Category Archives: passionate love

Being in Love Is the Love Madness of the Human Mind

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As I noted elsewhere, the Fulbe people of West Africa believe that love is a defiant emotion that should be avoided, suppressed, or at least not expressed. And this negative view of love is cross-culturally present in many other societies as well. Besides the Fulbe culture, this belief about love madness is shared by other Muslim societies in the world (Regis, 1995).

The Mysterious and Malicious Power of the “Ishq”

The Arabic word “ishq” has been widely used in other languages of the Muslim world, referring to passionate love. Old medical textbooks of the Islamic world portrayed “ishq” as a mixture of psychic and physical illnesses. Here is an example of how the medieval Islamic medical thought described this state of mind and soul:

“It exceeds the limit of mere inclination and [normal] love and, by possessing the reason, causes its victim to act unwisely. It is blameworthy and ought to be avoided by the prudent”

(Dols, 1992, p.319).

Islamic theology is deeply entwined with the idea that madness results from ardent love. This idea affects how folk tales portray characters. Like Romeo and Juliet in Europe, the tale of Qays and Lila and their tragic love has become a classic story in Islamic literature.

While both tales depict star-crossed lovers, the Islamic one depicts Qays as a “majnun,” or a lunatic (Dols, 1992, p. 332). The madness evolving from the experience of passionate love is a pan-Islamic theme.

When He or She Is Madly in Love

Because of these traditional myths, the Fulbe cultural views toward the experience and expression of love as love-madness look like traditional Islamic thought on “ishq” (passionate love). Full engagement in the feelings of grief, pain, wrath, happiness, or love is like possession with no reason or sense. Many people of Islamic faith think the same way as the Fulbe, with suspicions about passionate and romantic feelings.

Here is another example. The Muslim Tuareg people of Niger, a Berber ethnic group that lives in the Sahara, share the same cultural beliefs about love as the love-madness. “Tuareg cultural values… discourage revealing personal sentiments directly, in particular love preference.”

These cultural attitudes are particularly strongly attributed to Muslim women. Because of these gender stereotypes of inequality, women suffer more than men from tamazai, “an illness of the heart and soul.”

The ailment of tamazai is culturally attributed to a person’s possession by a spirit due to a “hidden love” or not acting on desires. A woman or a man suffering from the malady of tamazai feels withdrawn from people (Rasmussen, 1992, p. 339).

Smadar Lavie, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis, documented the similar cultural beliefs about passionate love feelings among the Mzeina Bedouin of South Sinai (Lavie, 1990).

The Surprising Cross-Cultural Views on Love as Madness

The Islamic religious beliefs explain the cultural similarities in the attitudes toward love of the Fulbe, Tuareg, and Mzeina people (Lavie, 1990; Rasmussen, 1992; Regis, 1995; Riesman, 1971).

It is interesting, however, that the same cultural beliefs and comments about passionate love are present in Africa among the Christian ethnic groups of the Igbo people in Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria, and Equatorial Guinea, as well as the Ijaw people in southeastern Nigeria.

The Cultural Value of Moderation in Love

According to the cultural beliefs of these Muslim and Christian societies in Africa, any emotion is acceptable in moderation. Therefore, an experience of extreme love is insane. The passionate insanity of love can be caused by a love potion or by an excessively strong personal will.

According to their cultural views, men and women in a state of love are affected by forces that are beyond their conscious control. The “love syndrome” is more about exaggeration in the perception and behavior of a lover than about deviation. These are inherent symptoms of passionate love. The overwhelming power of love can be conceived as an external or internal force. Anyway, they limit people’s ability to perceive and behave appropriately (Rasmussen, 1992; Regis, 1995).

One can see the parallels between the social restrictions that these societies place on expressing anger, pain, grief, and affection for children and the cultural constraints on romantic and passionate love. Both groups of feelings are normal emotional experiences when they are in moderation.

When People Indulge Emotions Excessively and Obsessively

Otherwise, when men and women indulge in emotions excessively and act compulsively, the tyranny of emotion can cause a psychological disturbance in both men and women. This internal imbalance prevents them from fully participating in the daily lives of their family and community.

What Nigerian Men and Women Wanted to Know About Sex in the 20th Century

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The printed media of the mid-20th century paid much less attention to the topics of sex and sexuality compared to the questions of courtship, romantic love, gender roles, the influence of family, and marriage. What about sex?

