| Popis: |
Romantic love is an idea both ubiquitous and timeless. Stories and songs of love span across ancient civilizations, biblical tales, mythologies, and are indisputably apparent in life today. Romantic love is present in most cultures. As such, love is thought to have a function in human biology. Feelings of love allow us to create bonds and relationships that facilitate courtship, mating, and ultimately the continuance of the human species. Romantic love is also evidently rooted in human physiology. This article is a review of studies of romantic love, as reasoned in evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and human physiology. This review explores the biological purpose and effects of love and concludes that love is more than a feeling. Love is a human drive. I discuss love in relation to the five senses and to neurophysiology to demonstrate that love physically affects our bodies and minds and to show how it does so. I then discuss lost love, or "heartbreak", and the bases for commonly held methods to move past or heal from it. Given the biological function of love, I propose that as surely as one can fall in love, one can fall out of it. This article shows the multifaceted nature of love and how it intricately takes form within us. |
