Category Archives: physical beauty

What Was Special About French Women’s and Men’s Physicality?

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Many people, and anthropologists in particular, are interested in learning whether the qualities of beauty are shared by all cultures or whether they are unique to particular countries. They focus on the people’s physical constitution, bodies, and faces. They examine the shape, color, physiognomy, expression, and expressiveness of faces. Additionally, they focus on the bodies’ shape, color, and expressiveness.

Some observations revealed differences in the natural personal beauty of people in European countries. Henry Finck referred to many authors of the 19th and previous centuries to characterize Italian, French, Spanish, and other European cultures.

In other articles, I summarized Henry Finck’s portrayals of personal beauty in Italian and French cultures.

Let us continue looking in more detail at what is special about French personal beauty as it was characterized in the 19th century.

French Women’s Beauty in Graceful and Charming Manners

As Henry Finck asserts, French women often lack natural beauty. After the adolescent years, women have a general tendency to either become too lean or too stout. It seems to be more noticeable in France than in other countries in Europe. As he continues, there is no doubt that French women of supreme beauty definitely exist in France. However, such cases are as scarce as “strawberries in December.”

Nevertheless, French women strive to compensate for their lack of grace in beauty with their good manners and fashion. French women are naturally bright and quick-witted. They endear grace with their charming manners. French women typically captivate with their delicate little ways and movements.

French girls know how to use their eyes to their advantage from a young age. A witty newspaper writer once remarked that French girls

“can say more with their shoulders than most girls can with their eyes; and when they talk with eyes, hands, shoulders, and tongue at once, it takes a man of talent to keep up.”

(As cited in Henry Finck, 1887/2019, p. 507).

French Men’s Constitutional Features

Men, meanwhile, are easy to recognize by their simians’ hairiness or their diminutive stature. Henry Finck, in particular, remarked on a difference in general manliness and stature between French and German or English soldiers. The English soldiers are superior to the French in terms of vitality and attractiveness. And it is more than “skin deep.” It appears to go all the way down to the chemical composition of their tissues.

French Professor Paul Topinard commented in his Anthropologie (1885) that he articulated in the early 1860s a fact that was generally supported by others, namely,

“that the mortality after capital operations in English hospitals was less by one-half than in the French. We attributed it to a better diet, to their better sanitary arrangements, and to their superior management. There was but one serious objection offered to our statement. M. Velapeau, with his wonderful acumen, made reply, at the Academy of Medicine, that the flesh of the English and of the French differed; in other words, that the reaction after operations was not the same in both races. It is, in effect, an anthropological character.”

(As cited in Henry Finck, 1887/2019, p. 508).

French Beauty in the 19th Century

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Many people, and anthropologists especially, are curious whether the features of beauty are universal across cultures or are culturally specific to certain nations. They pay attention to faces and bodies. They look at the form, complexion, expressiveness, and physiognomy of faces. They also pay attention to the form, complexion, and expressivity of the bodies.

Many people, like Italians, tend to believe that, compared to other cultures, people of their own country are more beautiful than those in other nations. The mere exposure effect and prototypic effects may play their roles. Standards of beauty can be disputable and subjective. Other people may think differently.

Foreign visitors often have different perspectives on how prevalent beauty is in various nations. Anyway, any of these views are subjective, and some people can argue in different ways.

Therefore, only the frequency of certain opinions can provide an objective perspective. And the historical perspective of cultural evolution can be of interest as well.

How Beautiful Were French People in the 19th Century?

Let us look into the historical legacy of love scholarship (Finck, 1887/2019). Here is how Henry Finck and other authors he cited portrayed French beauty in the 19th century.

Henry Finck noted in his writings of the 19th century that for many authors, personal beauty in France is seemingly more rare than anywhere else in Europe. He wrote that people in France had less pronounced forms, complexions, and physiognomy compared to Italians.

What Did Foreign Authors Think about Personal Beauty of French People?

British novelist William Thackeray (1811–1863), for example, wrote that nature has

“rather stinted the bodies and limbs of the French nation.”

British anthropologist Alexander Walker (1779–1852), in his book “Beauty” (1845), commented that

“the women of France are among the ugliest in the world.”

