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• Published: 31 January 2024

A decade of love: mapping the landscape of romantic love research through bibliometric analysis

• Yixue Han 1 ,
• Yulin Luo 1 ,
• Zhuohong Chen 1 ,
• Nan Gao 1 ,
• Yangyang Song 1 &
• Shen Liu 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  187 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Given the limited availability of bibliometric and visual analysis on the topic of romantic love, the primary objective of the current study is to fill this gap by conducting a comprehensive visual analysis of relevant literature. Through this analysis, the current study aimed to uncover current research trends and identify potential future directions in the field of romantic love. The current study’s search criteria were met by an impressive 6858 publications found in the Web of Science database for the period between 2013 and 2022. A thorough analysis was conducted on the bibliographic visualization of the authors, organizations, countries, references, and keywords. Over time, there has been a remarkable surge in the number of significant publications. Among the authors in the field of romantic love, Emily A. Impett has emerged as the most prolific. The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships is indeed one of the top journals that has published a significant number of articles on the topic of romantic love. During the preceding decade, the University of California System emerged as a prominent producer of publications centered around romantic love, solidifying the United States’ position as a dominant player in this field. In recent times, there has been a significant surge in the popularity of keywords such as “same-sex,” “conflict resolution,” and “social relationships” within academic literature. These topics have experienced a burst of attention, as evidenced by a substantial increase in references and citations. Through the use of visualization maps and analysis of key publications, the current study offers a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and potential avenues for future research in the field of romantic love. Gaining a deep understanding of the complex dynamics and societal implications of romantic love has been instrumental in formulating policies that embody increased compassion and support. As a result, these policies have played a pivotal role in fostering resilient familial ties and contributing to the enduring stability and prosperity of our social fabric.

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Introduction, the development course of romantic love.

Romantic love, as defined by Hatfield and Rapson ( 1987 ) as an intense longing for union with another, has long been recognized as a driving force behind some of humanity’s most remarkable achievements. Studies by Bartels and Zeki ( 2000 ) and the work of Fehr ( 2013 , 2015 ) have further emphasized its profound impact. Previous research has suggested that romantic love has a crucial role in the development and maintenance of romantic relationships. It involves a transition from the significant investment of time and attention in the initial stages to enhanced communication and satisfaction in committed partnerships (Mizrahi et al. 2022 ). However, recent research has shown that in the United States, the divorce rate has consistently remained at historically high levels. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( 2017 ), ~40–50% of first marriages end in divorce. In recent times, there has been a trend toward shorter and more prevalent romantic relationships. Alirezanejad ( 2022 ) found that different generations of women have maintained distinct expectations and experiences when it comes to love. Additionally, the significance of commitment in romantic relationships has witnessed a decline. These findings also indicate that there are additional factors at play that influence the dynamics between romantic love and the duration of relationships. The triangular theory of love, being one of the most widely used theories on romantic love, proposes that romantic love consists of three components: intimacy, passion, and an absence of commitment, alongside a willingness to invest resources without expecting reciprocation (Jimenez-Picon et al. 2022 ). The Love Attitude Scale (LAS) developed by Clyde and Susan Hendrick has been a significant contribution in the study of romantic love using psychometric methods. Tobore ( 2020 ) introduced a comprehensive four-fold framework that aims to elucidate the dynamics of how love evolves and diminishes. This framework includes the elements of attraction, empathy or connection, trust, and respect. As a result, the enigmatic and unique nature of romantic love has captivated the attention of scholars from various disciplines, including psychology, biology, sociology, and neuroscience. These scholars have conducted extensive research and investigations into the complexities of romantic love. Thus, the present study conducted a comprehensive and in-depth analysis and discourse on romantic love, spanning multiple research domains. Additionally, the publication emphasized the influence of romantic love on positive emotions as well as its association with various negative behaviors. Furthermore, it underscored the importance of utilizing bibliometric analysis as a valuable approach to study and understand romantic love.