West African editors of public media apparently opted to avoid these topics because they did not want to offend the traditional norms of Nigerian communities. In the conservative culture of that time, people would perceive it as offensive and repulsive to hear explicit references to sex. People were supposed to remain mute on such matters.

What Was Acceptable to Publish About Sex?

The authors of Nigerian newspaper articles, however, wrote about some topics associated with sex. For instance, prostitution was among them. It was discussed as a social problem that must be eliminated in West African cultures (Aderinto 2015). The authors depicted the immoral and perverted ways of life of prostitutes and suggested severely policing prostitution. The newspapers were also intended to provide moral lessons against sexual “deviancy”.

What Was Not Acceptable to Publish About Sex?

Nigerian public media commonly did not publish anything about the topics of the normal sexual lives of Nigeran men and women. In the same way, readers of newspapers usually did not write about these very personal and intimate issues. And editors did not publish the letters of ordinary people depicting their private sexual lives. They also did not publish any advice materials on how to improve one’s sexual life.

What “Milady’s Bower” Published About Sexual Life for Nigerians

However, the “Milady’s Bower” of the West African Pilot newspaper was among the rare exceptions. On a few occasions, “Miss Silva” tried to express her views on sexuality, but she did so very cautiously.

She began her column article, “Sex, secrecy, and chiding,” by commenting to readers that this subject of sex is unpopular in public media. However, she noted that the traditional silencing of sex may have a negative effect on the lives of men and women. She wrote:

“No doubt, the notion that all affairs pertaining to sex should be kept in the dark has done much havoc in the past and is still continuing to work with the same measure and full speed. Some people would make a fuss over sex discussion as if it were some ugly thing which should be erased from human thoughts as much as possible.”

(Aderinto 2015, p. 489).

“Miss Silva” also advised on the topic of premarital sex, saying that “if done at all, it should not be too much indulged in.” We don’t know what the reactions and opinions of readers to this statement were. Her correspondents were not willing to write about sex.

What About Sex Education?

Overall, few articles addressed the topic of sex education. However, Miss Silva and Dr. Azikiwe advocated that sex education should be introduced into the school curriculum. Dr. Azikiwe’s article “Sexology” offered particularly compelling arguments in support (Aderinto 2015).

Those authors suggested that during courtship, men and women should be well informed about sexual life. Then, couples would be able to enjoy their good sex life when married. Due to this, they would be strong Nigerian families.

Miss Silva and Dr. Azikiwe argued that inadequate education about human sexuality could be one of the causes of the “high” rate of divorce among Nigerian couples (Aderinto 2015).

African Cultural Attitudes Toward Kissing

Nigerian cultural norms of relations between men and women have many peculiarities. Kissing, according to some authors and readers of the West African Pilot newspaper, is un-African, a cultural practice copied from European cinema.

Here is how one author quoted the comment of a “white foreigner” about the kissing habit in love. When he saw how Nigerian lovers kissed, he said, “This country is young indeed to understand the theatrical gesture.” He considered it like something out of a European movie.

The same author, Mr. Mordi, stated in another article that kissing, like “any other enjoyment, had its one vice”.

Another reader, Ukaru, also made an argument against kissing. He claimed that kissing transmitted syphilis.

Thus, several authors and readers made a point against kissing, stating that “it is a nasty thing to kiss” and that there are no cultural reasons why Africans should follow this European habit (quoted in Aderinto, 2015, p.490).

The Pro-Kissing Arguments in West Africa

The Nigerian proponents of kissing attempted to distinguish various kinds of kissing, such as “kissing as a display of softer emotions,” “passionate kissing,” “erotic kissing,” “rascally kissing,” and “kissing with temperance.”

According to Miss Silva’s view, kissing is a good way to manifest love. Kissing could also ease conflict in a relationship. She advised, however, that a kiss needs “decency” and should not be “reckless” or “scandalous.”

The kissing debates of authors and readers in the “Milady’s Bower” of the West African Pilot touched on important facets of intimacy. They attempted to differentiate between private and public expressions of love.

Many other questions were disputed. Where and how is it acceptable to kiss? Is it acceptable to kiss in public? Can men and women show affection for each other in public without kissing? Or is it a private matter?

Love Problems that Concerned Nigerian Women and Men in the 20 Century

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The dramatic increase in literacy throughout West Africa during the first half of the 20th century precipitated a new era of cultural ideals in Nigerian society. The various print media expanded accordingly. Urban and educated people read more. They also wrote, sharing their experiences.

