Patriarchal norms, rural conservatism, and gender inequality heavily influence how women in traditional Nicaraguan and Brazilian societies feel in love, relationships, and marriage. The Latin American cultural norms of “machismo” and “marianismo” have a substantial impact on Nicaraguan and Brazilian gender relations. People highly values practical love.

According to them, men are strong, and women are weak. Men have many choices in social relations, while women are limited in their social encounters. Overall, men have more power, higher status, and more relationship freedom compared to women. Thus, intergender relations appear at first like those in a traditional patriarchy (Hagene, 2008; Rebhun, 1999).

Romantic Dating in Rural Areas of Traditional Societies

Thanks to social media, Nicaraguan and Brazilian women and men are familiar with what romantic love is. Many people in Latin America watch “telenovelas,” which depict charming and captivating romantic stories.

Many of these telenovelas are produced by Brazilian, Argentinian, and Mexican cinematographers. They portray romantic love in Latin American cultural contexts, thus imprinting culturally specific scripts and expressions of love in women’s and men’s minds. They naturally and unconsciously incorporate “machismo” and “marianismo” values and behaviors into the way they think and act.

These cultural stereotypes form the scripts and roles that women and men play in romantic and familial relationships. People see romantic love as one in which passion and sexuality are closely intertwined. They still learn what Latin love is and the culturally proper roles of Latin American men and women (Hagene, 2008; Rebhun, 1999).

Traditional Romantic Macho Love

In romantic relationships with women, men show their masculine manners, superior position, high self-esteem, assertiveness, benevolent dominance, and sexual potency. For them, romantic dating is mostly a sexual affair. They take leadership in the relationship. All these behaviors are pleasing to women and appear as romantic conquering. If they like a man, they like to be concurred upon. The “chase and catch” game looks romantic. Thus, they demonstrate themselves as culturally normative Latino men.

In romantic relationships with men, women show their feminine manners, humble status, weakness, shyness, submissiveness, dutifulness, and altruistic dispositions. They willingly accept the men’s leadership and guidance. being agreeable and responsive. Thus, they demonstrate themselves as culturally normative Latina women. They romantically enjoy the man’s wooing and commitment and promise to marry, pair-bond, and have children with her. For them, dating is very romantic due to expectations of marriage, family, and children (Karandashev, 2017).

Turning Romantic Love Into a Practical Love of Service

Romantic dating and premarital love run pleasantly up to the point of marriage. Then, Nicaraguan or Brazilian romantic love turns to the customary practical love of daily routine. Romantic love turns into love as service action. In peasant communities, where men and women do different but complementary jobs and have different roles, this idea of love is common (Hagene, 2008; Rebhun, 1999).

The practical perception of love has much meaning in rural and agricultural settings and can be considered a version of love in accordance with the gendered division of tasks in the traditional patriarchal gender order. Work, proper gender role fulfillment, and cooperation are prioritized. In everyday life, a husband can do his wife’s tasks when she is ill, and this is also regarded as an act of love. In many different sociocultural contexts, doing each other favors indicates love.

Men frequently refer to women’s cooking and other housework as acts of love. As one man commented,

“I can never get to clean a glass or anything because she will do it all for me.”

A woman expressed her perspective on love as action this way: “I remember how he cared for me after I had given birth to our son. He bathed me, combed my hair, and cooked for me.”

This woman did not say that this was an expression of love, but her voice and dreamy smile seemed to indicate it (Hagene, 2008, p.221).

Men and women love in these cultural contexts by doing something good for each other and their families, rather than experiencing and expressing love verbally or nonverbally. They feel love when they consider what they can do for someone else. For them, love is work and service for the common good of the family.

Habits of Practical Love

These notions of love refer to love as a habit or customary love that a wife and husband develop through their day-to-day complementary practical cooperation. Spouses communicate love less frequently through sexual and verbal channels and more in the practical actions of serving each other and their families. What they do for the family is what really conveys love.

In this customary love, the values of emotional experiences and verbal expressions diminish. Intimacy does not play much of a role. In the context of this love, sex is a part of the wife’s housework routine. In this context, a woman may perceive the man’s infidelity as not being as problematic as it appears at first glance. For her, it can endanger the social side of the relationship rather than the emotional one. These family unions are driven more by social than emotional motives (Hagene, 2008; Rebhun, 1999).