Category Archives: romantic love

Is Kissing for Love Culturally Universal?

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Is kissing cross-culturally universal? Who invented kissing to express love to each other?

It could seem that sexual kissing is a universal cultural practice. Artists widely portrayed the acts of kissing in a variety of material cultures, including books, paintings, and other forms of media.

The Myth of the Cultural Universality of Kissing for Love

Scholars from the behavioral and social sciences widely believe that romantic-sexual kissing is a common way of communicating love in many cultures. Some researchers claim that romantic and sexual kissing is a common practice among mating partners in over 90% of cultures (Fisher, 1992; Kirshenbaum, 2011; Wlodarski & Dunbar, 2013).

The widespread claims about the cross-cultural ubiquity of kissing across societies seem overrated.

Kissing for Love Is Not Culturally Universal

Ethnographic analyses of modern societies have shown that sexual and romantic kisses are not cross-culturally universal. The data from a large cross-cultural sample set (n = 168 cultures) documented the presence of romantic-sexual kissing only in 46% of societies. It is 77 out of 168 cultural samples. The remaining 54% of societies—91 cultural samples—had no evidence of romantic kissing among their populations. (Jankowiak, Volsche, & Garcia, 2015, p. 535).

The study found that romantic kissing is least common of all among Central American cultures and most common in the Middle East and Asia. It is nearly ubiquitous in northern Asia and North America.

Cultural anthropologists found no evidence of sexual and romantic kisses in New Guinea, Sub-Saharan African, and Amazonian foraging or horticultural societies.

Analysis of this cross-cultural ethnographic data showed that the presence and frequency of romantic kissing are more widespread in cultures with high complexity of social stratification. People in complex societies with distinct social classes, such as modern industrialized societies, have a much higher frequency of this type of kissing than people in egalitarian societies.

Culturally Specific Perceptions of Kissing for Love

The perception of romantic kissing across non-kissing societies varies. In some societies, people show simple disinterest in this action. In other societies, people consider it amusing, while in others, they experience total disgust.

For instance, Trobriand Islanders and the people across the Pacific Ocean in Melanesia were bemused by the foreign custom of kissing (Malinowski, 1929, p. 330).

“Certainly it never forms a self-contained independent source of pleasure, nor is it a definite preliminary stage of love-making, as is the case with us. This caress was never spontaneously mentioned by the natives, and, to direct inquiries, I always received a negative answer. The natives know, however, that white people “will sit, will press mouth against mouth–they are pleased with it.” But they regard it as a rather insipid and silly form of amusement.”

The Tsonga people of southern Africa perceived the practice of kissing as disgusting.

“Kissing was formerly entirely unknown… When they saw the custom adopted by the Europeans, they said laughingly: “Look at these people! They suck each other! They eat each other’s saliva and dirt!” Even a husband never kissed his wife”

(Junod 1927, 353-354)

Here is another example among the indigenous Tapirapé people of Central Brazil. In that culture, “couples showed affection,” but “kissing seems to have been unknown.” As Wagley (1977) explains,

“When I described it to them, it struck them as a strange form of showing physical attraction … and, in a way, disgusting. It was common, instead, to see a married couple walking across the village plaza with the man’s arm draped over his wife’s shoulder. A couple might stand close to each other during a conversation with the man’s arms over his wife’s shoulders and she holding him around the hips”

(Wagley, 1977, p. 158).

What Occurs in Our Brain When We Fall in Love with Someone?

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The need for love is one of the most basic physiological and psychological needs people have. We need to love someone and be loved by somebody. Although people’s experiences and expressions of love may vary across cultures and situations, their basic human needs for love are still universal across the world (Karandashev, 2019).

I wrote about how our brain developed the ability to love in another article.

The activation of certain neural and physiological mechanisms in our body and brain generates the psychological experience and expression of love. These biological mechanisms for the capacity and necessity to love have developed in our mammalian ancestors throughout the course of biological evolution (Karandashev, 2022).

How Our Brain Works When We Fall in Love

Studies of the neurophysiological processes involved in our feelings of love have proliferated in the last two decades. Brain imaging techniques have been a valuable method to study human cerebral functions associated with love and romantic relationships.

