Category Archives: love in different cultures

The Japanese Dating Culture of “Tsukiau” Relationships

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This article describes the Japanese dating culture. It is evident in the cultural practices of “tsukiau” relationships between men and women. These are some kinds of romantic relationships with Japanese cultural characters.

In another place, I consider when and how young Japanese start dating, what Japanese “group dating” is, and how “confession” serves as a step towards intimacy.

The Japanese word “tsukiau” (“going steady”) means steady dating relationships. Farrer and colleagues studied what and how young Japanese experience being involved in such relationships (Farrer et al., 2008).

What Are the Functions of Tsukiau Relationships?

Men and women engage in tsukiau relationships to enjoy the pleasure of intimate emotional and sexual relations and to experience feelings of closeness, comfort, and support. Like American dating, Japanese tsukiau relationships do not assume the imminence or expectations of a wedding or marriage.

Partners are aware of the various circumstances involved. And before making a marriage commitment, they weigh several conditions, such as personal, family, career, and financial obstacles. Therefore, they know they should wait for such a responsible decision.

However, their dreams, thoughts, and conversations about marriage still allow partners to express themselves. They discuss their prospects for the future. They believe that their romantic love (“renai“) and relationship will keep going.

How Intimate Japanese Men and Women Are in Their Tsukiau Relationships

When men and women are in “tsukiau” relationships, they perceive intimacy, along with passion and commitment, as their primary experiences. Partners assume and appreciate closeness, intimacy, and comfort. They like spending more time together (issho ni sugosu). For them, just being together brings psychological support (sasae), comfort (anshin, kokochiyosa), and even healing (iyashi).

When Japanese men and women are in a tsukiau relationship, then just being together is a way to express their personal feelings of love. A desire to be together is accompanied by an expectation of communication (komyunicasyon), dialogue (taiwa), and conversation (kaiwd) between partners.

They enjoy seeing each other by meeting up and talking in person (issho ni ini). They pay special attention to such events as the relationship anniversary, a partner’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, and “White Day.” They often exchange gifts and go to locations that have special meanings for them, such as the place of their first date. They go out, catch a movie, eat at a restaurant, or spend special time at home. These things bring joy and delight to their tsukiau relationship. All this communication reignites and strengthens their feelings of commitment while their relationships progress.

How Sexually Intimate the Japanese Are in the Tsukiau Relationship

Men and women in tsukiau relationships frequently engage in sexual intimacy. The expressed desire for sex (ecchi wo suru) is a central expression of passion (netsujou) and romance (koi). A formal “confession” (kokuhaku) establishes an expectation of sex. Having sex is a matter of course. It is the key feature that distinguishes being in a tsukiau relationship from simply being a friend. Many may have sex at least once a week.

For Japanese boys and girls, having sex is a way to increase communicative intimacy in the relationship. For many, sex looks like an intimate form of verbal and physical communication. Others pursue sex for the fulfillment of other motivations and emotions.

Excessive Intimacy and over-commitment can be a burden for Japanese men and women

Japanese men and women recognize that excessive intimacy and over-commitment can be perceived negatively as a burden (Farrer et al., 2008).

Expansive and accepted intimacy and commitment can restrict partners. In a tsukiau relationship, emotional attachments can evolve into implicit or explicit restrictions on a partner’s and their own behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Men and women in a relationship acknowledge that they restrict their partners, just as their partners restrict themselves.

For example, controlling and monitoring the partner’s actions, thoughts, and jealousy impose such constraints. Excessive intimacy can make a person or their partner feel tethered and controlled. They can feel a loss of their independence. Therefore, sometimes they think of avoiding excessive restrictions (sokubaku), and feelings of excessive “restrictions” are among their frequent complaints.

According to the study, in more than 50% of cases, young Japanese people say they take restrictive measures against their partner. They also admit they have experienced such restrictions from a partner. Persistent expectations of the need for conversations, emails, and other messages sometimes make men and women in a tsukiau relationship feel irritated. Therefore, they tend to dislike, argue, and loathe such restrictions (Farrer et al., 2008).

Restrictive Intimacy, Obligations, and Trust in the Tsukiau Relationship

Emotional intimacy presumes and advances interpersonal trust. Nevertheless, apprehensive jealousy—even without any reasonable basis—is inevitable for some possessive people.

The obsessive thoughts and actions can become annoyingly restrictive. The explicit display of jealousy can undermine trust in a tsukiau relationship. Then, it is expected that partners should avoid expressing their feelings of jealousy.

Men and women in a tsukiau relationship may feel the intense and anxious emotions of their partners as overly weighty. When a partner is emotionally over-involved in a relationship, a person feels and expresses concerns, which the Japanese call “heaviness” (omoi). Many partners believe that such pressure and the “heaviness” of an overly committed partner should be avoided. Such serious over-involvement, feelings of heaviness, and disbalanced devotion can trigger a breakup (Farrer et al., 2008).

