American culture, people are generally ambivalent about love “at-first-sight.” They think that physical attraction cannot be the exclusive ground for a “serious” relationship, although they admit that such occurrences exist. As opposed to this, Mangaians perceive such immediate and intense reactions of attraction to a person of the opposite sex as natural when they speak about such experiences.

People in societies that are not affected by cultural discomfort and suspicion of the body are more willing to admit the power of physical attraction. They have a strong belief in “love-at-first-sight” occurrences. In Mangaia, men and women believe that the feeling of love is God’s (or nature’s) way of bringing and keeping people together (1995, p.122).

Three Other Things That Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”

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As noted elsewhere, Polynesian sex and love are more complex emotional phenomena than people in Western culture previously thought. Mangaian love presents an example of this.

Early anthropological research distorted the nature of Polynesian heterosexual relationships. They portrayed men and women as sexually obsessed and permissive in their sexual attitudes and behaviors. The stereotypical western picture, which downplayed the affectionate, emotional, and romantic feelings of the Pacific islanders, was quite inadequate.

Polynesian love in Mangaian culture was not only sexual but also romantic.

Anthropological studies in the later decades of the 20th century revealed a psychologically more complex notion of Polynesian love. Anthropologists found a clear indication that romantic features of emotional experience are evident, for example, in the case of Mangaian culture (e.g., Harris, 1995; see for review, Karandashev, 2017).

The Three Main Attributes that Made Mangaia Love “Romantic”

In another article, I explained the three key things that made Polynesian love in Mangaia romantic. These were

  • (1) intrusive thinking about the partner,
  • (2) a romantic perception of the beloved as an exceptional person, and
  • (3) a romantic idealization of the partner and the relationship.

Here are the other three attributes that made Polynesian Mangaian love “romantic.”

4. Reordering of Motivational Hierarchies in Mangaian Love

Romantic love transforms the motivational priorities guiding the lover’s perception, thinking, and actions. The lovers make choices and decisions based on a new set of values in which everything related to the beloved and the relationship takes precedence over almost everything else. Romantic love overshadows many other things that looked valuable before (Karandashev, 2017, 2019).

According to the interviews with many Mangaians, young men and women often felt a controversy between their own aspirations for a free choice of mate, based on their romantic ideals, on the one hand, and honor and respect for their parents, on the other hand. The young men and women often chose to pursue their love relationships despite the risk of losing their valuable family connections and support (Harris, 1995, p. 119).

In the case where parents oppose their own mate choices, young women and men frequently describe significant emotional distress. The conflicts between their romantic feelings on the one hand and their long-standing status in their kinship, family, and lineage on the other tore them apart.

The occasional cases of fatal consequences due to forced separation from the loved one and even the cases of suicide explain the romantic idea of placing love above life itself in Mangaian love. These instances represent the ultimate reordering of motivational hierarchies.

5. Emotional Dependency in Mangaian Love

If romantic love is reciprocal and mutual, its passionate fascination and admiration evolve into romantic closeness and emotional dependency. Lovers want to know each other better and deeper, to be physically and emotionally closer. They want more and more physical and psychological intimacy. The emotional states of lovers are often closely associated, reciprocated, and synchronized.

In the Mangaian language, an intense emotional response to separation from a beloved is called atingakau, meaning broken heart. The common symptoms of atingakau are a loss of appetite, an inability to sleep, and social isolation. In the case of men, it could be heavy drinking.

Young Mangaian women and men recognize that certain predictable emotional states arise in response to the status of a love relationship. Love can bring both happiness and sadness. Non-reciprocal affection, unrequited love, geographic distance, threats of separation from the beloved, or parental interference could cause their distressed emotions.

6. Care and Concern for the Other in Mangaian Love Relationships

Many western love scholars consider taking care of the loved one, caring about her or him, and expressing concern for the welfare of the beloved among the central features of romantic love (Karandashev, 2017, 2019).

It was also the case for many Mangaians, especially women (Harris, 1995). They believe that being in love means worrying about the well-being and safety of the beloved. Love also means the desire to contribute to their happiness.