Neuroscientists have traditionally investigated the subcortical structures of reward-related systems involved in the experience of love. Later neuroimaging studies showed that, in addition to these subcortical structures, different cortical networks and cognitive factors play an important role in reward-related systems associated with the experience of love.

Several scientists investigated how men and women feel in the early stages of romantic love and what occurs in their brains and bodies. Early-stage romantic love often induces euphoria.

What is happening in our brains when we are falling in love? According to Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist at Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and her colleagues, the first activation of love occurs in a primitive part of the brain’s reward system that is located in the midbrain. This finding once again confirms that our ability to love stems from the long evolutionary history of our animals’ ancestors. It is possible that romantic love originated from a mammalian drive to pursue preferred mates.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Love

Lucy Brown and her colleagues studied seven men and ten women who were “in love” using the method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Some of these participants were intensely in love, while others were moderately in love or had a low thrill for their partner.

Participants in this study alternately perceived a photograph of their beloved and a photograph of another familiar person that researchers exposed to them in the fMRI machine. When participants perceived the photo of their romantic partner, they experienced a feeling of love. What occurred in their brain? Researchers recorded brain activation in the midbrain’s ventral tegmental area (VTA). This is the part of the brain connected to meeting basic needs, such as eating when we are hungry and drinking when we are thirsty.

Professor Brown commented,

“It’s the area of the brain that controls things like swallowing and other basic reflexes. While we often think about romantic love as this euphoric, amorphous thing and as a complex emotion, the activation we see in this very basic part of the brain is telling us that romantic love is actually a drive to fulfill a basic need.”

The Hormones of Love

Stephanie Cacioppo, a professor from the University of Chicago, and her colleagues revealed more findings on how love affects our brains.

Researchers found 12 areas of the brain that are activated to release chemicals such as dopamine, the hormone associated with “feel-good,” oxytocin, the hormone associated with “cuddle hormone,” and adrenaline, which stimulates a euphoric sense of purpose. These findings also showed that the brain’s reward circuit, which includes the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex, is sensitive to behaviors that induce pleasure. These parts of the brain are active when we are talking about a loved one, and these areas have increased blood flow.

When these processes are occurring in the brain, our level of serotonin, a hormone responsible for the regulation of appetite and intrusive anxious thinking, decreases. Low levels of serotonin are common among men and women experiencing anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

“This explains why people in the early stages of love can become obsessed with small details, spending hours debating about a text to or from their beloved,”

Stephanie Cacioppo

Why People Love Romantic Comedies

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Why are romantic comedies so popular among people? Do their narratives reflect men’s and women’s love?

Romantic comedies, also known as rom-coms, are among the most popular film genres. However, they have often been criticized for not being serious enough and for distorting people’s perceptions of love.

Anthropology of Romantic Comedies

Marianne Gabrielsson, a student from the School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg studied these questions from an anthropological perspective. She explored:

  • Why do people watch romcoms?
  • In what way do people embody love as portrayed in romcoms?
  • How can we relate people’s perceptions of love to the romcom genre?

What the Study Revealed

Thus, according to the recent study conducted by Marianne Gabrielsson,

  • Romantic comedies have psychopharmacologic functions in the sense of escapism.
  • People embody romcoms in terms of EPIC love, disappointment, fear, non-realistic demands, resignation, false happiness, or joy.
  • Romantic comedies are often negatively loaded with ideals, traditionalism, stereotypes, and conformity.

The Functions that Romantic Comedies Have in People’ Lives

The concept of escapism serves as an indicator of underlying societal issues, wherein romantic comedies are often depicted as a potential solution rather than a contributing factor to these problems.

Paradoxically, romantic comedies present this solution in a stigmatized, negative tone, causing feelings of shame, blame, and belittleness, contextualizing romcoms as a ‘guilty pleasure’ for the female consumer.

As a result of this paradox, culture continues to rewrite cultural norms and reinforce stereotypes, reproducing the outdated idea of the Other. This way, romantic comedies divide people into intellectual, serious, and pragmatic consumers and the rest: the naive and stupid consumers of banal and superficial depictions of love.