The Japanese Way of Dating

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This article explains when and how Japanese dating takes place. Courting, dating, and marital relationships are the periods when men and women expect an intimate relationship and love to evolve. Across cultures, such practices vary in terms of time and degree of intimacy (Karandashev, 2017, 2019). 

When and How Young Japanese Start Dating

In Japan, many men and women start dating only after high school. In general, students in high school take their studies seriously. They are preoccupied with school, and parents generally discourage their teenage children’s dating.

In college and beyond, dating becomes important for young men and women. In Japan, many of them feel very shy at the beginning of a relationship due to the lack of communication with the opposite sex during their adolescent period.

What Is the Japanese “Group Dating”?

Due to cultural anxiety about intimacy, starting a relationship can be tense and overwhelming for many Japanese boys and girls. The practices of “gōkon,” or “group dating,” help eliminate the tension of interpersonal encounters in a traditionally collectivistic society. This kind of dating is quite popular among young Japanese people because they are very wary of one-on-one interaction when they first meet a partner.

When a young man and a young woman want to get to know each other, they often bring along three or four other eligible friends. They all meet up together, for example, in restaurants or bars.

After initial group communication and games, men and women get together in their circles, discuss who is interested in whom, and may exchange phone numbers and/or e-mails. Many in Japan still get to know each other through a third-party introduction.

In Japanese culture, being courteous is a priority, whether a boy or girl enjoys one another at a first meeting or not. Therefore, they tend to exchange messages after their first encounter, telling each other that they enjoyed their meeting and wish to continue going out again. Alternatively, they can simply thank the other for their time together without sending an explicit message that they are not interested in meeting again.

Confession in Love Is a Step Towards Intimacy

The rituals of “confessions” are evidently present in many societies in the precious relationship episode of saying “I love you” (“I like you a lot!”) for the first time in a relationship. It is a very special moment that signifies a new stage in a relationship. It is commonly known across many cultures.

This is a step forward to the intimate stage of a relationship if the other responds with “I love you too,” explicitly or implicitly. Such reciprocity is expected and anxiously awaited. A lover hopes to turn the page of a relationship into the next chapter. Such expectations of reciprocity, however, are not always fulfilled. The latter may turn the relationship down another path.

According to many cultural traditions, a man (or sometimes a woman) first declares their love for each other. In a sense, this confession means “Would you be my lover/boyfriend/girlfriend?” depending on the linguistic and cultural connotations accepted in a special cultural context.

What Does the Japanese Word for “Confession” in a Relationship Mean?

Kokohaku, or “confession,” is an important Japanese dating custom. In the Japanese cultural tradition, a man usually initiates the confession by asking a woman to go out. However, in modern dating practices, women may confess as much as men do. The Japanese “I love you” resembles the English “I like you.” However, the Japanese have their own serious words for love.

If the “confession” turns out to be reciprocal, a man and a woman enter another, more serious stage of magkasintahan. They become boyfriend and girlfriend, or lovers in a broad sense of the word. Their relationship soon becomes more serious and intimate (in various regards).

Love and intimacy evolve in what the Japanese call “tsukiau” relationships.

Interpersonal Self-Disclosure Differs in Different Cultures 

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Self-disclosure is the way an individual communicates and shares personal information with another. Values and opinions, goals and aspirations, plans and thoughts, feelings and preferences, achievements and failures, fears and hopes, dreams and disappointments—all these internal personal things can be disclosed. They can be private and confidential to a greater or lesser extent. Some information can be sensitive because it makes a person vulnerable in a relationship.

Self-disclosure can be verbal or nonverbal. People differ in their willingness to self-disclose.

Cultural patterns of self-disclosure in romantic and marital relationships vary across societies. Societies differ in their cultural norms of how close the interpersonal relationship between partners should be and how emotionally intimate they should be in a close relationship.

Intimacy as Self-disclosure

Self-disclosure of personal information is the way to express intimacy in relationships. Partners do this both verbally and nonverbally. Many Western scholars and laypeople conceptualize intimacy as self-disclosure, as the way of revealing personal values, thoughts, and feelings to another person. Many European Americans consider such experiences and expressions as important things for personal growth and relationship satisfaction, while many Asians and Asian Americans don’t think this way.(Altman & Taylor, 1973; Derlega, et al., 1993; Ignatius & Kokkonen, 2007; Jourard, 1971; Sprecher & Hendrick, 2004, see Karandashev, 2019, for review).

Cultural Differences in Self-disclosure

Cross-cultural studies have shown that the degree of self-disclosure between American partners is usually higher than between Japanese or Chinese partners. These cultural differences might be due to their differences in individualism and collectivism as cultural values (Barnlund, 1975; Chen, 1995; Hocker and Wilmot, 1995; Gudykunst & Nishida, 1983; Ting-Toomey, 1991; see for a review, Karandashev, 2019).

For instance, spouses in North America communicate verbally more than Chinese spouses. Self-disclosure is frowned upon in Chinese culture, which encourages greater self-restraint in marital communication and limited self-disclosure. These differences can be due to differences in corresponding cultural values. Alternatively, people in different cultures can express their personal information and feelings in various ways (Chen, 1995; Hocker & Wilmot, 1995; Fitzpatrick et al., 2006; Juang & Tucker, 1991; see Karandashev, 2019 for a review). 