For Mangaian women and men, care and concern in romantic love are related to the desire for union and intimacy (Harris, 1995, p. 120–121):

“Caring is not sim­ply an abstract concern for the welfare of the beloved but rather a concern connected to the desire to prevent separation and loss of access. Caring is ultimately defined by how it contributes to maintaining access, increasing intimacy, and fostering reciprocation. Underlying a deeply felt anxiety over the welfare and happiness of a lover is an understanding that the safety and happiness of the beloved are fundamental to maintaining proximity.”

Harris, 1995, p. 120–121

Thus, we can conclude that the field ethnographic study in Mangaia was among the first to discover a basic pattern of feelings characterized by romantic love in Polynesian Mangaian culture (Harris, 1995).

The pattern turned out to be quite like the Western scholarly conceptualization of romantic love (Karandashev, 2017, 2019).

Three Things Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”

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How romantic is Mangaian love? Mangaians are the Polynesian people living in the Cook Islands in the South Seas. The early studies of Polynesian love misrepresented Polynesian heterosexual relationship culture as sexually energetic and sensually obsessive, along with free sexual attitudes and behaviors.

In a stereotypical western picture, observers depicted Polynesians as the most sexually motivated people in the world. They fit the old expression,

“There is no sin below the equator.”

In another article, I describe What Polynesian love is.

Early observations downplayed affection and gave the wrong impression that people in the Pacific Islands did not experience emotional and romantic feelings. Recent studies from the 20th and 21st centuries document a more accurate picture of love in Polynesia. I presented it in the article what Polynesian love in Mangaia was.

Here is the case of Mangaian romantic love. What are the three key things that made Polynesian love in Mangaia romantic?

1. Intrusive Thinking About the Partner

The first key sign of passionate and romantic love is the cognitive preoccupation and intrusive thinking about the beloved and the relationship. Harris (1995), as well as other anthropologists, showed that Mangaian men and women often indicated such a state of mind when they talked about their lovers and love relationships.

It is typical for those in the early stages. Being cognitively preoccupied with the beloved, men and women tended to think about their loved ones again and again. The intrusive thoughts about the loved one interfered with the normal course of their daily life. The same intrusive thinking occurred during a forced separation. Their longing during separation made them compelled to seek proximity. 

2. The Romantic Perception of the Beloved as a Unique Individual

Western scholarship traditionally defines that the beliefs in the uniqueness of the beloved and the perception of him or her as distinctive from others, as a special and exceptional individual, are the essential features of truly romantic love (Karandashev, 2017, 2019).

Despite misrepresented early anthropological observations of “What Polynesian love is“, Harris (1995) and others discovered indirect and direct evidence that Mangaian men and women recognize their loved ones as especially attractive individuals who are distinct from others. Strong love attraction evolves between certain men and women rather than between others. They believe that their romantic liaisons are exceptional.

Young men may seek sexual opportunities whenever possible. Nonetheless, cautious young women look for a sign of “real love” (inangaro kino, etc.). Women recognize this “real love” as a man’s willingness to forsake all other sexual liaisons. Marriage is viewed as the ultimate manifestation of such exclusivity.

3. Romantic Idealization of the Partner and Relationship

Traditionally, Western scholars present romantic idealization as another defining quality that makes love truly romantic (Karandashev, 2017, 2019). This is the tendency of a lover to focus on the good qualities of the person they love and to ignore, pay less attention to, or make excuses for the bad qualities. 

According to anthropological observations, the Mangaian culture tends to publicly segregate boys and girls. Young men usually initiate secret relations, courtships, and premarital heterosexual relationships (e.g., Harris, 1995, see for review Karandashev, 2017).

How Do Young Mangaian Men Idealize Women?

Due to the segregated nature of intergender relationships, young Mangaian men often fall in love with young women by simply seeing them and conversing with them on rare occasions.

Therefore, physical beauty is what initially attracts many men to young women. A woman’s attractive face, flowing hair, and full hips charm a man, while he usually fills in the blanks about the other woman’s qualities. They were supposed to be as enchanting as their physical appearance.