This suggests a shift in the focus of discourse from a widely shared sentiment of love to a more practical and rational approach.

Nevertheless, the study found that love is related to pragmatism, disappointment, and love always being for someone else. The author conducted the interviews that revealed a prevalent views of love as aspirations, dreams, and a desire for a love that transcends societal norms and expectations.

Conclusions of the Study

The author concludes that the complexity exhibited by romantic comedies presents a promising path for future academic research. Within this realm, three specific aspects have emerged as particularly intriguing subjects of study:

  • 1) The phenomenon of culture consumption encompasses various forms such as film, literature, music, and social media. And it has its significant impact on society.
  • 2) The persistent practice of rewriting culture is an ongoing process that shapes and reshapes societal norms and values.
  • 3) Within the field of anthropology, there exists a notable gap in the discourse surrounding the potential universality of love as a human experience.

A New Study on the Importance of Affectionate Touch in Romantic Love

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Touch is an important way people communicate love and intimacy in romantic relationships. Affectionate touch, such as hugging, stroking, and kissing, is common worldwide. Romantic partners across many cultures frequently use affectionate touch to express their love for a romantic partner, passion, desire, and intimate feelings.

The affection exchange theory explains how affectionate touch is beneficial for our romantic relationships and mental and physical health in various respects. It turns out that both giving and receiving affectionate messages through touching behavior boost our mood and reinforce our relational bonds. In the same way as other forms of affectionate communication, affectionate touch nurtures our mutual affection in a relationship.

What the New Study Explored

In their recent publication, Agnieszka Sorokowska and her authors reported two studies in which they examined the relationship between romantic love and affectionate touch behaviors. They administered a cross-cultural survey, collecting data from 7880 participants from 37 countries.

The two studies that the authors conducted revealed interesting results. Generally, this extensive cross-cultural research demonstrates the significance of nurturing love for affectionate touch behaviors and, conversely, the importance of affectionate touch for nurturing love. Although it may seem intuitive that love and affectionate touch are directly related, this new study is one of the few scientific studies that has convincingly demonstrated this association using empirical data.

These studies found that affectionate touch is consistently associated with love in a diverse range of cultures around the world. Partners with high levels of passionate and intimate dispositions more frequently use various kinds of affectionate touch in their romantic communication. However, the partners’ degree of commitment does not make them inclined to use more touching behavior. These differences in effects of these three components of love make sense since the first two are more emotional and physical, while the third is more rational but less physical.

Individual Differences in Affectionate Touch

The authors importantly noted that these statistical relationships substantially varied within cultures, in some cases higher than in others. I believe this means that despite the cross-cultural universality of affective touching in romantic relationships, individuals within those cultures may substantially differ typologically in their preferences for the use of affective touching in daily intimate encounters.

People’s attitudes toward touch are highly individual. And touch can be perceived as not necessarily pleasant, as in cases of social anxiety and touch avoidance. Some men or women may prefer avoiding touch or react negatively to touch, even in romantic relationships. However, even for those individuals who experience attachment avoidance and are less open to touch, more touch in a relationship can promote well-being. Individuals within any society may have different needs for affectionate touch behaviors. Some, for instance, may have a lower preference for interpersonal touch.

Cultural Factors Influencing Affectionate Touch

Collectivistic and individualistic cultural norms of proxemic behavior can have an effect on the frequency and cultural contexts in which men and women use their affective touch. Other cultural factors also play a role.

As the authors conclude, in more conservative and religious societies, cultural norms encourage more physically restrained expressions of affection. Therefore, people tend to use more formalized, less freely expressed, and less diversely expressed affectionate behaviors, even in private and intimate relationships.

What Authors Conclude

The authors of this study finally conclude that various kinds of touching are very common behaviors in romantic relationships. Partners in such relationships experience more need for touch from their romantic partner than they do from other people with whom they communicate and interact.

How Affectionate Touch Expresses Love to a Romantic Partner

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Men and women use many verbal and nonverbal ways to express their love for a partner in a relationship. Affectionate touch of various kinds is among the major nonverbal channels to express romantic love that lovers use in their intimate relationships.