They expressed their new views on life, love, and relationships in Nigerian books and newspapers. These were the places where progressive Nigerians modernized love (Aderinto, 2015). West African literary love becomes more romantic in this new cultural climate.

Newspapers’ advice columns were the most interactive printed medium for urban people in southern Nigeria’s major cities to discuss their questions. Single young men and women were among the column’s primary readers, where they shared their views and expressed opinions. Advice columnists and readers both expressed their viewpoints. They discussed modern relationships, families, and love while writing the letters to editors.

“Miss Silva” Listened to Their Love Stories

For example, the Nigerian “Miss Silva” gave love advice in her column “Milady’s Bower” from 1937 until 1960. Her writings and anonymous letters from readers about modern love voiced their dramatic love stories. Those stories frequently ran into controversy with traditional African-style patriarchy and gender relations standards. So, the opportunity to speak freely without being identified was an important part of the colonial literary culture that this advice column brought to them.

Listen to What Nigerian Men and Women Said…

Let us listen to their stories…

“I could not love this man … and I still dread the idea of marrying him”

Nigerian men and women were concerned about forced betrothal and parental involvement in courtship. The freedom to choose a lover was one of the most important aspects of modern urban courtship, which was different from traditional rural culture. Some young men and women defied the “traditional” culture of betrothal by selecting a prospective bride or groom without their parents’ consent or approval. So, many letters to Miss Silva focused on the parents’ refusal to recognize a courtship. Some correspondents complained about their parents’ refusal to let them choose their own spouses.

“Dear Miss Silva, will you help me ease my present situation?”

Nigerian men and women were concerned about heartbreak, courtship, and sex. Heartbreak and romantic disappointment were also concerning issues for young women and men, in addition to parental involvement in courtship and love affairs. For them, being a modern lover meant avoiding or dealing with heartbreak maturely. The heartbreak letters and advice articles provided a deep understanding of key facets of the courtship relationship. Women and men shared their perceptions of physical appearance, interpersonal attraction, socialization, emotional attachment, ethnicity, gender, social, and educational status. They were concerned about all these and other issues that brought them together in romantic relationships.

Readers were more reserved about talking about sex and sexual relations. Is kissing in accordance with African culture? Where should men and women kiss, in private or in public? Can they show affection in public without explicit kissing? The kissing debates touched on important parts of intimacy. They discussed the thin lines between public and private displays of love. They talked about what is “decent” and what is “scandalous.”

‘Love is but a part of a man’s nature, while a woman’s whole existence breathes on it”

Gender roles and gender relations concerned Nigerian women and men when they were talking about modern love. In their writings, “Miss Silva” and her love advisers describe commonly accepted rules for modern relationships that apply to both sexes. They also explained that men and women do not love in the same way. Love is not completely genderless in their writing. The gendered nature of love is due to both biological differences between males and females and learned gender expectations in changing social and cultural contexts. Readers shared their views on modern masculinity and femininity.

“Milady’s Bower” Was a Transformational Public Cultural Club

Thus, we can see that, for Miss Silva and her correspondents, the newspaper became a public site where, on a daily basis, they could openly contemplate and publicly discuss the issues that concerned them. It was like a discussion club.

This mutual sharing of problems and the ways of life and love significantly contributed to the cultural development of new standards for what it meant to be a girl and a boy, a woman and a man, a wife and a husband, a mother and a father. All these discussions tremendously influenced what West Africans thought about the modernization of the colonial culture of love (Aderinto, 2015).

The Cultural Evolution of Love in West Africa in the First Half of the 20th Century

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The transformation of Lagos, Ibadan, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, and other southern Nigerian cities into first-class colonial urban centers, along with the concomitant rise in literacy among many people, was essential to the cultural evolution of love in West Africa.

Growing Interest in Education Among Nigerians

Starting in the 1920s, colonialists’ growing interest in Western education increased school attendance. The elitist colonial education culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries gave way to a “populist” one. From the 1920s through the 1950s, the number of southern Nigerians with post-secondary education increased dramatically (Fafunwa, 1974).

The majority of educated young people had relocated to southern Nigeria’s big cities in search of education and salaried work. Few would return home to become farmers. Agricultural employment was paid less than government and private sector positions in cities. Besides, metropolitan centers provided modern amenities that suited their new preferred lifestyle.

The expansion of English literacy among the population had two effects. On the one hand, it increased newspaper readership. On the other hand, it allowed Nigerians to express their own views on life. That new cultural climate was ready to modernize West African love into a romantic passion (Aderinto, 2015).