And Sir Lepel Griffin (1838–1908), a British author, mentioned that

“National vanity, where inordinately developed, may take the form of asserting that black is white, as in France, where the average of good looks, among both men and women, is perhaps lower than elsewhere in Europe. If a pretty woman be seen in the streets of Paris, she is almost certainly English or American; yet if a foreigner were to form an estimate of French beauty from the rapturous descriptions of contemporary French novels, or from the sketches of La Vie Parisienne, he must conclude that the Frenchwoman was the purest and loveliest type in the world in face and figure. The fiction in this case disguises itself in no semblance of the truth.”

(as cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 507).

What Did French Authors Think of Personal Beauty in France? 

Still, some French writers also thought that people in their nation had shortcomings in personal beauty.

Louis Figuier, a 19th-century French scientist and author, characterized French men’s love as “the love of the graceful rather than the beautiful.”

Characterizing French country women, Louis Figuier also emphasized their grace and expressiveness rather than their beauty:

“There is in her face much that is most pleasing, although we can assign her physiognomy to no determinate type. Her features, frequently irregular, seem to be borrowed from different races; they do not possess that unity which springs from calm and majesty, but are in the highest degree expressive, and marvellously contrived for conveying every shade of feeling. In them we see a smile though it be shaded by tears; a caress though they threaten us; and an appeal when yet they command. Amid the irregularity of this physiognomy the soul displays its workings. As a rule the Frenchwoman is short of stature, but in every proportion of her form combines grace and delicacy. Her extremities and joints are fine and elegant, of perfect model and distinct form, without a suspicion of coarseness. With her, moreover, art is brought wonderfully to assist nature”.

(L. Figuier “The Races of Man,” as cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 507).

The Expressive Nature of Italian Beauty

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The value of Italian mental culture certainly enhances Italian beauty. As Henry Finck noted, Italian women of all social classes are known for their intellectual indolence. However, their extreme emotional sensitivity compensates for this quality in large part. A natural love of music, beautiful scenery, and blue skies have trained and softened their feelings.

The Italian Cultural Tendency for Expressive Emotions

The Italian climate does not appear to foster a deep artistic culture, but it does foster Italian expressive beauty. Italy’s climate warms the blood and shapes cultural features to express every passing mood. This tendency toward emotional expressiveness gives the Italians a distinct cultural charm and the capacity for graceful modulation.

According to the observations of the German artist Otto Knille (1832-1898) regarding the Italians,

“They pose unintentionally. Their features, especially among the lower classes, have been moulded through mimic expression practised for thousands of years. Gesture-language has shaped the hands of many into models of anatomic clearness. They have a complete language of signs and gestures, which each one understands, as, for instance, in the ballet. Add to this the innate grace of this race … and we see that the Italian artist has an abundance of material for copying, as compared with which the German artist must admit his extreme poverty. Whoever has lived in Italy is in a position to appreciate these advantages…. Think of the neck, the nape, and the bust of Italian woman, the fine joints and the elastic gait of both men and women. Nor are we much better endowed as regards the physiognomy. The German potato-face is not a mere fancy—the mirror which A. de Neuville has held up to us, though clouded with prejudice, shows us an image not entirely untrue to life. We artists know how rarely a head, especially one which lacks the enchanting charm of youth, can be used as a model for anything but flat realism. Most German faces, instead of becoming more clearly chiselled and elaborated with age, appear more spongy, vague, and unmeaning.”

 (As cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 515). 

The German archaeologist and art historian Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768) commented on Italian beauty in the same vein:

“We seldom find in the fairest portions of Italy the features of the face unfinished, vague, and inexpressive, as is frequently the case on the other side of the Alps; but they have partly an air of nobleness, partly of acuteness and intelligence; and the form of the face is generally large and full, and the parts of it in harmony with each other. The superiority of conformation is so manifest that the head of the humblest man among the people might be introduced in the most dignified historical painting, especially one in which aged men are to be represented. And among the women of this class, even in places of the least importance, it would not be difficult to find a Juno. The lower portion of Italy, which enjoys a softer climate than any other part of it, brings forth men of superb and vigorously-designed forms, which appear to have been made, as it were, for the purposes of sculpture.”