Agnieszka Sorokowska and her colleagues explain the role of affectionate touch in romantic relationships.

What Is Affectionate Touch?

In romantic relationships, touch is the most common means of expressing intimacy. Loving partners touch each other significantly more frequently than other individuals. Those in romantic relationships show significantly more intimate touch with each other than those who are single. Even imagining a partner’s touch can evoke pleasurable and erogenous feelings.

Romantic partners are typically permitted to touch many more parts of the body than strangers or acquaintances. For instance, most people feel comfortable when their partner touches them in the abdomen and thighs, but not when other people do so. Moreover, affectionate touch in partnerships is more diverse than in other social interactions. When directed towards a romantic partner, a stroke, for example, is performed with a particularly low velocity.

In line with this, a recent cross-cultural study revealed that, despite significant intercultural differences, affectionate touch behaviors such as an embrace, caress, kiss, and hug are universally present in partnerships across the globe.

Why Touch Deprivation Is Bad

The tendency to use affectionate touch in romantic relationships seems natural. The negative effects of touch deprivation stand in stark contrast to the many advantages of affectionate touch in close relationships.

Touch deprivation is associated with anxiety, depression, and somatization. On the other hand, the higher prevalence of partner touch leads to better psychological well-being. Furthermore, interpersonal touch contributes to a lowered stress response by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol production. Touch can also reduce pain.

However, touching might not always be beneficial. Some people dislike touching. They may avoid touching others. Or have negative reactions to touching others. Such aspects of the relationship with a partner as low familiarity or a condition can make one feel a negative reaction to touch, such as disgust.

Why Affectionate Touch is Good in Close Relationships

Researchers use Affection Exchange Theory (AET) to interpret the significant implications and consequences of affectionate touch. According to this theory, affectionate communication is essential for “fostering the formation and maintenance of significant human pair bonds.” (Floyd, 2006, p. 165).

Expressions of affection are common among couples and related to the quality of romantic relationships. Men and women with higher levels of commitment in relationships usually physically display their affection toward their partners. The level of physical affection is also positively associated with relationship satisfaction and partner satisfaction while being negatively associated with attachment insecurity.

Affectionate communication typically includes multiple types of behaviors and verbal displays of affection. Men and women feel the desire for touch when their relationship quality is good.

Touch is strongly related to attachment patterns. When partners experience attachment avoidance, they are less likely to experience a desire for touch.

Love and Loving in Middle-Class Pakistan

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The article by Ammara Maqsood, Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at University College London, tells us the modern story of love in Pakistan and how modern urban women manage their desire for love in Pakistan.

Traditional marriages in Pakistan are arranged marriages. However, I previously talked about how love coexists with modern arranged marriages in Pakistan. I also explained the controversies surrounding love marriage in Pakistan.

Modern transformations in the notions of love, romantic love, intimacy, and conjugal relationships occur in Pakistan as well as in South Asia overall. The author challenges the traditional depiction of the transitional processes of love transformation in Pakistani culture as a straight lineal transition from the cultural values of ‘traditional’ (collective) obligations to the values of individual desires in modern individualistic societies.

Taking these ideas as a starting point, the author of this article examines how different types of intimacy coexist in a middle-class urban setting in Pakistan. The author does this by concentrating on the emotional experiences and modern relationships of young mobile women of the middle class in Lahore and Karachi, the two major cities in Pakistan.

“Within these families, like elsewhere in Pakistan in other South Asian contexts, arranged marriages are the norm, both in prevalence and in social approval. However, love unions, in the form of love-cum-arranged marriages – where partners engage in a pre-marital romance but then seek parental approval and follow typical marriage proceedings – and elopements that are on the rise.”

(Maqsood, 2021, p. 3).

How Different Ideas of Love in Pakistan Coexist

The article highlights the ways in which different ideals of love and intimacy coexist, the ways in which they are entangled in everyday practices, and the places, situations, and spaces in which they separate.