The woman, however, generally thinks that her boyfriend was attracted to her because of her good nature and character. For example, here is how Harris (1995, p. 117) illustrates such an early idealization:

“Maara came to talk to me. He had been waiting, waiting for me to return from Rarotonga. He didn’t forget the time we were in school together. He said to me, “You know what? I’ve been looking at you. I’ve seen you going around.” Then he said that he loved me. He said he had fallen in love with me. Yes, seeing me all around, day and night, waiting for me. I asked him, “Why me?” He said he had seen how I was at school; how we laughed, how I shared with people. I’m just the one he’s looking at. He said his heart was hurting for me.”

How Do Mangaian Young Women Idealize Women? 

Mangaian women tend to be less idealistic and more practical in their heterosexual relationships. In the early stages of relationships, they are less prone to such romantic idealization in their perception of men. Their attitude of idealization toward the man often develops later, after the beginning of the courtship.

They are also inclined to ignore, neglect, or diminish, in their perception, the man’s imperfections and flaws. Interviews show that women tend to think positively about their men and their courtships. They focus on their appearance, skills, talents, and personality attributes:

“He was a very good fisherman; he was the best planter; he was a fine musician; he was kinder than the other men”.

Some women acknowledged that their men had the characteristics of womanizers. Nevertheless, they suspended their mistrust and perceived him as having a good image, despite their public reputation.

There are also The three other things that made the love of the Polynesian Mangaians “romantic”

Polynesian Love in Mangaian Culture

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Is Polynesian love the same as that in Western European and North American cultures? For a long time, love was considered an exclusively Western concept. According to Western European and North American scholars, ethnographic studies of love add little value to understanding “Western” culture and behavior in love.

However, the purpose of cultural anthropology is to challenge the conventional Western understanding of love. As anthropologists Nelson and Jankowiak noted,

“A principle objective of anthropology is to challenge cultural stereotypes and, through participant observation, bring to light the differences between what people do and what they claim to do.”

Jankowiak, W., & Nelson, A. J. (2021). The state of ethnological research on love: A critical review. In  Mayer, C. H., & Vanderheiden, E. (eds). International handbook of love: Transcultural and transdisciplinary perspectives, 23-39.

Cultural Anthropology of Love in the South Seas

Cultural anthropologists began to pay attention to Mangaia and Samoa in the South Seas in the second half of the 20th century. These two islands are in the Central Pacific in the South Seas. Mangaian culture was interesting in many regards.

Unfortunately, the population of those islands and the number of people representing those cultures have been diminishing in recent decades. Nonetheless, such a comparison with other cultures, which we regard as modernized societies, is necessary in order to better understand the cultural diversity of love. 

Let us consider the case of Mangaian love. The early studies of American cultural anthropologists Margaret Mead and Marshall Sahlins and the Swedish anthropologist Bengt Danielsson documented the cultural life of Polynesians in the South Seas.

How Anthropologists Portrayed Sexual Love in Early Polynesian Studies

Those studies sent the message that the islanders didn’t seem to have romantic ideas or emotional experiences of love. Those anthropological observations downplayed affection in Mangaian men’s and women’s relationships. They tend to minimize love emotions in accounts of Polynesian life (see for review, Karandashev, 2017).

Mangaian’s intimate relationships were reduced to sexual obsession and a series of one-night stands. Endleman (1989) summarized those findings as follows:

“Sexual activities [on Mangaia] approach being a national pleasure, in which both males and females participate enthusiastically…. There is no indication whatev­er of anything at all like romantic love involved, only sexual attraction. All the Mangaians place great value on erotic technique, none on any affection or caring between sexual partners, preceding sexual encounter.”

(p. 57).

What Was Real Love in Polynesian Mangaia?

The later studies of the 1970s through 1990s showed that love among Polynesian Mangaians was more complex and sophisticated (e.g., Gerber, 1975; Freeman, 1983; Harris, 1995; Levy, 1973). 

The authors recorded the diverse lexicon of love words that the Mangaians had:

“Maoris have heaps of words for falling in love, but the Europeans have only one”

(Harris, 1995).