 (As cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 515).

Here Henry Finck (1887/2019) once again comments that the “brunette type” of Italians attracts the most admiration from foreigners.

Furthermore, Henry Finck (1887-2019) mentions German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), who wrote about the women of Trent, a northern Italian city. Trent is a town in Austrian Tyrol that used to be part of Austria. However, practically, it consists of an Italian community.

Heinrich Heine claims in his book “Journey from Munich to Genoa” (1828) that he would have felt tempted to stay in this town where

“beautiful girls were moving about in bevies. I do not know,”

and then Heine adds,

“whether other tourists will approve of the adjective ‘beautiful’ in this case; but I liked the women of Trent exceptionally well. They were just of the kind I admire—and I do love these pale, elegiac faces with the large black eyes that gaze at you so love-sick; I love also the dusky tint of those proud necks which Phœbus already has loved and browned with his kisses; … but above all things do I love that graceful gait, that dumb music of the body, those limbs with their exquisitely rhythmic movements, luxurious, supple, divinely careless, mortally languid, anon æthereal, majestic, and always highly poetic. I love such things as I love poetry itself; and these figures with their melodious movements, this wondrous concert of femininity which delighted my senses, found an echo in my heart, and awoke in it sympathetic strains.”

(As cited in Finck, 1887/2019, p. 515).

What Is Unique About Italian Typological Beauty?

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Many Italians believe their people are the most beautiful compared to other cultures and other regions of their own country. The Milanese, for example, claim that the men and women in their cities are the most beautiful. But the Venetians, Florentines, Romans, and Neapolitans all extol their own virtues of beauty. We can’t trust what Italians say about their own region or country because local pride makes them biased. Anyway, we shall acknowledge the unique qualities of Italian beauty. What is unique about it?

The origins of the unique Italian beauty can be traced back to times of cultural mingling with Greeks and Africans in the south and barbarian invasions in the north of the country.

What Makes Italian Beauty So Special?

In one of his letters, the English poet Lord Byron (1788-1824) extols an Italian beauty of oriental type. He also portrayed Italian culture as natural: “the garden of the world,” where “even the weeds are beautiful.” In Italy, the cosmetic value of fresh air and sunshine is striking. Italians live in a garden, where the sun is mellow and the air is balmy.

What Characterizes Italian Personal Beauty?

Many commonly acknowledge that Italian beauty is of the brunette type. The origin of this Italian type goes back to the cultural mingling that occurred as a result of contacts with Greeks and Africans in the south and barbarian invasions in the north of the country. With the exception of Rome and the Roman Campagna, the natural type of the Latin population is extremely rare.

The Brunette Beauty Type

As Henry Finck and other authors of the 19th century noted (Finck, 1887/2019), the mixture of races created the brunette type of Italian beauty. He compares it to the brunette German beauty type. 

Henry Finck says that according to general consensus, in Germany, brunettes are much more common in the south than they are in the north. Therefore, we can conclude that mixing in the brunette type enhances the blonde type.

It is still unclear whether the admixture of northern blondes improves the brunette type of northern Italy.

Henry Finck commented that according to others’ opinions, it is true that beautiful women abound in Venice, Milan, and Bologna. Naples and Capri, the brunette paradise, are also widely regarded as the regions where Italian beauty is at its best. Here, mostly dark-skinned people have mixed, so the eyes are always a deep brown color.

Many people do not express much admiration for Italian blondes. In Northern Italy, the introduction of blonde blood created lighter tints of the iris. Many people do not favor this type of beauty.

In the same way, these features are also present in South Germany. But the dark eyebrows, long black lashes, and more flexible and rounded limbs typical for this region neutralize the impression of these characteristics.

Italian people are also well-known for their emotional expressiveness. In another article, I show how the climate and cultural traditions of Italy make Italian brunettes so expressively beautiful.

The Italian Value of Beauty and Love

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Many cultural characteristics distinguish national beauty standards. In this and previous articles, I describe Italian beauty based on many sources from the last several centuries. Let us explore the archival legacy of love scholarship (Finck, 1887/2019). Here are some of the ways that Henry Finck and other writers of the 19th century described the beauty of Italy. 

