(1) Arthur Schopenhauer, the most pessimistic German philosopher, once said: “Every kind of love, however beautiful and ethereal, springs entirely from the sexual instinct; And he added, in another place, that "that growing affection between two lovers for each other is in fact a will to live that is expressed in this new being, who will become his parents."
To some degree, Schopenhauer was right when he thought that humans aim at procreation in one form or another, but he was wrong about only one thing, which is that he reduced love as an instrument of sex, or as a maneuver to pass the act of sex on at some point in the relationship, as if it were a purely enjoyable romantic cover We make the accusation that we are not very different from the rest of the animals, and despite the axiom of that idea, it is completely wrong, but to understand the degrees of error in it let us now go to the eighties of the last century.
While he was working on the characterization of human intelligence, Robert Sternberg of Yale University managed to create what he called the love triangle theory (2), in an earlier report by the author titled "Is There Really such a thing as Love at First Sight?"
You can consider this theory in more detail, but let us now only define its main features. Sternberg says that love is nothing but a union of three sides that together make one triangle.
The first aspect is “intimacy”, and it means the desire to get close to the other party, share information and feel degrees of communication with him, while the second is “passion”, which is what Schopenhauer talked about, which is concerned with physical attraction and sex, then comes the third aspect, which is “commitment.” It means a clear conscious decision that you love someone and that you want to commit to that relationship and make the effort to keep it going. There are many types of relationships, but the combination of these three is what makes "love."
According to Sternberg, then love is not just a hoax for the sake of sex. In fact, there may be some relationships that include sex only between two people. They are cases of “love” and of course they are relationships that will not last long, but if we decide to pay attention to the importance of this “continuity” in the relationship, Which requires a commitment from one person to another, to reach an important idea in this context, what if the goal is to continue the relationship as far as possible? What if the presence of the male and female together, after sex, was as important as the sex itself?
Let's do some math at that point. Although human males produce abundant sperm, females produce very few eggs. When conception occurs, we have to wait a full nine months for delivery. Add to that that the human infant comes to this world with only one ability, which is to swallow what is placed in his stomach of ready food, without that he cannot do any activity, it takes a number of years - until the age of childhood or adolescence - for human beings to be able to Self-reliance to a degree, which means that someone must take care of them until that stage, but the presence of the mother only for the purposes of care cannot easily secure that plan, and therefore the presence of the man was also necessary to provide her with resources and protect the family.
Now let us consider how sympathy continues (3) between man and woman, to imagine that there were two groups of families at some point in human history two hundred thousand years ago, for example, the first with men who do not have feelings of sympathy for some genetic reason, in which case the man abandons the woman after Having sex and leaving it to pregnancy, childbirth, care and upbringing, and the second group is found with men who have feelings of sympathy, these will decide to stay with the family and continue to care for the children and invest in securing their future.
At that point we can ask: Which of the two groups has a better chance of surviving and raising healthy children?
Exactly, the second case, therefore, the families in which the man did not remain were more exposed to dangers than those in which the man remained, which means better passing of the genes of the second case, so that in the future they became more prevalent, from that point love appeared and continued as a major component of human traits.
It is of course not that simple, but it is only an example to approximate the idea.
Thus, love can be understood as an additional purpose for survival that came in the form of “sympathy” or “affection.” Besides having sex in order to pass our genes on to children, we also had to develop additional feelings that tempt us to stay together in order to secure their future, but the matter does not stop Only at this point do we know that those traits that find acceptance because they improve our adaptation to the environment vary and branch out into many other forms. At that point let's consider together the experiences of David Buss of the University of Texas, who decided, about two decades ago, to test the factors That pushes both men and women to enter into a relationship.
Boss' idea was simple, a poll (4) containing 18 adjectives, the test subject places a value on each and ranks them in terms of the most important to him. The main objective of the study was to examine the differences between men and women in their preferences for the opposite sex. The strength of this set of Boss' experiences stemmed from From the number of participants and their diversity, they are about 10,000 people from 36 different cultures in 33 countries, which means that the results that will come out of his experiments will be global, shared by all human beings.