Young women, who live mostly in joint-family arrangements, need to negotiate between two values in their lives. On the one hand, they value their private desires for a life within a nuclear family and the associated forms of consumption. On the other hand, they respect the economic pressures and emotional obligations that necessitate their collective living in the nuclear family.

They live in a persistent presence of liminality, the psychological process of transitioning across the boundaries and borders of these two groups of values. In these conditions and contexts of their lives, the women make it possible for these competing desires to be experienced and managed in a certain way.

Love in Liminality

In this cultural context, their understanding of liminality opens their doors to experimentation and potentiality and provides a space in which they experience novel desires and behaviors.

However, at the same time, their “emotion work” to manage these situations and controversies bends and brings these new emotional paths into line with the moral codes that are culturally common in Pakistani society.

One young woman, who had married against her family’s wishes, commented on the hurt that she experienced when

“none of the women in the family did come to her wedding. Her husband’s family organised a small event, to mark the marriage, and invited her family members, in a bid to normalise relations. In response, her two brothers came but left without eating. She said, ‘more than anything, I felt bad .. still feel sad … that my younger sister in law did not come. My mother, I can understand, she was forbidden but she loves me, but my sister in law, she could have convinced my brother [her husband]’

(Maqsood, 2021, p. 7).

Professor Ammara Maqsood also tells in her article other dramatic stories of love and marriage in modern Pakistani urban cultures.

As the author concludes, these individual experiences are not gradual transformations from collective to individualistic ties and persona values. These young women do not disrupt pre-existing ethical codes. These emotional practices are rather the management of differing demands and desires that constitute ‘feeling’ middle-class.

How to Avoid Date Night Boredom and Passion Decline

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The article describes how a date night, and a romantic relationship can become boring and what partners can do to make them more passionate.

Many love scholars consider passion to be a key feature of romantic love and the beginning of romantic relationships. The boost of passion appears so high that it seems like its intensity will never fade. However, keeping the spark of passionate love alive is challenging.

How to Maintain Passion in a Romantic Relationship

In romantic relationships, passion entails intense feelings of emotional and sexual longing for a partner. In European and European-American cultures, many people believe that they can be happier when their romantic relationships are more passionate. However, the reality of relationships shows that passion, which is usually high when a romantic relationship starts, tends to fade over time as the relationship evolves (Karandashev, 2019; 2022).

You can certainly foster passion in long-term relationships by participating in exciting activities with a partner, such as travel, hiking, or date nights. People can gain new perceptions of a relationship and themselves through these kinds of activities, especially when they are distinctively special.

For instance, you might discover that you enjoy camping, hear various political viewpoints, or encounter various cultural practices and cuisines. Being engaged in these events may lead to greater sexual arousal, passion, and relationship satisfaction. This psychological phenomenon refers to the “excitation transfer.”

The excitation-transfer effect explains the secret of falling in love instantly. It also explains how sexual arousal transfers to other emotions.

The advantages of participating in an exciting activity with a partner are evident. However, many have difficulties doing so. For example, some people may not be very good at setting up exciting dates with their romantic partners. Others may experience difficulties or be stressed by something else. They might be ill. They may have a hard time finding childcare, or they may be strapped for cash.

What Is the Boredom of Date Night and a Relationship?

Another problem is that one of the partners or both can become bored in a relationship rut, also known as boredom.

Boredom is a dissatisfying emotional state that can affect all aspects of a person’s life, including their relationships. At its most extreme, relationship boredom is apathy associated with feeling trapped and not wanting to be around the partner.

Typically, a person feeling bored in a relationship can feel like they have lost something once positive. You may feel as though the spark, fun, and laughter have disappeared. ‘Spice things up’ is a common piece of advice given to individuals who feel stuck in a rut. However, does it work?

Boredom Affects the Frequency and Quality of Date Nights

The feeling of boredom makes it more difficult to add excitement to the relationship. To investigate the problem, Cheryl Harasymchuk, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, studied how people maintain happy relationships.

In a recent study, the authors tracked the relationships of couples who were already in committed relationships. Researchers monitored their experiences on a daily basis over three weeks, followed by a three-month follow-up.