The origin of Italian beauty is in the mixture of cultures that evolved from the contacts with Greeks and Africans in the south and the barbarian invasions in the north of the country.

What Makes Italian Beauty Natural?

An English poet, Lord Byron, characterized Italy as “the garden of the world” and said that its “very weeds are beautiful.” These unique qualities can be due to the race as well as the soil. It is because they live in a garden, where the air is balmy and the sun is mellow. Italians can, to some extent, disregard personal hygiene laws. They can thrive in the conditions that would torture others to death.

The cosmetic value of fresh air and sunshine is striking in Italy.

Miss Margaret Collier notes in her book “Our Home by the Adriatic” that in rural Italian communities, even among the wealthy, requesting a bath raises concerns about one’s health.

And Berlioz referred to Italian peasant girls in one of his writings:

 “Carrying heavy copper vessels and faggots on their heads; but all so wretched, go miserable, so tattered, so filthily dirty, that, in spite of the beauty of the race and the picturesqueness of their costume, all other feelings are swallowed up in one of utter compassion.”

Berlioz also spoke of “the beauty of the race,” notwithstanding the national indifference to the laws of cleanliness.

Italian Beauty, Love, and Marriage

The value of beauty and love in matrimonial relationships in the 19th century varied across social groups of Italians.

In rural regions, French cultural practices regarding marriage appear to be prevalent. Miss Collier recalls a young woman who came to see her to wish her luck in her upcoming wedding. When Miss Collier asked the girl the name of her future husband, the girl answered naively, “I don’t know; papa has not yet told me that.”

The peasants, on the other hand, had the freedom to choose their own mates. So, the value of Italian beauty was most prevalent among them. Individual mate selection was also more permissible in nineteenth-century France. Instead of being cynical and making fun of it, the Italians worshiped love as if it were a law.

Italian Beauty: The 19th Century’s View

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The question of research interest is whether the standards of beauty are cross-culturally universal or culturally specific to certain nations. Let us investigate the archival legacy of love scholarship (Finck, 1887/2019).  Let us look at how Henry Finck and other authors he cited portrayed Italian beauty in the 19th century.

The form, complexion, and physiognomy in different parts of Italy are more pronounced than in France.

What Are the Origins of Italian Beauty?

As the 19th-century French scientist and writer Louis Figuier noted,

“The barbarian invasions in the north, and the contact with Greeks and Africans in the south, have wrought much alteration in the primitive type of the inhabitants of Italy. Except in Rome and the Roman Campagna, the true type of the primitive Latin population is hardly to be found. The Grecian type exists in the South, and upon the eastern slope of the Apennines, while in the North the great majority of faces are Gallic. In Tuscany and the neighbouring regions are found the descendants of the ancient Etruscans…. The mixture of African blood has changed the organic type of the Southern Italian to such an extent as to render him entirely distinct from his Northern compatriots, the exciting influence which the climate has over the senses imparting to his whole conduct a peculiar exuberance.”

Some scholars have claimed that the aesthetic intoxication that comes from meeting a new type of person causes the raptures and ecstasies of some writers. A few years of living in a place is enough to get rid of these illusions. We can’t trust what the Italians say about their own country because they are biased by local pride. For example, the Milanese say that their city is the most beautiful, while the Venetians, Florentines, Romans, and Neapolitans all toot their own horns.

In one of his letters, an English poet, Lord Byron praised an Italian beauty of the Oriental variety that he had met and adds:

“Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race—the gentry rather better.” In another place he writes that “the general race of women appear to be handsome; but in Italy, as on almost all the Continent, the highest orders are by no means a well-looking generation.”

Are Italian Men More Handsome Than Italian Women?

An Italian anthropologist and physiologist, Professor Paolo Mantegazza, believed that the men were more handsome in Italy than the women.

A Scottish scholar of the 19th century, Sir Charles Bell, noted that

“Raphael, in painting the head of Galatea, found no beauty deserving to be his model; he is reported to have said that there is nothing so rare as perfect beauty in woman; and that he substituted for nature a certain idea inspired by his fancy.”