The boundaries and meanings of privacy, intimacy, and self-expression may differ across cultures. Various aspects of what is viewed as private, intimate, and public are culturally determined (Coffey, 2017; Heitler, 2012; Moore, 2003).

Self-disclosure in Individualistic Western Cultures

Western individualistic cultures consider self-disclosure as the prototypical expression of intimacy (Jamieson, 1998, 1999). For example, North American culture encourages men and women to communicate in relationships in an open, direct, and assertive manner. As a result, Americans naturally use self-disclosure to lower emotional distance and foster marital intimacy (Bradford et al., 2002; Hocker & Wilmot, 1995; Rosenfeld & Bowen, 1991; see for a review, Karandashev, 2019).

American men and women believe that self-disclosure with a partner is a vital process to achieve closeness in a relationship. This possibility reflects their individualistic ideals like independence, autonomy, self-assertion, and directness. This perspective appears to be more consistent with an American emphasis on verbal and non-verbal self-expression than with a Chinese emphasis on restraint and silence.

Self-disclosure in Collectivistic Eastern Cultures

Sharing personal information and the exchange of feelings are less important in East Asian cultural settings (Chen, 1995; Goodwin & Lee, 1994). For example, Chinese and Japanese cultural norms teach people to be restrained and reserved in interpersonal interactions. Societies frown upon being too expressive.

These cultural factors determine the manner of reserved self-disclosure in Chinese marital relationships. According to research findings, Chinese native spouses disclose less than North American spouses. For Chinese men and women, self-disclosure can reflect their collectivistic values like harmony, connectivity, and solidarity (Chen, 1995; Hocker and Wilmot, 1995; Fitzpatrick et al., 2006; Wolfson & Pearce, 1983; see for a review, Karandashev, 2019).

In Chinese households, disclosure is layered: the most intimate expressions are shared with the spouse, while less sensitive information is shared with other family members or strangers. As a result, in both cultures, a married relationship can be intimate yet linked to different social values (Ow & Katz, 1999).

The Italian Romantic Hero as an Ideal Latin Lover

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This article on the website presents the recent study of Francesca Pierini, a lecturer from the University of Basel, Switzerland, as well as many other scholarly and literary examples of romantic ideals of male heroes. The author’s literary exploration described the narrative patterns of the Italian romantic hero. Her excellent review paper beautifully described the ideals of the Italian romantic lover.

The Literary and Cultural Stereotypes of Southern European Romantic Heroes

In contemporary Anglophone fiction, prominent descriptive patterns of the Latin, Spanish, and Italian people have shown these cultures as distinct constellations of counter-values to Anglo-American cultures and ethos. Literature and public discourse have depicted a particularly complex and multi-layered concept of culturally appealing “primitivism.” This viewpoint has found its way into a variety of cultural/artistic contexts, including Anglophone contemporary romantic novels, movies, and public discourse. For example, the Italian masculine hero, in both positive and negative aspects, is the recognized signifier of attractive otherness (Pierini, 2020).

Romantic novels describe the physical characteristics of Italian heroes as sensuous and alluringly dark men, implying an untrustworthy character and a hot and short temper. In these descriptions, mainstream beliefs about southern European machismo conflate with popular literary conventions about Middle Eastern cultures based on their apparent discontinuity with the modern world. The novels present Arab and southern European men as attractive because of their unusual and even exotic images.

Latin Lover

Italian and Spanish romantic heroes are often presented as Latin lovers. These romantic heroes resemble alpha males. These men are strong, hard, confident, dominant, and can be aggressive, yet they have a tender spot that the heroine uncovers. Writers frequently elicit mainstream assumptions about machismo as alpha maleness when creating the character of a Latin lover (Jarmakani, 2011).

A Latin lover is commonly known as a Latin man who is known for his romantic disposition, passionate temperament, and sexual aptitude. For the figure of the “Latin lover,” Pierini (2020) proposed the term “Mediterranean Man.” It implies a merger of the southern European and the Arab man.

What Does a Latin Lover Look Like?

The physical appearance of these men’s heroes is important. A couple of decades ago, the physical traits of the romantic hero were depicted in fascinating remarks on the dark color of their skin. Currently, such references look more like the remarks

on the “rich caramel coloring of his [the sheik’s] skin, giving true meaning to the description of tall, dark, and handsome.”

(Jackson, 2002/2017).

The Exotic and Erotic Latin Lover

British romantic novels often depict Spain as the land of a blazing sun, the flamenco, the castanets, the fiesta, the siesta, and bullfighting.

European romantic novels describe Italy quite similarly—in some regards—as a timeless land of a blazing sun, winemaking, and continuous traditions, as well as the people with long and unbroken family histories, the aperitivo, the pasta, and the siesta. The Italian romantic hero is frequently portrayed as an elegant Italian winemaker who is very attached to his family and parents. He is a successful, imposing, but compassionate man (George, 2014).