Nigerian Courtship in the First Half of the 20th Century

During the colonial times of the first half of the 20th century, a variety of old and new cultural norms and practices took place in West Africa. They varied among people of different ethnicities and rural and urban residences.

In Nigerian society, both precolonial courtship culture and colonial courtship customs were practiced. This kind of transition caused a lot of tension and conflict, which urban youth tried to work out through arguments in the pages of newspapers and other print media.

The old traditional supervised courtship of the precolonial type was still common in many African tribes. For example, courtship among the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo in West Africa came under strong communal supervision.

Parents and the community made sure that a prospective groom and bride would have limited contact before the full marriage rites were completed. That would prevent premarital sexual intercourse, which cultural norms of the Yoruba frown upon. The regulation of courtship did not allow a betrothed girl to meet her fiancé and his family without hiding her face by veiling.

Freedom of Courtship in Nigerian Cities

However, courtship in the cities was largely unregulated. A man and a woman had a certain freedom in their relationships. The freedom to choose a partner was an essential cultural option for young men and women in courtship in colonial urban contexts. It was a romance culture as opposed to the betrothal culture prevalent in the past. Some young men and women dared to choose a prospective bride or groom without their parents’ consent. Courting outside their immediate ethnicity and local community defied established ethnic and socioeconomic rules. If young men and women would court without their parents’ permission, they could not consummate their marriage (Aderinto, 2015).

Those young people whose courtship was not approved by their parents had a significant obstacle and came to the dilemma of split affections. Even though their parents wouldn’t accept their relationship, some men and women were still in love with their ex-partners.

Reading and Thinking About Love in Colonial Nigeria

During the first half of the twentieth century, the literate Nigerians largely living in cities were the aspiring sub-elites, interested in reading books and print media about many things, including families as important institutions of society.

Courtship, relationships, and modern love emerged in Nigerian print media and other public discourses. The public discussion of the concept of contemporary love and how people form relationships had a big impact on broader themes of nation-building and Nigerian social advancement. The modernization of love and family occurred in the minds of literate and educated Nigerians. Love was rethought by men and women as a modern historical and cultural concept (Aderinto, 2015).

Indigenous Love in Africa in the Mid-20th Century

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The African continent is home to culturally diverse ethnic groups of people. This diversity can be evident in differences between countries, within countries, and from tribe to tribe within and between countries. A variety of cultural norms and practices co-exist in the proximity of territories.

Anthropological materials have revealed a variety of people’s perceptions and ideals about love. Those studies have focused on how Nigerians, Cameroonians, Kenyans, and South Africans understand love. They described different varieties and types of love, including special relationships with sex and marriage.

Sex and Love in Africa

In some African cultures, people believed that sex and sexual desire were natural and powerful drives that men and women should handle with ritual respect. Adults remarked favorably on a child’s nicely sculpted genitalia. People were not anxious, shy, or prudent about touching a child’s genitalia. At a very young age, they might kiss the boy’s or girl’s genitalia as a sign of affection.

For many Africans, the physical act of sexual intercourse itself was not associated with even a little feeling of guilt or remorse. However, the symbolic meaning and magical repercussions of sex were culturally important. Therefore, sexual initiations required a complex sequence of ceremonies and rituals.

In African societies, attitudes toward premarital sexual relationships and intercourse vary greatly across cultural groups. Some openly tolerated this possibility, while others were more restrictive to some extent. Sexual play was acceptable among youngsters. If the vagina was not penetrated during intercourse, sex play was appropriate, even if it went to orgasm (Murstein, 1974).

Were Africans Familiar with Romantic Love?

The ideas and images of romantic love have been present in African cultures in the 20th century for a long time but are strongly associated with sex. Numerous anthropological studies have documented many narratives of how people in African tribes portrayed and explained love in relationships with sex and marriage. Many of these romantic love notions and cultural features were quite different from Western European and American conceptions of romantic love. But they were present in cultural traditions, according to multiple anthropological sources (see, for example, Bell, 1995; Cole & Thomas, eds., 2009; Plotnicov, 1995; Riesman, 1973).

Since the middle of the 20th century, the topics of love, romance, and modern marriage have begun to appear in African literature, popular African periodicals, and other media. Those changes have been going on for decades (Jahoda, 1959; Obiechina, 1973).

In personal narratives, senior Africans shared anecdotes, love stories, and popular ethnic fables, illustrating a long cultural history of passionate love. In African communities, love and sexual attraction were common, but they did not fit well with daily life. Men and women frequently shared their personal experiences, admitting that if they could “follow their hearts,” they would marry someone other than their spouse (Smith, 2001).