In the late 1600s, French philosopher Michel de Montaigne traveled to Italy. He was surprised by how few beautiful women and girls he saw. At the time, women and girls were kept in more isolation than in France.

A German author, Dr. J. Volkmann, said in 1770 that,

“there are few beautiful women in Rome, especially among the higher classes; in Venice and Naples more are to be seen. The Italian himself has a proverb which says that Roman women are not beautiful”

(quoted by Ploss, P. 512).

What Is Sexual Love?

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Many scholars and laypeople consider sex, sexual love, and erotic love as synonyms. Yet it is not exactly correct to equate these concepts. Why so? Because they mean different things, and researchers should distinguish between them (Karandashev, 2022). Yes, sexual love is

  • a deep feeling of sexual interest, desire, and sexual attraction.
  • a host of sexual feelings and emotions.
  • involves various sexual actions between two people.

Let us review what sexual love is in more detail. Here I will tell you what sexual love is.

Sexual Love Is Similar to Sex

“Sexual love” is the physical and emotional sensations in the body, head, hands, legs, and genitals that may culminate in sexual excitement and intensely pleasurable genital-centered feelings. Typically, sexual love involves sex as sexual intercourse. But we cannot consider any sex as sexual love. Many forms of sex do not imply love. They are just sex. So, they are not really sexual love.

Sex Can Be without Love

Sex can exist in the absence of love, and sexual lust and the desire for sex are distinct from the Eros of love (C.S. Lewis, 1960; Wilson, 1980). Sex is a physiological need; it is a sexual impulse that an individual must fulfill, as well as a physical tension that he or she must release. The object that aids in releasing sexual tension is of secondary importance. A prostitute, a sexual toy, masturbation, or other object can fulfill this need. Pornography of any kind can satisfy the needs of sexual desire.

How Is Sexual Love Different from Sex?

Sexual love is certainly driven by the body’s natural urges. Yet, sexual love is a pleasurable sensual experience with a specific person. This man or woman appears to be special in several ways. He or she is uniquely different from others. Sexual love excites not only the body of the lover, but rather the whole person. Erotic emotions show the beauty of a person in sex and make sexual activities more thrilling.

Sensual and Sexual Feelings of Love

Sexual love is the sensual experience and acts that stimulate sexual desire and sexual activity. Many men and women gain joy and pleasure from sexual activity. Sexual love manifests itself through a variety of sensual experiences: the sense of seeing the most beautiful woman or handsome man in the world. Sexual love embraces the sense of hearing the enticing voice, the sense of smelling the pleasant odors of a partner’s body and perfume, and the sense of touching, hugging, kissing, penetration, and moving in synchrony. A variety of sensual and sexual experiences induce sensual and sexual attraction towards a particular individual. These feelings are universal across cultures. However, people in different cultures can view some of these sensual experiences as more desirable than others (Karandashev et al., 2019).

Sexual Dreams and Phantasies in Love

Sexual love engages sexual fantasies, sexual dreams, and sexual behavior (Gebhard & Johnson, 1998; Hite, 1976/2004; Hite, 1981/1987; Kinsey et al., 1948/1998; Kinsey et al., 1953/1998).

Sexual fantasies and dreams about the beloved – the object of admiration – satisfy a lover’s desire for sexual love. They satisfy the diverse feelings of sexual longing and desire of men and women (Masters, Johnson, & Kolodny, 1986). On average, men are more erotophilic, lustful, and kinky than women (Schmitt & Buss, 2000).

The sexual fantasies of sexual love differ qualitatively from pornography motivated by basic sexual drive. The focus of pornographic fantasies is on sexual activity itself—which can be portrayed in a variety of ways—while the object of sexual fulfillment is secondary. It is the activation of a fundamental sexual urge. Different from pornography, sexual love manifests in sexual dreams with a particular individual – the beloved. Sexual dreams involve sexual images and scenes with a specific loved one. Hugging, kissing, petting, and other sexual behaviors and imagination meet their sexual love desires.

Sexual love being universal still varies across cultures involving cultural specifics.

What Did Ovid Advise on the Art of Making Love?