Darkness marks the Latin lover out as being exotic, erotic, and different. His dark hair, black eyes, and olive skin accentuate the cultural and ethnic differences. The heroine, with her English rose complexion and clear eyes, commonly signifies another cultural marker or metonymy (Pérez-Gil, 2019).

Romance stories depicts such exotic features as natural and inborn in . They appear as the outcome of genetic features—a “Mediterranean” DNA—rather than a social and cultural environment. Italian and Spanish men seem to have a sort of “Mediterranean DNA” that accounts for their physical traits (Pierini, 2020).

Masculinity of an Italian Romantic Hero

The typical image of an Italian romantic hero resembles, in a broad sense, a Mediterranean man. His blackness of the skin, eyes, and hair is a recurring theme. Authors frequently use the terms “dark eyes,” “dark stare,” “dark golden eyes and gaze,” “olive-toned complexion,” and “bronzed skin” in various combinations (see for review, Pierini, 2020).

Many romantic novels have repeatedly portrayed the stereotypical description of the Italian hero’s dark eyes and complexion. Writers often use the analogy of darker skin with chocolate, which is inviting, tempting, and essentially resembles a hedonistic food.

The idea of the domineering and primitive masculinity of a Latin lover, in contrast to English cold-bloodedness and sexual restraint, resembled “oriental men,” splendid, healthy, and predatory animals.

In the romantic depictions of Italian heroes, the recurring expressions frequently present

“olive-toned skin,” “chocolate eyes,” and “eyelashes, long and lustrous, fringed eyes the color of rich, melted chocolate, warm and tempting”

(see for review, Pierini, 2020, p. 6).

They have

“dark eyes,” “smouldering dark eyes,” “molten eyes,” or “dark, sultry eyes.”

(see for review, Pierini, 2020, p. 6).

They also have

“dark gaze” or “dark and compelling gaze,” “olive-toned flesh,” and “olive-toned hands.”

(see for review, Pierini, 2020, p. 6).

The Latin Lover as an Italian Playboy

For instance, in Anderson’s Between the Italian’s Sheets (2009), we read,

“Dazed, she studied the difference in their colouring.  She had come from a cold winter, so her skin was pale, whereas his olive complexion had been enhanced in the heat of the European summer”.

Or, another similar writing says:

“she stared hard into the darkness of his eyes, let hers roam over his features, his olive skin, the angled jaw that right now was shadowed with stubble, the full mouth”.

In The Playboy of Rome (2015) by J. Faye, author describes the Italian hero as “dark and undeniably handsome,”  with “tanned skin around his dark eyes.” The eyes are “dark and mysterious,” with a “dark gaze.”

In The Italian’s Christmas Child (2016) by L. Graham, author persistently repeats the expression “dark golden eyes.” And Vito, the male protagonist, is a “glorious display of bronzed perfection.”

Pierini (2020) presents many other examples of such romantic cultural descriptors. They allow us to compile an attractive ideal image of the romantic Italian lover.

What is a prototypical Italian man? How romantic is a Latin lover?

  • Does the real Italian man look like a prototypical Latin lover in love?
  • What is a prototypical Italian woman?

Love and Sex in Bedouin Culture

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Love and sex are closely intertwined in the Western culture of love as well as across many cultures, especially in societies with simple tribal cultures (Karandashev, 2017, 2019). So, scholars generally assumed that sex and sexual intercourse were the primary experiences and expressions of love in Bedouin culture (Wickering, 1997).

The Traditional Conservative Attitudes Toward Sex in Islam and the Arabic World

Some scholars believe that the Middle East and Islam have been one of the most conservative regions in the world when it comes to sexual expression and sexual intercourse. Nevertheless, since ancient times, sexual union has been viewed as necessary for a loving relationship, at least if it is licit. Sex was a need rather than a pleasure. At least publicly, it was the feeling of wanting a child rather than longing for love.

It seems simple to perceive only doom and gloom in the Middle East and North Africa’s sexual scenes, with family preoccupations with female virginity. Most people still believe that the husband should have the final say in family problems, and consider “honour killing” acceptable. However, some journalists believe that talking about sex is no longer as taboo in the Arab world as before (e.g., El Feki, 17 July 2019).

And in modern Bedouin culture, people in urban regions are more willing to talk about sex than those in rural regions.

Bedouin Women and Men Traditionally Limited in Communication

It was only partially true, at least in the reality of love relationships. Traditionally, Bedouin men and women have had few occasions to meet each other alone. Their intergender communication was limited to community events. They saw each other more at tribal gatherings or clandestine encounters. The ways in which they talked about their lovers did not explicitly express sexual desire.

Silent Sexuality in Bedouin Culture

Sexuality in Bedouin cultures has been silent and invisible. Modesty and honor are high moral values. Public discourse on sexuality is not encouraged, and premarital sex is not acknowledged. Therefore, sex research in such societies is very limited. Only partial findings are valid and available in this research field, so our cultural knowledge on the topic of sex relationships is still incomplete (Al-Shdayfat & Green, 2012).