As I noted in another post, the Mangaian word inangaro is interpreted broadly as “needing, liking, wanting, and loving.” Referring to a male-female relationship, the word “inangaro” expresses the feelings that inside you. It is the real love for someone from within, from your heart. These feelings make young boys and girls want to get married. A premarital period gives them an opportunity to know this.

Freedom of Sexual Intimacy in Polynesian Mangaian Love

Mangaians, in their heterosexual relationships, are free and open in their sexual expression both before and after marriage. Polynesian attitudes toward sexual freedom and the pursuit of sexual pleasure are culturally normative. For example, when girls and boys like each other, they usually sleep together. They want to enjoy themselves.

Western missionaries made vigorous and sustained efforts to indoctrinate the opposite disposition toward love. Nevertheless, indigenous people in Mangaia and other Pacific societies retained their cultural views on sexual pleasure. Religious missionaries were able to convert them to Christianity. Nevertheless, Polynesians followed their ancestors’ beliefs that sex is a natural and pleasurable aspect of life. They believed that premarital sex, if it is practiced discreetly, is an appropriate part of post-adolescent and premarital times.

The Courtship of the Young Mangaian Boys and Girls

Ethnographic observations showed that the Mangaians’ courtship was not just the practice of experimenting with physical and sexual intimacy. During that time, girls and boys were establishing close emotional relationships. The courtship process could remain chaste for weeks or months, while the development of emotional intimacy in many cases precedes sexual engagement.

It was essential that the interest, desire, emotions, and sexual intimacy be reciprocated. Mangaians believed that intimacy could be achieved only with the willingness of both a girl and a boy to consent to physical and emotional contact. In many conversations during courtship, boys and girls focus on how each person feels about their relationship. Such communication gave the lovers a chance to see how real and strong their feelings were between them (Harris, 1995).

What Is Polynesian Love?

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Many western scholars have traditionally believed that love is a uniquely western concept. Some researchers attempted to demonstrate that love was absent or had a low value in other cultures, especially in the cultural groups in Polynesia. Later ethnographic studies, however, challenged that old western preconception of love (see for review, Karandashev, 2017). Let us summarize anthropological accounts of Polynesian love.

The Sexual Culture of Polynesian Love

Several ethnographic studies of the 20th century provided anthropological accounts of Polynesian love and sex (Danielsson, 1956/1986; Marshall, 1962, 1971; Mead, 1935/1963; Mead & Boas, 1928; Russell, 1961; Suggs, 1962; see review in Karandashev, 2017).

The most important parts of Polynesian sexual culture, according to these studies, were an active sexual life and freedom of sexual behavior. From those studies, Polynesians became known in anthropology as the most sexually motivated people in the world.

The cultural standards of beauty in Polynesia, however, were very different from western conventions of physical beauty. The flat-nosed, round beauties with fat bodies were viewed as the most beautiful ones.

Early Accounts of Sexual Love in Polynesian Culture

The anthropological accounts, which started with the early Polynesian studies of American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901–1978), characterized Polynesians as emotionally stunted yet actively sexual people.

Margaret Mead published her case studies of Polynesian societies in her books, Coming of Age in Samoa: A Study of Sex in Primitive Societies and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. In those books, she described the males and females in those cultures who engaged in intimate relationships solely based on their sexual attraction and performance. They seemed to know little about falling in love.

The Swedish anthropologist of the 20th century, Bengt Danielsson, in his book, “Love in the South Seas,” gave another early snapshot of love, marriage, childbirth, and childrearing in Polynesian society. He was a crew member on the Kon-Tiki raft expedition to French Polynesia in 1947 and presented to the western public how people in Polynesia lived and loved in the times before the Polynesian societies began to change with globalization. 

Marshall Sahlins, an American anthropologist who lived from 1930 to 2021, also did a study of sexual behavior in the Cook Islands in the 1950s. In his report, he presented a detailed portrait of Polynesians as fundamentally sexual beings. He found that “copulation is a principal concern of the Mangaian of either sex” (1971, p. 123). The Marshall study (1971) recorded a large Mangaian sexual vocabulary as evidence of the islanders’ concern with sex. However, the author did not mention a variety of Mangaian terms for love.