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The Roman poet of the ancient Roman Empire is well known by many love scholars for his “Ars Amatoria” (The Art of Love)-an instructional series in three books of poems about what is love and how to make love with the art of seduction and intrigue. Ovid’s very practical instructions on making love have been quite popular among educated and aristocratic people throughout centuries.

Who was Ovid?

Ovid was a famous Roman poet who lived between 43 BCE and 17 CE in the ancient Roman Empire.He was well known for his Metamorphoses, a collection of mythological and legendary stories that he told in chronological order, from the beginning of the world until the 1st century BCE.

The Ars Amatoria, written by Ovid in three books, presented a fascinating depiction of the sophisticated and hedonistic life of the Roman aristocracy. The books advised men on how to find a woman and how to keep her. The books also gave women advice on how to win and keep the love of a man.

How Did Ovid Advise Men and Women to Love?

 Ovid was a very good observer and psychologist. He knew a lot about modern women’s and men’s natures.

The primary purpose of Ovid’s “Ars Amoris” was to teach men how to out-trump the presumably natural cunning of women. Nevertheless, he did not forget the female readers. He provided them with many tips on the effective means of enticing fickle men.

In the Remedia Amoris, Ovid described a variety of remedies for curing Cupid’s wounds. Many of them are still suitable today. Ovid’s Elegies and Heroides are full of modern references and insights into the meanings of love.

Several of these points are briefly mentioned below.

How Ovid Depicts Female Sexuality and Passion

Ovid’s poems frequently describe the images of female sexuality and passion as excessively gross and malicious. They are, however, not so crude and cynical as those of Martial and Catullus, two other great Roman poets of that time.

Ovid’s poems still frequently express frivolity that may mislead the current generation’s aesthetic judgment. They still support the myth that Virgil and Horace are better poets than Ovid. Nevertheless, Ovid appears by far the best in terms of originality and inventiveness.

Ovid was unquestionably the first poet who had a conception of the high possibilities of love. According to Henry Finck’s judgment, he was the greatest and the only great love-poet before Dante. Even so, he was wholly devoted to the ancient sensual side of love. His genius enabled him to anticipate and depict the modern images of love (Finck (1887/2019, p. 91).

Some of Ovid’s Advice on Making Love

Roman women in Ovid’s poems often display their coyness in a crude way, as if to a savage. However, it doesn’t seem like all of them understood its full value. So, the poet often gives them advice on how to use it in a more subtle way. One of his rules for women was that if they hurt a man’s feelings, the best way to make him forget it is to hurt themselves. This will bring things back into balance.

Another passage shows that when women are aware of their beauty, this makes them brave, coy, and cruel.

Ovid also knew that a short absence favors and a long absence kills passion.

He warns men against feigning love, which can spark real passion.

Men are told that having courage and confidence is half the battle when it comes to making love.

Ovid also said that disappointed lovers should know that failure can be a good thing if it makes people feel sorry for them and lets love come in as friendship. 

How Ovid Depicts Mixed Feelings in Love

Ovid tends to use emotional exaggeration and depict the mixed feelings that come with love.

He compares the number of love’s tortures to the number of berries on the trees or the number of shells on the beach. He says that true love always causes pain and suffering. He said that “the sweetest torture on earth is women.”

The two things that go with Cupid’s love arrows are flattery and illusion. “

But “even if the beloved misleads me with false words, hope itself will give me great pleasure” could only have been written by someone who knew that love is also creative. In another part of the poem, the poet says that intellectual culture must replace the charms of youth that have worn off.

How Romantic Was the Ancient Aryan Love?

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The term “Aryan culture” refers to the ancient cultural civilizations that existed many centuries ago. The word “Aryan” was often used interchangeably with “Indo-European” to mean Indo-Iranian languages.

Here I will talk about Aryan love.

Who Were the Aryans?

In the past, the word “Aryan” was used to refer to the people who spoke the old Indo-European languages. Those prehistoric Aryans were nomad warriors who colonized northern India around 1500 BCE, 500 years after the Indus River Valley collapsed. These fair-skinned ancient people settled in Iran and northern India.

The Aryans were hunter-herders at first. When they migrated to India, they learned agriculture and built settlements and cities, beginning Aryan civilization. Literature, religion, and social structure have substantially influenced Indian culture.