The authors revealed that on days when partners were more bored in their relationship than usual, they had a lower occurrence of exciting, shared activities (such as date nights).

Furthermore, when men or women who were more bored than usual went on dates, they had dates of lower quality and experienced lower feelings of enjoyment, passion, closeness, and satisfaction. The authors also discovered that men or women who were bored at the start of the study had fewer exciting dates and less relationship passion three months later. Thus, oddly, just when couples need it the most, bored partners are less likely to engage in date nights. Even if they do, the quality of their dates may be lower.

How to Avoid a Boring Date Night and the Decline of Passion

What can couples do, then, to rekindle their passion and break out of a rut?

First of all, you should remember that not every type of date night will be ideal for you. A couple may attend a play as an idea for an exciting date. While it can become another couple’s disappointment. This does not mean that you must go “bungee jumping.”

Talk with your partners about what will fit the level of excitement in your relationship. What fascinates you two? Attempt a novel, exotic restaurant? Or testing your teamwork to see if you can survive a terrifying haunted house? Even discussing potential outcomes can occasionally be exciting.

Partners may also try a variety of activities before settling on one that appeals to both of them in their relationship. For instance, both a man and a woman may not enjoy dancing or rock climbing, but they might enjoy taking a cooking class together.

Partners’ expectations are also important. They may need to adjust their beliefs in order to avoid unrealistic goals, such as recreating the intense feelings from the beginning of the relationship. Instead, partners should concentrate on being present in the moment and being thankful for the time spent with their loved ones.

Finally, there are numerous spices in the “spice things up” cabinet. If you can’t find the right ingredient for your love and relationship, ask around or look it up on the internet.

Lastly, doing fun things together is just one way to make a relationship more passionate. Spending time apart doing hobbies can give couples new things to talk about and give the relationship new energy in terms of how each person feels and how the other person sees them.

It Is Wise for a Woman Hiding Her Defects

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Ovid was a renowned Roman poet who lived between 43 BCE and 17 CE. His poetry trilogy “Ars Amatoria” (The Art of Love) has been popular among educated and noble individuals for centuries. Numerous modern humanities scholars are familiar with Ovid’s “The Art of Love.” In his poems, Ovid instructs Roman men and women on how to attract and maintain a partner’s affection as well as how to make love.

The Romans lived in a different time and had a different way of life than people do now. But I think that educated men and women today can still learn something from Ovid’s poetry collections about love. This is why I’ve put excerpts from these books on this website for people who want to learn more about how ancient Romans thought about love.

“Ars Amatoria” is a book of poetry with helpful advice for modern men and women on how to find and keep a partner. Ovid’s first two books of poetry give advice on how to talk to, court, and seduce women. The poetic wisdom in the third book shows women how to entice and love men.

The Roman Art of Love Published in my Earlier Blog Posts

In earlier blog posts, I shared some of Ovid’s advice to men in the form of poetry. Some of the things these beautiful verses talk about are, “What Is His Task“, “Search for Love while at the Theatre“, “Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman“, “Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach“, “How to Know the Maid“, “How to Make Promises of Love to Her“, “How to Woo and Seduce a Woman”, “How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner”, and “How Tears, Kisses, Taking the Lead Can Help in Love Affairs”.

Here are some poetic quotes from Book III of Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria,” addressed to girls and women. Ovid teaches them about love and how prudent it is for a woman to conceal her defects.

Idealization of the beloved is the core feature of romantic love (Karandashev, 2017; 2019; 2022). So, what Ovid suggested is really worthwhile.

Here Is How Ovid Advises Women to Be Prudent in Concealing Their Defects

“I’ve not come to teach Semele or Leda, or Sidon’s Europa,

carried through the waves by that deceptive bull,

or Helen, whom Menelaus, being no fool, reclaimed,

and you, Paris, her Trojan captor, also no fool, withheld.

The crowd come to be taught, girls pretty and plain:

and always the greater part are not-so-good.

The beautiful ones don’t seek art and instruction:

they have their dowry, beauty potent without art:

the sailor rests secure when the sea’s calm:

when it’s swollen, he uses every aid.