Sex is a topic for hidden and implicit conversations. Sexual desire appears as a straightforward motive and inspiration. However, when men and women talk about their beloved, they express a desire to see each other and to be in physical proximity. Sexual desires and dreams, rather than sexual intercourse itself, are the prominent features of Bedouin love experiences, expressions, and relationships.

Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex in Modern Bedouin Culture

In the Middle East, dating is becoming increasingly popular among younger people. This kind of encounter gives them a way to get to know a prospective partner before marrying them. Culturally, dating is becoming more socially acceptable. Nevertheless, premarital sex remains stigmatized in the minds of some conservative Bedouin people. Among other things, such factors as gender, religiosity, age, cultural, and political attitudes determine the attitudes regarding premarital sex in the Middle East and North Africa.

The religious factor probably plays a central role. The religious books, such as the Bible and the Qur’an, considered extramarital sex evil and punishable by God. In the Qur’an, fornication is referred to as Zina, which is a sin against God (“Ruling on the things that lead to zina”, published on 08-04-2003).

The Ancient Roots of Medieval Arabic and Bedouin Erotic Culture

It is likely that attitudes toward sex, sexual pleasure, and erotic art were different in the artistic expressions, poems, and real lives of people. The Bedouin type of love was probably more of a literary motif than one based on real experience (Myrne, 2017).

For example, the medieval Arabic erotic literature depicted sex, true love, and pleasing the beloved. The early Arabic erotic handbook, “Jawāmi‘ al-ladhdha” (“Encyclopedia of Pleasure”), was likely written in the late 10th century (Myrne, 2017).

It is likely, however, that those old erotic books described the ideal rather than the real practices of laypeople.

An interesting feature of this book, which some scholars highlighted, was

“the central position of the female beloved and her desire, which has to be satisfied for the sake of marital harmony and mutual love.”

(Myrne, 2017, p. 216).

True love was viewed as pleasing the beloved in sex. 

What Is ‘ishq?

It is likely that rural and urban views on sex were different, even in those old times. According to an old anecdote, the Arab philologist al-Aṣma‘ī (d. 213/828 or 216/831) once asked a Bedouin how he and his fellows defined the word ‘ishq (“passionate love”).

When al-Aṣma‘ī said that for them, living in Basra town,

“passionate love means parting the legs of the beloved and mounting her.”

The Bedouin man replied,

“For us, passionate love means looking at the beloved and perhaps kissing her.”

This wicked explanation disappointed the Bedouin man, who exclaimed, “You are not a lover (‘āshiq); you only want a child!”

This old anecdote clarifies the topic of sexuality, as early Arabic literary discourse depicted the nature and meaning of love at the time. And the dividing line in this discourse was between the chaste love attached to the pure rural lifestyle of Bedouins and the sexually fulfilled love attached to the urban lifestyle.

One Arab attitude was that physical intimacy was insignificant for true love in a loving couple. Such intimacy can even be destructive. The other Arab attitude was that sexual union is necessary for love, or at least that it is admissible. In this regard, the flourishing genre of erotic literature conveyed most radical ideas. The modern tacit and hidden discourse on these attitudes toward sex in Islam and the Arab world is still inconsistent and contentious.

Love in Traditional and Modern Bedouin Culture

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Bedouin culture is the traditional way of life of the Arabic-speaking nomads who lived in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia in the past.

Bedouins are desert dwellers—the people who live out in the open, in the desert. Bedouins speak their own Arabic language. Bedouin culture is the way of their lives—social structure, language, relationships, and family life.

The Cycles of Nomadic Life in Traditional Bedouin Culture

Pastures were usually dispersed in a predictable pattern according to the seasons. They travel to the desert in the spring and winter, when seasonal rains bring the desert to life. Grass and sedge grow between the dunes.

Herders traditionally moved their cattle between summer pastures in the mountains and winter camps on the steppes. They picked up and moved two or three times a year, usually between May and October, normally staying within a 25-square-mile area, and then resettled in a winter camp with some stone shelters for the animals from November to April.

The Cycles of Life and the Cycle of Love in Traditional Bedouin Culture

The nomadic life cycle reflects on the “ralya” and “ilhub” types of love relationships. The season of spring pasture brings normally “distant” people together in the mountains.

For instance, a poem tells the story of how a young man spends time with his lover. The last line of the poem depicts the man standing on a mountaintop and watching his family go one way and his lover go the other. “My eye flies east, and my heart to the west,” he sings. As we see, the sentiments of “ralya,” with affection, responsibility, and deep blood bonds, fly with his eyes to his family, while his heart, with passion and longing, goes with his lover.

Such poetic stories of love (see Wickering, 1997) are almost always depicted in the mountains. The mountains are far and away. Young people meet each other in the mountains. The emotions of “ilhub” love draw them together.

Stories of Death-defying Love in Bedouin Culture

In Tarabiin, some of Deborah Wickering’s closest friends confided in her about their relationships with lovers. Once, a young, unmarried man in her host family told her a story of the previous night.