For Africans, Romantic Love Is Culturally Specific

Romantic love for people in many African tribal groups has been largely passionate love related to sex and sexual love. The prevalent topic of African love songs and stories is sexual longing. Love for them is the yearning for sex with the loved one.

One of the key romantic features of love for Western conceptions of romantic love is the exclusivity of the beloved and the relationship with him or her. However, African cultural beliefs suggest different notions of love. For example, Audrey Richards, a British social anthropologist who studied the Bemba people of Northern Rhodesia in Africa in the 1930s, shared her interesting ethnographic observations. She once told the group of Bemba an English folk-fable about a young prince who, in pursuit of obtaining the hand of his beloved maiden, did many feats: he fought dragons, climbed glass mountains, and crossed chasms. Once the story was told, the Bemba remained silent, plainly bewildered. Finally, an old chief spoke up and voiced the feelings of all present in the simple question, “Why not take another girl?” The reaction of Bemba people to this romantic story reveals that they didn’t follow the cultural idea of exclusivity in love (Karandashev, 2019, p. 125).

Culturally Specific Features of Romantic Love among Senegalese

Here is another interesting example of this culturally specific feature of romantic love in African cultures. It comes from the survey study conducted in the 1980s on the Wolof-speaking Senegalese sample in West Africa (D’Hondt & Vandewiele, 1983).

Their answers by boys and girls to the question “Do you think that one falls in love only once in one’s lifetime?” about the uniqueness of the experience of love are especially illustrative. About 38% of adolescents agreed with this belief in the uniqueness of love, and 62% disagreed. More girls believed this than boys.

Some commented romantically that “people fall in love only once since there is room for only one love in the heart”. However, many Senegalese boys argued that “there were too many pretty girls to settle on only one for good,” indicating that broken love could be replaced or that feelings could change.

Cultural Transformations of African Societies in the Second Part of the 20th Century

Since the mid-20th century, in many African societies, significant changes and transformations have occurred in politics, cultures, and interpersonal and family relations.

Traditional love and marriage in black African villages coexisted with new love and marital relations in urban, industrialized social settings. Various regional and cultural variations have been present across African countries. Some cultural norms, practices, and customs of gender relations, sex, love, and marital relations were widespread, while others were specific to ethnic and tribal groups.

Researchers Found More Hormones of Love

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Romantic love has an adaptive function in human evolution. It increases reproductive success in sexual relations between men and women through the hormone of love. The evolution of animal and human bonding results in the evolution of love hormones.

When men and women are in passionate love, many psychophysiological and neuropsychological processes occur in their brains and bodies. They affect how their minds and behaviors function. In recent decades, researchers have revealed the important role that hormones plays in passionate love. They conducted studies on neuroimaging, biochemistry, and hormones (Hatfield & Rapson, 2009; Gangestad & Grebe, 2017; Sorokowski et al., 2019).

Hormones Play a Role in Romantic Love

These changes are especially pronounced when they are falling in love. Being close to a beloved partner elicits strong romantic feelings and produces corresponding hormonal changes. The hormones cortisol, testosterone, oxytocin, prolactin, and estradiol engage in emotional and behavioral reactions associated with love feelings.

For example, men and women who are in romantic love have higher cortisol. The excited state of passionate arousal they experience when they fall in love causes the increased cortisol level. Other hormonal changes also facilitate pair bonding and commitment.

Some discoveries about the effects of various hormones on romantic love are consistent and well-known. Other findings are sometimes contradictory and need further research. A recent study indicated one more hormonal secret of love that is worthy of our attention (Sorokowski et al., 2019).

Does Love Increase a Woman’s Fertility?

Researchers from the University of Wrocław, Poland, conducted the study to show that love produces adaptive hormonal changes in the female body. These changes increase a woman’s fertility when she is in love (Sorokowski et al., 2019).

In their study, researchers measured the levels of several hormones in women in the early follicular phase of the menstrual cycle. They compared the blood serum levels of estradiol, cortisol, free testosterone, prolactin, luteinizing hormone, and follicle-stimulating hormone of those women who were at the beginning of passionate romantic relationships with those who were not in love.