Still, faultless forms are rare: conceal your faults,

and hide your body’s defects as best you may.

If you’re short sit down, lest, standing, you seem to sit:

and commit your smallness to your couch:

there also, so your measure can’t be taken,

let a shawl drop over your feet to hide them.

If you’re very slender, wear a full dress, and walk about

in clothes that hang loosely from your shoulders.

A pale girl scatters bright stripes across her body,

the darker then have recourse to linen from Alexandria.

Let an ugly foot be hidden in snow-white leather:

and don’t loose the bands from skinny legs.

Thin padding suits those with high shoulder blades:

a good brassiere goes with a meagre chest.

Those with thick fingers and bitten nails,

make sparing use of gestures whenever you speak.

Those with strong breath don’t talk when you’re fasting. and always keep your mouth a distance from your lover.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.

What Happened with Marriage in the Late 20th Century?

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The middle of the 20th century, from the 1950s to the 1960s, was the “golden age of marriage” and the triumph of romantic love. Many modern societies have experienced the rise of the cultural ideologies of “love marriage” and “sexual revolution.” The number of marriages increased above 90%. By the 1960s, the popularity of love marriage had become nearly universal. Becoming married appeared to be the happy destiny of romantic love. Men and women tended to marry at a young age (see Karandashev, 2017, for a review).

After more than 150 years of striving for romantic love ideals, love had a triumph and conquered marriage (Coontz 2005). The cultural ideals established the new norms of the love-based marriage in North America and Western Europe, as well as in many other modern countries.

However, the “golden age of marriage” of the 1950s and 1960s, which promised to make people happy in love marriages, surprising reversal of romantic cultural ideals.

Love conquered marriage after more than 150 years of striving for romantic love ideals (Coontz, 2005). The cultural ideals established the new norms of love-based marriage in North America, Western Europe, and many other modern countries. The “golden age of marriage” of the 1950s and 1960s promised to make people happy in love marriages.

 However, the popularity of romantic cultural ideals and marriage began to decline.

What happened in the late 20th century with the cultural evolution of marriage?

A Turning Point at the End of Marriage’s Golden Age

In the 1960s, marriage seemed to have achieved the right balance between love and social stability. Love-based marriage encouraged the right to choose a marital partner. That cultural ideology valued romantic love and personal choice over inherited social ties and family obligations. Young and educated people, especially women, found this cultural perspective on marriage to be very appealing (see Karandashev, 2017).

However, something unexpected happened with the ideals of love marriage. Significant cultural changes started to take place in the opposite direction in the late 1970s. Cultural evolution turned out to be too fast and too drastic. Instead of evolutionary progress, it became a cultural revolution.

What Changed in Love and Marriage in the Late 20th Century?

Mid-1970s love, sex, and marriage attitudes and behaviors changed too quickly. The radical cultural ideas reversed “traditional” marriage. Many of these changes occurred because of the unfulfilled marital expectations of men and women. Their dissatisfaction grew when they did not meet their marriage ideals of love, intimacy, and partnership. Many failed to find happiness in marriage.

The Age and Length of Marriage in the Second Half of the 20th Century

Love marriage had become a common cultural norm in many societies by the 1960s. Marriage appeared to be the happy destiny of the romantic love dreams of youngsters (see Karandashev, 2017, for a review).

In general, men and women married at a young age, and their marriages lasted longer than at any time in European and American history. For example, in 1900, the average marriage in America and Europe lasted 11 years. During the “golden age of marriage” of the 1950s, marriages lasted on average 31 years. However, between 1966 and 1979, the age when men and women married increased. However, the length of marriage shortened, and divorce rates accelerated and doubled by the 2000s. The marriages in the 2000s lasted, on average, seven years.

There was good news and bad news about the evolution of marriage by the early 2000s. The positive trend was that the number of divorces had been going down steadily over the last few decades of the 20th century. The negative trend was that fewer men and women were getting married at all.

The Declining Number of Marriages in the Late 20th Century

Another alarming trend of the late 20th century was the decline of marriages overall. In particular, by the late 1970s, there were high divorce rates as well as a decline in the number of people remarrying after divorce.