The research directions of romantic love in different disciplines

Psychologists have focused on exploring the relationship between romantic love and negative emotions in individuals with mental illnesses. Lafontaine et al. ( 2020 ) found a correlation between romantic love insecurity, specifically anxiety and avoidance, and the occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV). This pattern of behavior was shown to undermine relationships and diminish individuals’ sense of security. Moreover, individuals with schizophrenia and other mental health conditions faced significant challenges in building and sustaining healthy interpersonal connections, partly due to the enduring stigma associated with mental illness (Budziszewska et al. 2020 ). Biological researchers have delved into the physiological activities and responses associated with romantic love. Furthermore, biological research has demonstrated that communication plays a crucial role in enhancing romantic relationships by facilitating physiological and behavioral adaptations between partners. For instance, a study by Zeevi et al. ( 2022 ) revealed that men and women in a romantic relationship can enhance their romantic interest in each other by synchronizing their skin electrical activities and modifying their behavior. These findings suggest that the social adaptation of the sympathetic nervous system and motor behavior play a critical role in the romantic attraction between partners. Furthermore, recent biological research conducted by Kerr et al. ( 2022 ) has discovered a correlation between unsuitable adult attachment in romantic relationships and the interpersonal circumplex, which is a component of personality pathology. Furthermore, a sociological study on pair-bonding conducted by Fletcher et al. ( 2015 ) highlighted that romantic love is intricately linked to the evolution and survival of Homo sapiens, making it a biologically significant function with profound evolutionary implications. Neuroscientists have examined the activation of different brain regions that are triggered by romantic love activities. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has emerged as a prominent technique for studying the neurobiological basis of love. Researchers such as Acevedo et al. ( 2020 ) and Chester et al. ( 2021 ) have utilized fMRI to investigate the neural correlates of romantic love and gain insights into the brain mechanisms underlying this complex phenomenon. Neuroscientists have identified specific brain regions associated with love, including the insula and anterior cingulate cortex. These regions are involved in the processing of emotional experiences related to valued objects. A study by Bartels and Zeki ( 2000 ) highlighted the involvement of these brain regions in the experience of romantic love, shedding light on the neural mechanisms underlying the emotional aspects of love. The activation of reward-related areas in the brain, particularly those rich in oxytocin, has been observed in individuals experiencing love. Studies by Acevedo et al. ( 2012 ) and Bartels and Zeki ( 2004 ) have shown that regions associated with reward processing, such as the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, are involved in the experience of romantic love. Indeed, the involvement of the reward system in love has surpassed expectations. During the initial stages of romantic love, research conducted by Fisher et al. ( 2010 ) has shown that reward-related brain regions, including the bilateral ventral tegmental areas, are activated more strongly compared to the later stages of passion.

The social impact of romantic love

Undoubtedly, falling in love has a profound impact on people’s daily lives, as highlighted by research conducted by Quintard et al. ( 2021 ). Falling in love has been associated with enhanced well-being and has been correlated with fervor, activity, pleasure, and other positive emotions, as noted in research conducted by Langeslag ( 2022 ). However, it is important to acknowledge that the pitfalls of romantic love are often overlooked. Research, such as that conducted by Lonergan et al. ( 2022 ), has found associations between romantic love and criminal activity as well as psychological disorders. Additionally, studies by Aron et al. ( 2005 ), Merritt et al. ( 2022 ) and Li et al. ( 2022 ) have highlighted the presence of unpleasant affective states such as hyperarousal, anxiety, and depression in the context of romantic love. In recent decades, romantic love has undergone significant transformations that have had a substantial impact on both personal and societal life, as emphasized by research conducted by Reis et al. ( 2013 ).

The necessity of bibliometric analysis

Bibliometrics is a field that encompasses the quantitative study of documents, aiming to provide researchers with insights into academic, technological, and scientific advancements (William and Concepción 2001 ). The methodology utilized a range of techniques, including author analysis, concept mapping, clustering, factor analysis, and citation analysis, to investigate historical data and assist scholars in identifying significant trends and emerging directions within their disciplines (Daim et al. 2006 ; Hou et al. 2022 ). The term “bibliometrics” was coined by the distinguished British scientist Allen Richard in 1969, replacing the previously employed term “statistical bibliography.” In recent years, there has been a surging interest in this approach, with a growing number of researchers incorporating it into their work. Bibliometric analysis has been employed in various research domains, including the study of romantic love. These analyses offer valuable insights into the research areas that have been investigated, as well as potential future trends, challenges, and opportunities in the field. To the best of our knowledge, there have been limited previous publications that have specifically analyzed romantic love based on the triangular theory of love development and explored the concept across different disciplines.

In the current study, we utilized state-of-the-art analytical tools, including CiteSpace (6.2.R2), VOSviewer (1.6.18), Microsoft Excel (2019), and Scimago Graphica (1.0.26), in conjunction with the most recent data obtained from the Web of Science (WOS) core collection database. These tools allowed us to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric and visual analysis of publications related to romantic love published in the last decade. By employing these cutting-edge tools and leveraging the extensive data available from WOS, we aimed to gain valuable insights into the research landscape surrounding romantic love during this specific time frame. Our study aimed to achieve several objectives. First, we sought to identify the current research hotspots and trends within the field of romantic love. Second, we aimed to conduct an in-depth examination of visual maps and seminal articles, providing a comprehensive overview of the literature.