“Last night I took Salem’s camel into the mountains to see my girlfriend.”

He asked Deborah to promise never to reveal her identity to anyone, then showed me a picture he had of her hidden between two others in his wallet.

“Did you see each other?” Deborah asked.

“No,” he replied. “Her father and her brother were riding in a jeep, looking out of the sides of their eyes for me. Ya Allah, how I want to see her. “

  “What would have happened if they had caught you?” Deborah asked.

He made a motion slitting his own neck.

“I’ll try again tonight,” he said.

         

“I’ll try again tonight,” he said. “If I come to your house, Fatima, maybe late? I will take my brother’s camel saddle, which is stored in your room.”

“I’ll try again tonight,” he said.

“If I come to your house, Fatima, maybe late? I will take my brother’s camel saddle, which is stored in your room.”

Deborah agreed that he should announce himself and come in.

Perhaps because Deborah Wickering was an outsider to the network of those who would have sanctions over them, perhaps because, over time, they learned that Deborah would keep a secret, people told me about illicit, secret, and potentially dangerous relationships. Deborah’s own interests also invited such confidence.

Such “rendezvous” as Salama’s are common in Tarabiin. Girls in small groups, often accompanied by an elderly woman, take extended pasture trips. Every woman has a story about the old woman who looked the other way in camp at night and pretended to be sleeping. Girls sneak off; boyfriends visit. Such relationships are expected, even though they are dangerous and kept secret.

Modern Life and Modern Love in Bedouin Culture

Currently, there are both semi-nomadic and settled Bedouins. Most Bedouins now live in stable communities, although they maintain their nomadic traditions. Many governments in the Middle East have encouraged Bedouins to settle down and have made raiding illegal. Thus, Bedouins were forced to abandon their nomadic lifestyles and settle in concrete house villages in some areas.

In the modern social context, life has altered. Many people have settled or are semi-settled in the seaside neighborhood. However, concerns about love in cross-cousin marriages as well as tensions between “ralya” and “ilhub,” between nearness and distance, persist.

People’s physical proximity to each other has gotten closer. Girls are more likely to meet boys with whom they must wear a veil and who live far away. This proximity provided greater opportunities for “ilhub” relationships. However, such close proximity in residence also creates an obstacle for a girl by making her actions more visible to others. The vigilance of fathers and brothers is increased. Women are under pressure to stay home and avoid external communication.

On the other hand, sheep and goat herding continue to provide a chance for girls and women to get away from the community and out of sight. Girls and boys get to know each other on pasturing outings (Wickering 1997, pp. 81–82).

The Modern Issues of “Forbidden Love”

Many modern Bedouin women have more educational and employment opportunities. Yet, educated Bedouin women continue to encounter the traditional obstacles to love. The narratives of young Bedouin women from the Negev, a desert region of southern Israel, present such examples. They experience and strive to cope with “forbidden love,” “loveless marriage,” and challenging marital situations that occur due to their education and employment opportunities (Abu-Rabia-Queder, 2007).

Several types of marital situations can arise: “matchless women,” “tragic heroines,” and “women ahead of their time.” The overarching theme was that these women had to sacrifice their emotions in order to achieve freedom (Abu-Rabia-Queder, 2007).

They struggle with these challenges, utilizing various splitting mechanisms. They shift between attachment and detachment of body and mind, reason and emotion, and public and private spheres on the levels of consciousness and behavior.

The stories of Bedouin women who were the first in their tribes to study in higher education institutions are also dramatic in other respects. These women still encounter difficulties when it comes to love relationships with men from “forbidden tribes.”

The Two Meanings of Love in Bedouin Culture

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The field study of relationships in Bedouin culture, conducted by American anthropologist Dr. Deborah Wickering (1997), uncovered a diversity of love conceptions in those cultural groups. Bedouins distinguish two kinds of love: ilhub and ralya.

What Kind of Love Does Ilhub Mean in Bedouin Culture?

The word “ilhub” is the most common noun for “love” and the most common verb for “to love.” People understand it as a sickness, a death-defying condition, carrying passion, desire, and pursuit. This kind of love involves longing, passion, and a desire for something (or someone) that a person does not possess. This kind of love is a fierce illness that inhabits the body.

“Emotions can control a person. In love, you can’t think of anything else; usual rules are broken. ”

(Wickering, 1997, p. 79)

Unrequited love brings a loss of appetite. When the pursuit of desire is thwarted, the person feels depression and lethargy. As the lyrics of a popular Bedouin song say,

What Kind of Bedouin Love Does Ralya Mean?

The word ralya means “dear,” “precious,” and “valuable.” It stands for an emotion that a person feels toward family members, friends, and a marriage partner. People experience this kind of love as a feeling of security and support, as a feeling of being safe, protected, held, and cherished. The love feelings of “ralya” relate to a social network of obligations, duties, and rights in kin and friendship relations.

“Obedience to one’s parents was obligatory.”

(Wickering, 1997, p. 80)

Ralya is love for those who are currently present and with whom a person has familiarity and social contact. The kinship bonds of ralya sustain human life. These love bonds provide the necessities of survival: shelter, protection, food, and clothing.