Hormones of Love Involved in Experience of Emotion

Researchers reported that women in love have higher levels of gonadotropins and lower free testosterone levels compared to those who are not in love. At the same time, women in love have the same levels of cortisol, prolactin, and estradiol. Researchers also revealed that the estradiol-to-testosterone ratio is higher in women in love in comparison with women who are not in love. Researchers suggest possible explanations for these results based on their associations with other confounding factors they identified in their study. They admit that some of the results aren’t completely convincing and that more research needs to be done.

Here Is One More Hormone of Love

Nevertheless, this study seems about to crack one more hormonal secret of romantic love. It turned out that the experience of falling in love plays an adaptive function. It increases the likelihood that the romantic couple will conceive offspring in their sexual relations. This discovery explains why men and women across the world tend to experience not only sexual attraction but also love. Heterosexual love is an important adaptive psychological mechanism that increases women’s physiological ability to conceive a child.

What Is Special About Brazilian Love and Courtship?

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What is love for Brazilians? A wide range of mental associations may come to the mind of a Brazilian woman or man when they hear the word “amor.”

These can be various feelings, emotions, images, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and actions in which they experience “amor.” These can be in multiple family relationships, social connections, sexual encounters, and emotional relations.

Generally, love is a topic of great value for Brazilians in various sorts and forms of social relationships. Brazilian love begins with the vital importance of family love. Love for them is a bunch of various interpersonal connections in the extended family that is implied in Portuguese “parentela”, which means “relations” and can also mean “family.” Their sense of self-identity is in a familial group. Affective bonds and emotional support permeate their close family connection.

Brazilian Romantic Live Intertwine with Marital Relationships

As for heterosexual relationships, romances, and marriages, the distinction between “paixao” and “amor” arises as of special importance. The personal experiences of paixao and amor can be related and overlap. The Portuguese word “paixo” characterizes the key feelings associated with passionate love, such as obsessive infatuation, strong sexual attraction, and joyous passionate emotions. The Portuguese word “amor” characterizes the key feelings associated with companionate love, such as a calmer, more stable, and deeper experience of love. They frequently can’t tell which of those emotional complexes represents their true love.

The two sorts of love emotions somewhat interweave in the beginning and early stages of an evolving relationship. The joyful rhythms of Brazilian carnivals, music beats, songs, dances, and cheerful erotic outfits seem to predispose men and women to love. The passionate romantic love they feel embraces their lives.

Passionate Brazilians

Brazilians are widely known as cheerful, passionate, erotic, and expressive Latin Americans. Their warm climate and the fact that they evolved as a mixture of Native Americans, Iberians (especially those of Portuguese descent), Italians, and Africans could have made them more extraverted and outgoing people. This may be why Brazilian love emotions are passionate, erotic, and openly expressive. From their behavioral appearance, Brazilians may look like classical Latin lovers, in contrast with reserved Nordic lovers. This cultural image of Brazilians resembles the old-fashioned anthropological stereotypes of South Americans and Polynesians, as expressed in the frequent quote:

“There is no sin below the equator.”

The Brazilian Way of Courtship

This cultural stereotype, however, can be misleading for an understanding of Brazilian love. The Catholic beliefs of Brazilians may have a counterbalancing effect on the real nature of true love in society. For many people in Brazil, like other countries in Latin America, Catholic religious values shape their culture, relationships, and emotions. So, moral conservatism and religious marriage traditions have an influence on the real relationships between men and women.

These gender relations, however, vary in big cities, rural areas, and small towns. In urban regions of the country, men and women can participate in relatively free forms of courtship. Families in rural areas, on the other hand, can still have control over traditional chaperoned courtship. For example, the courting couples go out in groups with their siblings and cousins. Occasional glances and smiles are the major means of courtship. In rural settings, only couples who are officially engaged go out on dates alone. Premarital sexual relationships are restricted. Honor and chastity remain important cultural values.

Nowadays, the modernization of Brazilian society transforms the ways of courtship, especially in urban settings. Dating for young people is easier and freer than before. For many young women and men, their interpersonal attraction and love feelings guide them on their way to marriage.

Nevertheless, men and women continue to take into account practical considerations, family interests, and traditional gender roles when they decide to marry and create their own family. Traditional gender stereotypes persist. Men in their “macho” roles still have more freedom in their relationships than women. Men are frequently able to pursue their physical, sexual, and emotional desires. Women need to adhere to their “marianismo” roles and values.

New Ideals of Brazilian Love

The new ideals of romantic love, however, come to life more and more often than before. Young women and men understand that their love marriages can be idealistic dreams, vulnerable to mistakes because of inequities in social arrangements, the psychological shortcomings of partners, and faulty behaviors. They understand that they can still make the wrong choices and mistakes. They can underestimate the repercussions of their actions. They may “lament their failures in love, nursing their hurts and snarling their angers, in the end they still strive for love. In their own way they achieve it” (Rebhun, 1995, p.260).