Material and methods

Data acquisition and search strategy.

The Web of Science (WOS) platform served as a valuable resource, containing a vast collection of over 9000 significant academic articles. This database stands as one of the oldest and most comprehensive citation index records, encompassing a wide range of disciplines, including social science, engineering technology, biomedicine, arts and humanities, and various other subjects. Since its establishment in 1900, the Web of Science (WOS) has served as a cornerstone of scholarly research and has wielded significant influence within academic circles (Ellegaard and Wallin 2015 ). The quantitative analysis feature of the platform facilitated the acquisition of various types of information related to scholarly publications. This included data on the annual number of papers published, papers published by state or region, popular journals within specific disciplines, frequently utilized publishing houses, and highly downloaded and cited literature. Indeed, references that receive multiple citations play a crucial role in providing a robust foundation for the study of romantic love, as emphasized by Xu et al. ( 2022 ).

The subject matter of romantic love and its interrelation with romantic relationships has a profound impact on the satisfaction and longevity of love between individuals, as highlighted by Zagefka ( 2022 ). Passionate love is a fundamental concept within romantic relationships, as emphasized by Mizrahi et al. ( 2022 ). Sternberg’s triangular theory of love stands as one of the most substantial and frequently referenced frameworks for understanding love, as noted by Sorokowski et al. ( 2021 ). To comprehensively explore the topic, the search strategy incorporated the inclusion of the following elements: The topic could encompass “romantic love,” OR “passionate love,” OR “romantic relationship,” OR “triangular theory of love.”‘ The search was conducted within the Web of Science Core Collection database, which covers the time period from 2013 to 2022. The database indexes the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and Social Science Citation Index-Expanded (SSCI-EXPANDED). The search was limited to publications written in the English language. To refine the search and focus on specific types of publications, certain categories were excluded from the search results. These excluded categories included early access, book chapters, proceeding papers, data papers, and retracted publications. By excluding these categories, the search aimed to prioritize reviews and articles, which are typically considered primary sources of scholarly information. As a result of these refined search criteria, a total of 6858 relevant items were identified and included in the analysis.

The retrieval strategy employed in this research was designed to maintain the integrity and impartiality of the search process (see Fig. 1 ).

To ensure that the search results were not influenced by daily database updates, all searches were conducted on a single day, specifically on March 26, 2023.

Analysis tool

For bibliometric analysis, the current study utilized a powerful combination of CiteSpace (6.2.R2), VOSviewer (1.6.18), Microsoft Excel (2019), and Scimago Graphica (1.0.26). These state-of-the-art software tools seamlessly integrated insights from scientometrics, information science, computer science, and other related fields to generate highly intuitive and informative visual maps. These maps revealed the development trajectory and structural underpinnings of scientific research. Indeed, each of these four software applications held unique and irreplaceable significance, excelling in specific domains of bibliometric analysis. Excel, for instance, demonstrated unparalleled proficiency in the intuitive transformation of charts. CiteSpace specialized in the clustering of topics and the delineation of the spatio-temporal background of words. VOSviewer played a pivotal role in both displaying and analyzing keywords, leveraging its distinctive capabilities. Lastly, Scimago Graphica contributed significantly to the geographical perspective of statistical analysis, offering insights that were unmatched in their comprehensiveness. Collectively, these tools not only proved indispensable but also brought their individual strengths to the forefront, contributing uniquely to the overall analytical landscape. Indeed, the Excel program was commonly employed to comprehensively analyze key data points such as the number of published papers, frequency of citations, and matched published documents. It was also employed to synthesize all the information for creating intuitive visual representations (Fig. 2 ) to illustrate the trends in the number of publications, citations, and their corresponding fitting functions during different periods. The use of CiteSpace in the current study was focused on highlighting the most salient occurrence burst on a timeline map and detecting the centrality of romantic love studies (Zhang et al. 2022a ). In order to attain a comprehensive understanding of the progress in romantic love research, an evolutionary analysis was undertaken, utilizing CiteSpace’s burst function. Co-occurrence analysis on pertinent keywords is another valuable method used to gain insights into the relationships and patterns among keywords in a specific research domain. Indeed, the analyses conducted, including the evolutionary analysis and co-occurrence analysis, facilitated an examination of the prevailing themes and trends of romantic love across different generations from a chronological perspective. VOSviewer, a powerful visualization tool, was utilized in the current study to portray the borders of romantic love with varying color clusters. It also facilitated the exploration of the co-occurrence of authors, institutions, and keywords associated with romantic love. The circles of various colors and sizes were used to represent the occurrence frequency of distinct cluster words and different keywords, respectively. The examination of keywords in the current study, augmented by chart analysis, delved into a more profound, comprehensive, and scientific level. Scimago Graphica 1.0.18, a tool designed for visualizing international collaboration, proved highly effective in the current study for facilitating the visualization of international collaboration (He et al. 2022 ). By organically combining the atlas and the world map, researchers were able to intuitively observe differences in the number of publications across various countries and the extent of national collaboration between different regions.