The Bedouin ralya is love in the context of various rituals and routines of everyday life. It penetrates talks and meals. It permeates the relationships with people with whom a person shares a routine familiarity and intimacy. Other people in the ralya relationships have the close bonds with each other (Wickering, 1997, pp. 78–79).

The passion of ilhub pulls a lover toward the beloved, while fear precipitates aversion. People use the word xayif representing fear, an avoidance response, and heart pounding, to denote the strength of feelings in ralya.

The Relationship between Ralya and Ilhub Is a Paradox of Love in Bedouin Culture

According to Wickering’s interpretation (1997, pp. 80–81), the ilhub

“takes an individual out of the familiar, secure, and known toward chaos, risk, danger, and possibly death. It is a passion for otherness.”

In ilhub,

“the other is different, distant, outside of routine and obligation. In patrilateral cross-cousin marriages, union is made of sameness.”

The Bedouin story of tragic love is about a desire to subvert an obligation. This love is a flight away from rules.

The desire of a person toward unity with another—a beloved—can destroy this person’s unity with those who are the same—family members. On the one hand, love supports life, while on the other, it unhinges it.

Field observations by Wickering have revealed that emotions for Bedouins are physical and corporeal. The heart contains both ralya and ilhub, along with fear, another emotion of concern to the Bedouin people. The struggle between these two forces brings both excitement and tragedy (Wickering, 1997, p. 80).

Cultural Connotations of Love among Bedouins

Ralya and ilhub are the types of love that are related to each other, yet neither one is dominant. The Bedouin culture of love is closely related to their traditional nomadic life, which brings people together and takes them apart.

Because of this, men and women often feel a tension between presence and absence, which is embodied in the tension between ralya and ilhub.

On the one hand, the bonds of ralya keep kin together. Those people, who are in the relations of ralya, are present in small kin groups. They are visible and look familiar. They are close, both physically in the household and in daily activities. They are emotionally and intimately acquainted.

On the other hand, “ilhub” reaches out with desire in the distance, breaks order, and subverts kin bonds to develop outside attachments. The emotion of ilhub stems from distance and absence. It fosters a desire and longing for someone who is not involved in “ralya” relationships. A man and a woman may feel ilhub; however, they are veiled from each other. They are expected to keep a public distance from each other.

Love in Bedouin Culture

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Bedouin culture is the culture of the nomadic Arab people who live in Arabia, the territory that stretches from the deserts of North Africa to the rocky sands of the Middle East. Living in tribes, they have a common culture of herding camels and goats. Most Bedouins follow Islam, but there are also a small number of Christian Bedouins. In Arabic, they are known as the ʾAʿrāb (أعراب).

One example of such a society is that of the Bedouins in the Western Desert of Egypt. Another example is the Arab-Palestinian people in southern Israel. Some Bedouins still follow their traditional culture, living in clan structures. The others, however, have acquired a modern urban lifestyle, abandoning their nomadic and tribal traditions.

In another article, I talked more about “Bedouin Culture.”

Two Realms of Love in Bedouin Culture

In Bedouin societies, love exists in two realms: real and ideal (Karandashev, 2017). The traditional Bedouin culture is a patriarchal society, keeping boys and girls, men and women, segregated. The moral discourse comprising modesty and honor has a high value. Cultural norms discourage autonomy and individual choice in relationships. As in many other traditional South Asian cultures, kinship, family honor, and social hierarchy are valued more than individual emotions and preferences. Therefore, both men and women usually feel uncomfortable in intimate relationships (Abu-Lughod, 1986/2016).

The Ideology of Gender Inequality in Bedouin Culture

Bedouin cultural ideologies declare gender inequality and social hierarchy. Individuals have the freedom to make choices about their lives. However, the value of autonomy is normally associated with masculinity. The cultural value of autonomy is for men, while the cultural value of dependency is for women. In Bedouin communities, patriarchal control over women is still existent and prevalent (Aburabia 2011, 2017; Kook, Harel-Shalev, and Yuval 2019).

The traditional extended family—the hamula (clan)—continues to maintain high authority and control over women’s lives. Every woman can choose what she wants, but she must know the limit (Aburabia, 2011; Daoud et al., 2020; Harel-Shalev, Kook, & Elkrenawe, 2020, p. 493).

An extended family puts limitations on and also keeps control over men’s lives, yet men are allowed to have more autonomy and freedom. For instance, the practice of polygyny is still common among the Bedouin community, even though it is legally forbidden. The approximate rates of polygamy are 20–30%. In some villages, it could be 60% (Aburabia, 2011).

