Different Forms Of Love example essay topic

Love (l v) n. deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (c) 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc). There are many different definitions of love. To each person it is different, but most agree it is one of the most important emotions to the each creature on this earth. There are also many different forms of love.

For instance, love for your family versus love for a mate. Itis still a mystery to most people why people do crazy things for love, or why people feel love "conquers all". Definitions of love go as far as Greek mythology. For example, the story of Cupid and His mortal Bride Psyche.

There are many explanations on how love exactly came to mean what it does. According to John Lee there are 6 different types of love. 1. Erotic love: romantic, sexual irrational, and largely based on physical attraction.

2. Manic love: intense, all consuming, possessive, and fluctuating between joy and despair. 3. Ludic love: egoistic, self-serving, competitive, and based on an unequal relationship between one partner who is highly committed and another who is emotionally uninvolved.

4. Pragmatic love: a rational, practical, fair exchange between two carefully matched partners. 5. Stor gic love: the companionate, stable love that emerges from a relationship between friends. 6. Aga pic love: the altruistic devotion of one partner for the other.

Many people have theories, but overall love is whatever the actual individual perceives it to be. Through the ages, thinkers and writers have attempted to solve the mystery of love. Myths, poetry and novels have the longest history of recording the idea of love. For example, the Sumerian and Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh goes back to 2000 BC, Egyptian love poetry was written on papyri and vases between 1300 and 1100 BC, and Chinese folk love songs were first documented between 1000 BC and 700 BC. Countless philosophers, from Plato to Martin Luther, from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Santayana and Sartre have also devoted their writings to conceptualizing love. Freud looks at love from the perspective of the sexual drive.

According to him, love as well as sexuality is rooted in infancy (Freud, 1905). A person's first love object is the mother. The mother's breast provides the infant not only with nourishment but also a source of sexual pleasure which he will later on seek from his adult lover. (For girls, the object of love somehow later becomes the father. Freud views adult love and sexuality as an extension (or rediscovery) of their infantile forms. Believing that self-expansion is a basic motivation for human behavior, Aron and Aron (1986) state that people are attracted to others in whom they see the opportunity for self-expansion.

They also believe that their theory can clarify some controversial issues related to attraction. For example, similarity has been identified by researchers as a major predictor of attraction. But how do you explain the controversy between the idea that 'birds of a feather flock together' and the notion that 'opposites attract'? There is also the difference between Love of a Family member and love of a mate.

Although both seem strong to the heart they are no where near similar. That is why it is sometimes difficult for two in a relationship to choose between a lover and their families. The feeling of love for a mate seemingly appears strong although family had been there all your lives. Although it is debated which love is more important in the bible it says that when a man gets married he is to leave his family and make his new family his first and most important family. There are many different forms of love, but all seem to play an important role in the lives of everyone. Love is only 4 letters, but it is the most complicated emotion yet.

I can make you sad, happy, and mad all at the same time. It seems love is important but many often do not see the true meaning. In my opinion love is about looking into the eyes of the person you share it with and knowing that whatever you did wrong in your life couldn't have been so bad because it brought you to this person. Its meaning that no matter what you are willing to go through think and thin to be with this person. It's a feeling that cannot be explained with words but if I had to pick one word to describe this wonderful yet, difficult emotion it would be, breathtaking.