The trend exhibited an upward trajectory, with an estimated 938 publications in 2021, compared to 502 publications in 2013. Notably, the annual publication volume in the field of romantic love had reached its peak in 2021, as indicated by the fitted equation. However, it is worth mentioning that there was a slight decrease in publication numbers during specific periods. From 2017 to 2018, the annual publication count declined from 644 to 608. Similarly, from 2019 to 2020, there was a minor decrease from 872 to 861 publications annually. Additionally, there was a slight decline from 2021 to 2022, with the number of publications decreasing from 938 to 817 annually.

In the previous study, a comprehensive range of factors was considered to provide a thorough and scientifically rigorous atlas analysis of romantic love research. These factors included the annual publication rate, citation counts, H-index, impact factor, centrality, and occurrence/citation burst. An increase in the volume of publications can indicate the growth of a field and provide insights into future research directions (Wang 2016 ). While the number of citations a paper receives may not directly measure an author’s academic influence, it can indicate the recognition of the author’s work by peers worldwide. The “H-index” was a tool for evaluating academic influence, where a researcher with an “H-index” of 10 had 10 papers that had been cited at least 10 times (Wang et al. 2021 ). Since its inception in the 1950s, the impact factor has been widely regarded as a prominent index for ranking scientific literature. It has become an emblem of the prestige and significance of journals and authors in determining the relevance of a journal (Oosthuizen and Fenton 2014 ). For the current study, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) were utilized to calculate impact factors (2021). The centrality of research objects can indeed reflect their impact on the entire field, with greater centrality indicating a greater representation of homologous study content within a subject area. In the study conducted by Gao et al. ( 2021 ), betweenness centrality scores were adjusted to the range of [0, 1]. Specifically, if the betweenness centrality score of a main keyword exceeded 0.10, it was considered to indicate the significance of the study target. In the study conducted by Xu et al. ( 2022 ), the concept of a “burst term” was utilized to refer to an unexpected term that emerged in the research, potentially indicating new directions or orientations discovered during the investigation. The Kleinberg burst detection method, which is implemented in the CiteSpace software, was employed to identify these burst terms and highlight them as indicators of frontier research.

Publication outputs

A total of 6858 records met the search criteria. As depicted in Fig. 2 , the number of annual publications in the field of romantic love has shown a consistent upward trend since 2013. This increase is accompanied by a corresponding surge in citation counts, as indicated by the fitted equation. Citation counts in the field of romantic love have also experienced a significant upsurge since 2013, with an approximate 90-fold increase by 2022. Furthermore, based on current trends and fitting curves, the number of studies in this field is expected to continue rising, with an increasing number of researchers focusing on this topic.

Distribution by journals

The current study retrieved a total of 6858 records from 1251 journals, with ~33.79% of the material published by 20 publications that released more than 50 papers in this field. The top ten journals, accounting for 23.78% (92–400) of all papers published, had an average publication count of 134 papers per journal (see Table 1 ). Among them, the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (400 publications, IF 2021 = 2.681) had the highest number of papers on romantic love research, followed by Personal Relationships (189 publications, IF 2021 = 1.528), and Personality and Individual Differences (185 publications, IF 2021 = 3.950). Notably, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology was the most influential professional core journal in this field, boasting the highest impact factor (8.460). Both European and American journals have made significant contributions to this field, with the United States and the United Kingdom accounting for 40% and 50% of the top 10 journal publishing countries/regions, respectively. The impact factors of the top 10 most-published journals ranged from 1.528 to 8.460, with an average of 4.070. It is worth noting that publishing romantic love-related articles in high-impact journals remains challenging.