In the first set of results, “love” came to the fore in the interests of humans in all cultures as one of the first three choices, in association with other qualities that a person requires in the opposite sex, such as the nature of the personality (emotional and dependent) and then some other features such as being smart, kind or open In those first points, both men and women are similar, then in the second set of results came the differences, where men preferred the shape and body of women, while women preferred men's resources, and here - in general - the social and functional status of him is meant.
Male individuals who desired long-term relationships with the opposite sex were more dependent on their preferences on women's faces than their bodies
These results were repeated (5) in more than one study and within different cultural domains. This means that we humans have developed throughout our history a preference for love as the main reason for entering into a relationship, while concerns about physical attraction have taken a second place, which means that we have been able to create that important reform that we call "culture" as opposed to the immediate instinct that You always ask us to pay attention to the biological matter only.
Even in subsequent studies (6) to Boss, which attempted to test gender preferences via pictures, the results indicated that male individuals desiring long-term relationships with the opposite sex were more dependent on their preferences on women's faces rather than their bodies. Although physical preferences are a major criterion for fertility, according to previous studies by "Devendra Sinh" from the same university, they are largely neglected in the case of wanting to approach someone for the purpose of love, because love, as we said, is separate from sex, even by containing sex as one of the main factors for its continuation.
Joseph Heinrich, a well-known professor of anthropology from Harvard University, takes this idea even deeper. He sees that social norms for human beings were not only (7) tools we developed to obtain the best outcomes for survival, but became goals For themselves, we develop and work with them and for them, so Heinrich imagines that the choices of males and females of human beings, in each other, have evolved culturally with time, meaning that their preferences for the presence of love in the relationship have increased dramatically during the past few decades only, and even a group was added Other factors.
Partnership for example was one of those factors, psychological support. Indeed, in most developed countries, according to Heinrich(8), marriage has shifted from being a covenant based on responsibilities and mutual loyalty only to a relationship based on personal satisfaction, meaning that each party seeks greater intimacy and better self-growth through open communication and expression of feelings with his partner . According to Heinrich, this individualistic point of view is one of the main contemporary criteria for assessing the quality of marriages, or as a determinant of their undertaking. In a clearer sense, if answering questions such as: Do I feel better about myself in that relationship? Or will this new relationship make me feel good about myself? By "yes" this is a criterion for a good and desired relationship.
After all, treating love as a gambit for sex is crude shorthand. We humans are complex beings, of course we all aim for the same purpose as the rest of living organisms, which is survival and passing on our genes, but we were able through “culture” to master the application of that rule, we created clothes, music, drawing, poetry, and developed writing, throughout our long history we were able In addition to all of that we have given great attention to the feelings of love between us, what began primarily as a state of sympathy has evolved into what we know about love.
From Romeo and Juliet, to Qais Ibn al-Mallouh, to Antara Ibn Shaddad, from novels to poems, gifts and rules of marriage that begin with the sermon to all the details of the wedding, the dress, the dress, and the band that will play one of Amr Diab's songs during the opening dance. If you contemplate our long history, you will find that All this complexity has appeared little by little in a wonderful gradation in our culture, it is as if we have been, over a long history, miserable at times and joyful at others, celebrating love.
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Sources
Essays of Schopenhauer, by Arthur Schopenhauer- Metaphysics of Love.
1- Sternberg, RJ (1986).
A triangular theory of love.
Psychological Review, 93, 119–135.
Evolutionary Psychology: An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the Human Mind - Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate
love Buss, DM (1987).
Love acts: The evolutionary biology of
The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society Jason Powell l Jon (Joe) Hendricks Ch.
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More than just a pretty face: men's priority shifts toward bodily attractiveness in short-term versus long-term mating contexts
The Secret of Our Success - Joe Hendricks
The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society Jason Powell l Jon (Joe) Hendricks Ch.
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