Many young men and women are disillusioned by their experiences, while others believe that one day they will find real love and ideal unity. Therefore, they try to talk openly about their thoughts, emotions, difficult interpersonal relations, challenging situations, and various circumstances. They strive to figure out how they feel, what they should do, and what the effects of their actions will be.

The Extraverted Character of Brazilian Love

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Brazilian society has had an intriguing history of multiple social factors that have shaped its modern culture. Among those were the European conquests and immigration of the past centuries. Social life, interpersonal relationships, and love have experienced cultural evolution through those times. As a former Portuguese colony, Brazil has been substantially influenced by Portuguese culture. Therefore, the cultures of interpersonal relationships and love in both Portugal and Brazil have a lot in common.

How Does Brazilian Culture Differ from West European and European American Cultures?

The Brazilian culture of social and interpersonal relationships substantially differs from the European and North American cultures of west-European descent. While Europeans and European Americans focus on the values of individualism, independence, autonomy, self-reliance, and solitude in relationships, Brazilians prefer collectivism, interdependence, cooperation, and connectedness.

The favorite Brazilian motto is “Life is only worth living in community.“ They strive to arrange their personal lives around and about others. They tend to maintain a high level of social involvement in group activities. They regard interpersonal relations and interactions as of primary importance in personal life.

Brazilians Appreciate Life and Love as Interpersonal Connections

Brazilians commonly appear as gregarious people. They tend to love company. They are eager to mingle in groups and try to avoid loneliness. They prefer to live in a crowded style. They enjoy physical and social contact with others. They prefer shared meals and living spaces (Vincent, 2003; Rebhun, 1995).

Brazilians like to quote their favorite proverb that “Amor ‘ta na convivência” which literarily means “Love is living together.” They believe that connection with and the presence of others means love.

For Brazilians, being together with others is very natural and vital. Therefore, they believe that wanting to be alone is a sign of unhappiness and depression (Vincent, 2003; Rebhun, 1995).

The Ubiquitous Connections of Brazilian Love

Love is a very important topic in Brazilian culture. They are in love relationships across many kinds of relationships and contexts. Family love is vital for their economic and emotional sustainability. Passionate romantic love is embodied in their lives. Love is in the rhythms of their music, poetry, dance, and carnivals.

The Portuguese word “parentela”, meaning “relations” and, in some sense, “family,” implies a vital network of interpersonal connections with members of the extended family. They acquire a sense of self within a familial group from an early age. For Brazilians, such close connections in an extended family bring them feelings of interpersonal affection and emotional support.

Passionate Love of Brazilians

Many Brazilians consider themselves passionate and hot-blooded Latin Americans. This may be related to their warm climate as well as their ethnic and cultural origins. The modern Brazilian population is a mixture of diverse cultural influences and people of different ancestry, such as Native Indians, Africans, and Europeans, who are mostly of Portuguese descent but also include some Italians and Jews.

Since the early years of cultural research, Europeans and North Americans have believed that love emotions in Brazil are passionately and erotically open and expressive. Brazilians seem to fit pretty well into the classical image of Latin lovers. The widely known stereotype of Brazilian folk, as well as of some other societies in South America and Polynesia, is expressed in the saying, “There is no sin below the equator.”

The expression might have its origins in the early Dutch occupation of northern Brazil in the 17th century. Nevertheless, it is still commonly referenced, occasionally by Brazilians themselves (Parker, 2009). This stereotype of Brazilian culture is reinforced for many people by the internationally famous and vividly colorful images of Brazilian carnivals.

The Mysterious “Saudade” of Brazilian Love

The Brazilians’ relations within the family, among kin and friends, fluctuate between pleasant feelings of “convivência” (living together) and the sad experience of “saudade” (longing for connection). They are used in the presence of significant others. So they feel saudade in the absence of their loved ones.

The culturally specific Portuguese word “saudade” means the mixed emotions of sadness and pleasure that Brazilians experience when they remember the people and events that they loved but that are no longer present. They miss them during their absence.

When Brazilians live through the saudade episodes of their lives, they experience the blended feelings of missing a loved one, longing for connection, and nostalgia. (Neto & Mullet, 2014; Rebhun, 1995, p. 249). Most Brazilians have never been alone in their lives. Therefore, they feel intense saudade when those they love are not present now.