Polynesian Love Transcends Sexual Love

However, the anthropological studies of Gerber (1975) and Freeman (1983) on Samoa, as well as the study of Levy (1973) on Tahiti, corrected (to a certain degree) the misrepresentation of the emotional life in Pacific cultures.

Later, H. Harris (1995) conducted a field study in Polynesia (Mangaia, Cook Islands) and argued that romantic love was absent in Mangaia. The field study indicated that Mangaians actually have a rich emotional and love lexicon.

H. Harris (1995) showed how Mangaian men and women were emotionally and physically engaged in relationships. He characterized their love as comparable to the descriptions of romantic love in Western scholarly publications. Harris’s description of Mangaian love syndrome presented it as a set of emotional features overlapping, interacting, and being integrated with each other the same way in Western depictions of love. However, H. Harris (1995) also showed how the Mangaian version of love is different from the basic pattern found by American researchers.

Lexicon of Polynesian Love: Example of Mangaia

The author recorded that Mangaians had diverse words for love. “Maoris have heaps of words for falling in love, but the Europeans have only one.” (Harris, 1995, p. 106).

For example, inangaro is a flexible word interpreted broadly as “needing, wanting, liking, or loving.” The typical way to say “I love you” in Mangaian is “Tе inangaro tikai nei au iaau”. However, if a person wants to express exactly the experience of falling or being deeply in love, he or she selects from the derivatives of love: inangaro kino, matemate te inangaro, and pau te inangaro. All of these words show that they are sure and honest about how much they love each other (p. 107).

Variations of inangaro express sexual interaction, intrusive thinking, intimacy, reciprocity, exclusivity, and reordering of priorities—all central features of love, not just sex.

What Is Bedouin Culture?

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“Bedouin culture” encompasses the traditional cultural practices of the nomadic Arabic-speaking peoples that have been living for centuries in the deserts of Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, and in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Algeria, and Egypt in North Africa.

These people are commonly named in English as Bedouins (sometimes spelled Beduin), while they are originally known in Arabic as “Badawi”, or in plural, “Badw.”

Bedouins speak their own Arabic language (Bedawi), which has several dialects. In the Arabic language, “Bedu” means the people living out in the open, in the desert. Literally, the word “badawiyin” refers to desert dwellers. 

Some anthropologists consider Bedouin culture to be the purest form of Arab culture. Because of their rich oral poetic legacy, lifestyle, and code of honor, other Arabs still regard them as “ideal” Arabs.

And according to some recent estimates, the number of Bedouin inhabitants is only around 4 million. Anthropologists identify the Bedouins by their way of life, social structure, language, and culture.

The Appearance of Bedouins

Bedouins are recognizable by their specific appearance, such as their facial features and clothes.

“The men wear long “gallabeya” with a thin cotton pantalon down and a red/white (smaegh) or white (amemma) headscarf, sometimes held in place by a black cord (aghell).”

(retrieved from Bedouin Culture)

“The women wear colored long dresses and, when they go out, they dress in a thin, long, black coat (abaya), sometimes decorated with embroidery. They always cover their hair with a black, thin scarf (tarha). They cover their faces with decorated face veils (burqa’ah).”

(retrieved from Bedouin Culture)

Today, one can see this only in the oldest generation of women. The women of a younger generation simply cover their faces with their “tarha”, and some “dare” to wear more colorful ones (retrieved from Bedouin Culture).

The Way of Bedouin Life

Since the beginning of Islam, Egyptians have referred the Bedouin as ‘Arab,’ which is equivalent with the term “Nomad.” They belong to the nomadic culture that determine many things in their life. In ancient times, many people preferred to settle mostly near rivers. However, Bedouin people chose to live in the open desert.

Most Bedouins are herders who migrate into the desert during the wet winter months and return to cultivated land during the dry summer months. Bedouins herd camels, goats, cattle, and sheep. In the past, some Bedouin tribes raided trade caravans and communities of villagers at the boundaries of settled areas.

They consider themselves to be proud people and appreciate their lifestyle. They are quite suspicious and prefer to avoid talking about their personal lives.