The Ancient Aryan Culture Was Favorable for Love

Before the introduction of Brahminism in India in the early 1st millennium BCE, the Aryan culture was greatly different. Women were held in high regard. They had many rights and enjoyed a variety of privileges. They had opportunities for free communication and social interaction with men. The cultural conditions of the Aryan culture in that historic period entertained the ideas of “romantic love”. Nevertheless, Aryans favored monogamous marital relationships. Monogamous marriage was the typical mode of marriage and family formation.

All these cultural factors were conducive to love. At that time—about 1200 or 1500 years ago, at least some of the Indian population had experienced many of the feelings and emotions that are associated with the modern understanding of love.

Here Are the Ancient Hindoo Love Maxims

The Seven Hundred Maxims of Hala were published in India no later than in the 3rd century of our era. This collection of Aryan poetic utterances represented interesting and valuable descriptions of cultural ideas of love that educated and entertained people during those times. They are written in Prakrit, which is a language that is closely related to Sanskrit.

The structure of the words suggests that they were meant to be sung. The Bayaderes, the Indian female dancers, who were often clothed in loose Eastern costumes, presumably sang some of those maxims. Others were sung by dancing girls from Buddhist temples. Their singing appealed to emancipate women from the domestic and educational constraints placed on them. They also sought to fascinate men with their wit, love, and aesthetic accomplishments.

The majority of the maxims are feminine utterances, and often of dubious moral character. Some of these early Aryan love revelations might have an unpleasant aftertaste.

Nevertheless, they are still extremely interesting and demonstrate how “romantic love” is dependent on a woman’s freedom as well as on corresponding intellectual and aesthetic culture.

What the Hindoo Love Maxims Tell Us About The maxims of Halâ indicate that the beautiful overtones of love, joyful adoration, and poetic hyperbole depicted in its romantic expressions were present in Aryan culture of the far past. That was a unique cultural phenomenon that love scholars have not yet come across elsewhere. What can be more contemporary than these quotes?

“Although all my possessions were burnt in the village fire, yet is my heart delighted, since he took the buckets from me when they were passed from hand to hand.”

Or this one:

“O thou who art skilled in cookery, restrain thy anger! The reason why the fire refuses to burn, and only smokes, is that it may the longer drink in the breath of your mouth, fragrant as the red potato-blossoms.”

The following two examples illustrate how Aryans appreciated personal beauty:

“He sees nothing but her face, and she too is quite intoxicated by his looks. Both, satisfied with each other, act as if in the whole world there were no other women or men.”

“Other beauties likewise have in their faces beautiful, wide black eyes, with long lashes,—but no one else understands as she does how to use them.”

The following quotes illustrate how love established its monopoly in the Aryan heart and mind, leaving no room for any other thoughts:

“She stares without a (visible) object, draws a deep sigh, laughs into empty space, mutters unintelligible words—forsooth, there must be something on her heart.”

“Love departs when lovers are separated; it departs when they see too much of each other; it departs in consequence of malicious gossip; aye, it departs also without these causes.”

It appears that Aryans clearly comprehended the nature of coyness, as the lover was admonished in this way:

“My son, such is the nature of love, suddenly to get angry, to make up again in a moment, to dissemble its language, to tease immoderately.”

The loving poet believes it necessary to tell a sweetheart that:

“By forgiving him at first sight, you foolish girl, you deprived yourself of many pleasures,—of his prostration at your feet [a trace of Gallantry], of a kiss passionately stolen.”

A voice was also given to the anguish that comes from being apart:

“As is sickness without a physician; as living with relatives when one is poor,—as the sight of an enemy’s prosperity,—so is it difficult to endure separation from you.”

Thus, one can see that many of the defining characteristics of contemporary romantic ardor can be found in ancient Aryan love.

(H. Finck, 1887/2019, p. 75).

It seems that those were the times when romantic love was real.

The Cultural History of Erotic Love

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

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

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

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

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

Erotic Love in Ancient Greece and Rome

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

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

Courtesans and their Erotic Love

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

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

Courtesans’ Love in China and Japan of the Past

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