Cultural Dreams of Romantic Love in Bedouin Culture

On the other hand, stories, poems, and songs in modern Bedouin culture cherish romantic love as a high value. It is worth noting that passion seems more valuable than intimacy. Love is bound by controversial emotions. Poems of love may express an individual’s strength, autonomy, mastery of passions, and support of the values of honor and modesty. On the other hand, the poetry of love expresses attachment, vulnerability, loss, and bitterness related to the state of “being in love.” Romantic poetry is valued, relishing a declared freedom from social domination. It conveys subversive messages. Thus, despite the patriarchal and segregated society in which Bedouins live, their stories, poems, and songs of romantic love cherish the imaginations of people in modern Bedouin culture. Romantic poems, songs, and stories about love offer important expressions of deeply held human emotions and desires that are considered unacceptable and disturbing by the dominant culture (Orsini, 2006, pp. 22–23).

The amorous feelings expressed in poems and the seeming rigidity of modesty in daily communications are evidently at odds with each other in modern Bedouin culture. Does it mean that these poetic sentiments illuminate the more authentic selves of men and women? Not necessarily.

Ideal and Real Love in Bedouin Culture

The romantic, poetic expression of love is not always evidence of a person’s more genuine self. The psychological interactions between the social hierarchy of power, the moral sentiment of modesty and submissive reverence, and the poetic discourse of love are far more complex than just defying authority. These cultural experiences cannot be reduced to such straight interpretations and cannot be simply contrasted with Western understandings.

The structure of Bedouin love is more tangled than Western scholars tend to interpret it. Poems, songs, and romantic stories enrich men’s and women’s cultural understanding of emotions, but do not refuse or rebel against the reality of the love life. Their selves rearrange priorities and integrate other people and social obligations into their extended “collectivistic self.” Their freedom of choice integrates with social affordances and communal responsibility. Such perspectives on love appear to contrast with European American individualistic culture, which emphasizes an individual’s freedom of choice while minimizing responsibility for the choices individuals make.  (Abu-Lughod, 1986/2016).

Love Words Across Languages and Cultures

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Why do people use so many love words? What is the meaning behind all these love words? Love is so diverse in its variety of meanings and connotations, such as attraction and attachment, passion and compassion, intimacy and commitment, that a variety of words and expressions have emerged across times, societies, languages, and cultural contexts.

How People in Different Cultures Say “Love” and “I love you“

Some of the most widely known love words are French amour, Spanish amor, Italian amore, English love, German Liebe, and Russian любовь (lyubov’). The least known are probably Sanskrit sringara (śṛṅgāra), Indonesian asmara, Chinese ài (爱), Japanese koi (恋) or ai (愛), Arabic hubb (‘حب’), Persian and Arabic ishq (ešq or eshgh), as well as several other languages of Muslim countries with some variations in the spelling. Each language has a variety of love words for different kinds of love (see Karandashev, 2017, 2019).

With increasing intercultural communication (see for review, Karandashev, 2017), people sometimes wonder how to say “I love you” in a language other than their own. The verbal and nonverbal expressions of love are diverse: the German Ich liebe Dich German, the Dutch Ik hou van jou, the Swedish Jag alskar dig, the Norwegian Jeg elsker deg, the Finnish Mina rakastan sinua, the French Je t’aime, the Spanish Te quiero/Te amo, the Italian Ti amo, the Farsi Dooset daram/ Ashegetam, the Turkish Seni Seviyorum, the Georgian Mikvarhar, the Ukrainian Ya tebe kohayu, the Russian Ya tebya liubliu, the Czech Miluji te, the Yiddish Ikh hob dikh, the Cantonese Chinese Ngo oi nei (vary in Mandarin and other Chinese languages), the Hindi Hum tumhe pyar karte hae, the Tamil Naan unnai kathalikiraen, the Tagalog Mahal kita, the Creole Mi aime jou, the Swahili (Bantu language) Nakupenda or Begg naa la.

Gender Specificity of Love Words

The grammatical gender of nouns can play a role in the forms of related words. There are no grammatical genders in such languages as English, Finnish, Estonian, Georgian, Armenian, Hungarian, Persian, Bengali, and Tamil. Nouns do not have a feminine or masculine gender, unless they refer to biological sex (e.g., girl, boy, man, woman, Mr., Ms.). Different from this, gendered languages, such as Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Hindi, have the grammatical gender of a noun (e.g., masculine, feminine, neuter).

In Spanish, for instance, many masculine nouns (with some exceptions) end in the letter “o”—Latino, el niño (son), el tío (uncle), el dormitorio (bedroom), and feminine nouns end in the letter “a”—Latina, la hija (the daughter), la profesora (the teacher), la mesa (table). Not only people and animals, but also things, feelings, places, and ideas have a gender in a grammatical sense. Gendering words is conventional and can vary across languages. For example, the Spanish word la mesa (table) is feminine, whereas the German der Tisch (table) is masculine. These “gendered” nouns determine the forms of other related words. The forms of determiners, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs depend on the grammatical gender of the nouns they refer to.

Consequently, the ways people say “I love you” vary when they are addressed to a man or a woman. For example, in Arabic, one says “Ana uħibbuk” to a man and “Ana baħibbik” to a woman. In Hebrew, one says Ani ohev et otha to a man and Ani ohev otah to a woman. In Thai, Chan rak khun is addressed to a man, while Phom rak khun is addressed to a woman.

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