The Family Life of Bedouins

Bedouin societies have tribal and patriarchal organizations. They consist of patrilineal, endogamous, and polygynous extended families. The heads of the families and larger social units that make up the tribal structure are “sheikhs” (or “sheikhs”). An informal tribal council of male elders assists the sheikh. Bedouin culture emphasizes the strong belief in tribal superiority and security that supports people’s ability to survive in a hostile environment. Their extensive kinship networks provide them with the basic needs they need to survive and community support. These traditional networks ensure the safety of families and protect their property. In modern times, however, only about 5% of the Bedouin people still live their pastoral (semi) nomadic life.

The Modern Life of Bedouins

Modern Arab countries tend to modernize their nomadic lifestyles and encourage their citizens to settle in urban areas. These adjustments allow society to provide children with education and health care. Contemporary Bedouin societies gradually change. Men have more leeway in adapting to modern Arab culture. However, many women are still bound by the tradition of an honor culture, urging them to stay within the family (retrieved from Bedouin Culture).

How Expressive Is the Culture of Intimacy in a Relationship

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The feeling of intimate belonging fulfills people’s needs for intimacy. However, people can satisfy their need to belong in various ways in different cultures, depending on their norms. A distinction between collectivistic (interdependent) and individualistic (independent) values is especially important for our understanding of intimacy as a fulfilled need to belong.

The Cultures of Intimacy in Collectivistic and Individualistic Societies

People in an individualistic, independence-oriented society like the United States are constantly assured from childhood that they belong and are loved. Yet, as they grow in childhood, parents encourage them to be independent and autonomous. Over time, they feel proudly autonomous, yet they may feel a little lonely. Parents are busy with their jobs and own problems. Therefore, teenagers strive to break through such lonely autonomy and look for other intimate bonds, such as moving in with someone else, marriage, and family.

People in a collectivistic, family-oriented society like Japan feel embedded in a family group from childhood. They implicitly feel these intimate ties with other members of the family. Therefore, they do not really need the reassurance of intimacy in family bonds. This is why they don’t really feel the need for another source of reassurance of intimate belonging from their marital partner, at least not to the same degree as people in individualistic cultures do.

What Is Special about Japanese Intimacy?

Some studies have shown that Japanese intimacy is not low – just different from North American and Western European views and notions of intimacy (see for review, Karandashev, 2019).

As I said above, Euro-Americans living in individualistic, middle-class, or urban cultures are proud of being independent in relationships. However, despite this feeling of being autonomous, they feel an obvious need to belong to their parents’ family.

When pushed out of their parental nest, they look for another source (a partner) to whom they could belong. And, as before in childhood, they need to feel from others that they are accepted and doing a “good job!” And they frequently do this to each other, both verbally and explicitly. It is because they have an implicit feeling of autonomy and independence. They need to hear that “they are doing great!” explicitly and repeatedly. Yet their need to belong must also be assured through direct verbal communication.

On the other hand, Japanese people have different cultural socialization strategies and childrearing philosophies. Children living in a collectivistic culture from birth already feel embedded in their family ties. Their model of attachment in childhood is culturally different. They are already aware of their intimate connections with other members of their family. Therefore, they don’t need constant and explicit verbal confirmation that they belong, as European Americans do (see, for instance, Keller, 2013, 2018).

This is why the Japanese may appear less direct in their intimate communication. It is because they understand it implicitly. However, Japanese couples in committed love relationships are high only in such qualities of intimacy as mind reading, compassion, assurance, and social network support (Roland, 1988).

Expressive versus Low-expressive Intimacies

The comparison of Japanese culture, as an East-Asian collectivistic culture, with European-American culture, as a Western individualistic culture of expressions of intimacy, might be simplistic. Many other non-collectivistic cultures can still be reserved and emotionally inhibited in their communicative preferences.

The difference in high-contact versus low-contact cultural values could be another explanation. Not only are Asian societies low-contact cultures (Barnlund, 1975; Klopf & Thompson, 1991; McDaniel & Andersen, 1998).