New alternatives to marriage, like cohabitation, emerged. Living together without registering the marriage became quite widespread. In the United States of America, for instance, the number of unmarried couples cohabiting increased seven times between the years 1970 and 1999.

In the 1970s and 1980s, many couples usually decided to get married when a woman became pregnant. However, in the 1990s, women and men no longer considered marriage as important to become pregnant or give birth. By the early 2000s, nearly 40% of cohabiting couples in the United States had children under the age of 18 living with them (Seltzer 2004; Smock & Gupta 2002, see for review Karandashev, 2017, p. 168).

What Happened After the Golden Age of Marriage?

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Social scientists coined the term “golden age of marriage,“ referring to the period in the middle of the 20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, the cultural ideology of “love marriage” and a number of marriages became popular and prevalent in many European countries, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and some other modernized societies across the world. According to statistics, more than 90% of all women and men wanted to marry, and they married at a young age. Marriage had become nearly universal in those countries by the 1960s (for a review, see Karandashev, 2017).

The Triumph of the Love-Marriage Cultural Ideology

Love finally conquered marriage and transformed marital relationships (Coontz 2005). The ideals of romantic love, emotional closeness, and sexual satisfaction for both partners became accepted by educated and liberal people, especially those of a young age. The love ideology implied the possibility for men and women to select the bride and groom of their personal choice according to their preferences and love ideals.

The ideals of love marriage also anticipated companionate love relationships and partnerships. Happiness among married partners was expected to be high, and it was frequently found to be so. The divorce rate remained stable. They enjoyed personal freedom in their marital relationships. Married couples had a strong sense of autonomy from their extended family.

Sex and Marriage in the Golden Age of Marriage

In the 1960s and 1970s, sex became a private matter between two individuals. Men and women became more interested in the issues of sexual relationships and sexual pleasure. America and Europe were experiencing a sexual revolution. 

Women’s sexual attitudes changed. Previously, a woman could not achieve full sexual equality because of cultural reservations in this regard. New cultural norms not only permitted sexual pleasure for women but also encouraged it. The sexual revolution of the time recognized men and women’s sexual equality to have sexual satisfaction. 

The fear of an undesired pregnancy also played a role. While she and her partner could have “fun,” only she was primarily responsible for a child. Therefore, couples who had free premarital sex were expected to marry eventually (Murstein 1974, pp. 441–442).

The Beginning of the End of the Golden Age of Marriage

In the 1960s, marriage appeared to have found the optimal balance between the personal freedom of a love match and the constraints necessary for social stability. The ideology of love-based marriage affirms the right of the individual to choose his or her own spouse. Additionally, this cultural ideology emphasized the importance of the individual over inherited wealth and an ethnic group.

Social scientists predicted that many societies across the world would soon adopt this marriage pattern and these cultural values. This perspective on marital relationships was very appealing to young and educated individuals, particularly women (see Karandashev, 2017).

What Happened to Love Marriage Cultural Ideals? 

Surprisingly to many, significant changes began to occur in the opposite direction. In the late 1970s, the cultural revolution took place at a too fast pace and too drastically, getting out of control. The radical ideas of the late 1960s and early 1970s did not transform but overturn “traditional” marriage. Various changes in the realm of relationships occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

The pace of change in marriage attitudes and behaviors became too fast in the mid-1970s. Many of these transformations likely occurred because people did not meet their needs in marriages. Men and women initially sought to find their fulfillment at home. However, when their idealistic expectations for marriage were not met, their discontent grew. Accordingly, people became critical of the lack of intimacy and unsatisfying relationships with their spouses. When they hoped to achieve personal happiness and tried to make this happen within marriage, their expectations failed. Personal discontent with 1950s marital intimacy ideals, combined with economic and political changes in the 1960s and 1970s, most likely overturned 1950s gender roles and marriage patterns.

An American Professor of History and Family Studies, Stephanie Coontz, commented in her book that “it took more than 150 years to establish the love-based, male breadwinner marriage as the dominant model in North America and Western Europe,” but “it took less than 25 years to dismantle it” (Coontz, 2005, p. 247).