How Brazilians Distinguish Between Passionate Love and True Love

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The Brazilian Portuguese word “amor,” which means “love,” refers to a wide range of beliefs, feelings, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors that characterize gender relationships, sexual encounters, and emotional connections. The challenges, however, arise when people distinguish between the “paixao” and the “amor” kinds of love. When they try to explains what these notions mean and how they differ, they are often uncertain, vague, and offer inconsistent explanations.

As a popular Brazilian saying states, “o coração é terra desconhecida”, that literally means “the heart is an unknown land.”

Brazilian distinction between paixao and amor love

The Brazilian lexicon of love distinguishes between paixo as passion and infatuation, associated with the tumultuous emotions of sexual attraction, and amor, as stable and deeper feelings of love. Nevertheless, for many, it is difficult to tell the subtle differences between paixao and amor. They are not always sure which one is true love. People may find it especially challenging to identify these feelings in the context of their personal emotional experience. As they say, the subjective experiences of paixao and amor are very similar. It is especially challenging to distinguish between these love emotions when a relationship is just in the beginning. At these early stages of encounters, the two feelings are intertwined together.

As American Professor of Anthropology Linda-Anne Rebhun noted from her study in Northern Brazil, when people tried to differentiate their descriptions of amor and paixao, they often used similar wording. For instance, as a twenty-five-year-old man said,

“Amor is when you feel a desire to always be with her, you breathe her, eat her, drink her, you are always thinking of her, you don’t manage to live without her. There are moments when you will adore staying with her, and there will be moments when you will hate to stay with her. And about paixão, you feel an attraction as if it were a rocket: I want to hug you, to squeeze you, to kiss you. But this is not love, it’s horniness, a very strong sexual attraction for a person”

(Rebhun, 1995, p.254).

This Is How Brazilians Explain What Love Is

For many Brazilians, it is challenging to say whether what they are feeling is true love or merely paixão. They say that they can’t always tell what they’re feeling when they’re in love. Sometimes they realize that they love someone only later, when their relationship ends. They recognize that they thought they hated him or her. Actually, it turned out they loved them but didn’t know it or didn’t want to acknowledge it.

As a twenty-six-year-old man put it,

“Generally, paixão is shorted-lived while amor is more enduring and lasts much longer. Now, amor and paixão, they walk together, but before the end of the road, paixão, it stops walking. But amor goes the whole distance, no matter how difficult the road, amor walks with you, and if you fall, amor carries you.”

(Rebhun, 1995, p.253).

Brazilians characterize paixão as prone to more idealization than amor. Therefore, being in paixão, a lover is at great risk of disappointment and disenchantment. As a twenty-eight-year-old man said,

“Paixão is that fantasy, that you see the person and start to imagine how they are. But with time the impression changes and one becomes disillusioned, and goes looking for another person to idealize, always thinking, “This is her! This is the only one!” But it never is, because it is imaginary”

(Rebhun, 1995, p.253).

Or, as another man of nineteen-years old commented,

“Paixão is a temporary sentiment. It doesn’t last forever. It is only something that we beautify about someone. We idealize them, but that is temporary. At times paixão is the deceiver because it seems like amor. But paixão is quick, it is also very greedy; it only wants for itself. Paixão is where jealousy exists. Amor does not have jealousy, it lasts forever. It is certain. But paixão is unsure, and uncertainty is what breeds jealousy”

(Rebhun, 1995, p.253).

How Do Brazilian Men and Women Differ in Their Understanding of Love?

Both Brazilian men and women discern between the words paixao and amor, although men appear to be more confused and puzzled when they need to distinguish between the meanings of these feelings of love. Many men acknowledge that true love can exist for more than one woman at a time, although women strongly deny this possibility. They believe that amor is only monogamous and committed feelings. In the same vein, some married men believe that their affairs will not endanger their marriages because their feelings for the “other woman” are “paixo”, whereas their feelings for their wives are “amor“.

Concerning this point, many women see this male mentality as a sign that they are incapable of experiencing true love. Women believe that paixão is youthful, immature feelings, while amor is a mature and committed emotional experience. Many women say that their feelings for their spouses evolve with time in their relationship and marriage. Some women believe this transition occurred due to their own personal maturation rather than because of the change in their paixão.

In recent years, the modern Brazilian understanding of the relationship between paixão and amor has evolved. People believe that these two kinds of love can merge together when sexual passion fuses with true love in marital relationships.

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?