The Cultures of Low-Expressive Intimacies

People in Scandinavian and Nordic societies also display a low-expressive style of interpersonal interaction (see more in Karandashev, 2021).

Finns, like Norwegians and Swedes, prefer silent speech with relatively long pauses and slow-moving turns of speech. They often listen to each other without external evidence or feedback, yet this is their way of listening most attentively (Nishimura, Nevgi, & Tella, 2008; Tella, 2005).

For instance, in Finnish culture, people use the word “rakkaus” (love) only occasionally. Several other Finnish words implying the emotions of love without direct reference to the word “rakkaus” are also used by Finns (Haavio-Mannila & Roos, 1999).

Here is a folklore anecdote on Nordic marital intimacy. A Finnish couple, husband Eino and wife Aino, are celebrating their 5-year anniversary of marriage. She asked:

  • Eino, do love me?

Eino answered:

  • Yes, Aino, I already told you about this five years ago. If something changes, I will let you know.

This joking folklore anecdote is surely an exaggeration. But the reserved expression of intimacy is quite common for Nordic people, such as in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, as well as for East-Asian people, such as in Japan, China, and Korea.

Japanese Marital Intimacy

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I noted in another article, “The Japanese Dating Culture of “Tsukiau” Relationships“, that men and women enjoy the tsukiau relationship to explore the freedom of intimate emotional and sexual relations. They do not feel any pressure or expectation to marry. Yet their relationship could lead to marriage.

What Is Japanese “miai”?

The tradition of “miai” (or, with the Japanese honorific prefix o- “omiai”) is a Japanese custom of relationship transition to marriage. It is similar to matchmaking in other cultures. This tradition has been modified in the context of modern Japanese lifestyles. After kokohaku (“confession”), a man and a woman enter a new chapter of their relationship development, which ultimately evolves into miai. An introduction to the parents follows, and marriage is seriously considered.

Some may see the process of “Omiai” as akin to arranged marriages. Sometimes, there is an outsider’s general assumption that arranged marriages are culturally normative in Japan. However, it is largely not the case nowadays. The real arranged marriages happen in Japan now quite rarely (probably less than in the 10-20% cases), mostly in rural areas, and substantially less in modern times (Relationships and Sexuality in Modern Japan. Last updated in 2011).

These days, many more marriages are formed out of mutual love for one another. Once the Omiai begins, actual dating means less than before. Successful “Omiai” implies that the man and woman go on a series of dates that result in a decision about whether they decide to marry or not.

  • If they decide to marry, they go through a formal marriage process called “miai kekkon.” The groom’s family typically arranges miai kekkon.
  • If they decide not to marry, they each go their separate ways.

Public and Private Sides of Japanese Intimacy

In Japanese culture, public displays of affection for a loved one—such as holding hands, kissing, hugging, or any intimate physical contact—are considered impolite, rude, or shameful. Many times, one would never guess that partners are actually a married couple. Publicly, Japanese tend to pretend that they are not in love.

This is why kissing is uncommon in Japanese films. Many people condemn kissing in public places. The majority of men would never kiss a woman in public. But if they would, they would feel embarrassed.

Any form of intimacy should be kept in private areas. In the home, children commonly say that they have never seen their parents kiss or express affection in any way.

It should be noted, however, that modern men and women of a young generation, especially in the larger cities, are slowly changing these old customs of public displays of affection.

Problems with Marital Intimacy in Japanese Culture

In general, traditional Japanese culture places a low value on psychological intimacy in marriage. Therefore, sharing one’s intimate self in companionship with one’s spouse has been less common (e.g., DeVos, 1985; Roland, 1988).

Even among many middle-class Japanese couples, psychological intimacy in marriage is still uncommon. There are two contextual factors that impede the formation of intimate relationships in marriage (Roland, 1988).

The men’s intimate psychological needs have usually been fulfilled in the circle of other men in the workplace. The intimacy of their friendship outside of work is uncommon among Japanese men.

The women’s intimacy needs have been satisfied in their friendships with other women and their relationships with their children. Because men generally spend long hours at work and then have rituals of lengthy socializing after work, it is difficult for women to create closeness in their marriage relationships.