Distribution by authors and research areas

A staggering 15,088 authors contributed to the total number of papers. In Fig. 3 , the collaborative efforts of the writers were illustrated through a network map, where the connections between the nodes signified their collaborative affiliations. Among the top three clusters, the red cluster included authors Joseph P. Allen, Martine Hebert, and Marie-France Lafontaine, who had converged due to their shared research interests in adolescent dating violence and aggression (Cenat et al. 2022 ; Niolon et al. 2015 ). The blue cluster consisted of authors Frank D. Fincham, James K. Monk, and Ashley K. Randall, who had explored the interplay between relationship satisfaction, stress, and relationship maintenance in romantic relationships (Randall and Bodenmann 2017 ; Vennum et al. 2017 ). The yellow cluster included authors Todd K. Shackelford, William J. Chopik, and Justin K. Mogilski, whose work focused on the topic of polygamy (Moors et al. 2019 ; Sela et al. 2017 ). Martine Hebert, Todd K. Shackelford, Frank D. Fincham, and Emily A. Impett emerged as the cooperative network’s central nodes, underscoring their crucial role in advancing research on romantic love.

The authors’ cooperative network was partitioned into eight distinct clusters.

Table 2 provided a rundown of the most productive authors, with their published works ranging from 28 to 74 publications, averaging 41. The H-index, a yardstick for measuring academic influence, was employed to assess their impact. Notably, Emily A. Impett emerged as the dominant force within the cohort of scholars dedicated to the study of romantic love, having authored the most papers among the group (74 publications, H-index = 38). Additionally, Nickola C. Overall (42 publications, H-index = 19) and Amy Muise (60 publications, H-index = 30) also featured prominently as leading contributors to the field.

Table 3 and Fig. 4 displayed the number of publications in different fields of study related to the topic of romantic love. Notably, publications in the fields of biology, neuroscience, and economics were also included in Table 3 . The humanities were increasingly collaborating on romantic love research. Furthermore, the topic of romantic love was gaining popularity in the fields of psychology and sociology.

The field of psychology, including psychology and psychiatry, was significantly ahead. The field of sociology encompassed various topics in the social sciences, including sociology and social work.

Distribution by country and institution

A total of 6858 publications had been published and disseminated to 104 countries and regions worldwide. In the country analysis, Scimago Graphica had been used to explore the geographic collaboration network of participating nations. The participants of the current study were drawn from 104 different countries spanning Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America, with Europe exhibiting the highest level of overall engagement, underscoring the global trend toward collaboration. The United States and the United Kingdom had demonstrated the greatest degree of cooperation. Notably, China, South Africa, Spain, Italy, France, and other countries with high cooperation densities had formed the most significant multi-center cooperation network in this field (see Fig. 5 ). Figure 6 illustrated international collaboration.

By leveraging Scimago Graphica, it was possible to merge geographical perspectives with national publications and collaborative relationships, providing an intuitive and scientific method to illuminate the various conditions of countries involved in the research on romantic love.

The largest blue cluster was comprised of the United States, China, Switzerland, Turkey, and Norway, demonstrating collaboration across the Americas, Europe, and East Asia.

Table 4 outlined the specifics of the top ten countries in the landscape of romantic love research. The United States topped the list with 4092 publications, followed by Canada with 802 publications, and the United Kingdom with 540 publications. It is noteworthy that the majority of publications were disseminated from high-income countries, aligning with the overall prosperity of those nations. Most papers were disseminated in high-income countries. This trend might have stemmed from the overarching principles governing scientific inquiry, or it could be attributed to authors in these nations having the freedom to engage in research spanning areas not necessarily centered on economic growth. However, within the realm of general well-being, this emerges as a pertinent concern. Primarily, high-income countries historically boasted more affluent reservoirs of research resources, encompassing financial backing, cutting-edge equipment, and a pool of adept talent. This affluence empowered researchers in these nations to embark on a diverse array of investigations, spanning domains intricately tied to economic growth and extending to those delving into broader realms such as general well-being and social development. The discernible divergence in resource allocation likely contributed to the disproportionate prevalence of publications in high-income countries. Secondarily, the scrutiny of whether the romantic love research domain intricately correlates with economic growth warrants profound contemplation. At times, the merit of research doesn’t solely reside in its potential to spur short-term economic growth but extends to its impact on the overarching well-being and sustainable evolution of society. High-income countries, historically oriented toward prioritizing protracted social well-being, manifested a proclivity to endorse research that, while not directly contributing to economic growth, played an indispensable role in the comprehensive development of society. Institutional collaboration was vividly portrayed in Fig. 7 , which consisted of six clusters. A total of 3328 institutions contributed to the 6858 articles on romantic love. Of the top 10 organizations, universities occupied the top spot (as indicated in Table 5 ), with the State University System of Florida (246 publications), the University System of Ohio (248 publications), and the University of California System (365 publications) leading the pack. Notably, nine out of the top 10 institutions hailed from the United States, which was a testament to the country’s exceptional research prowess in this field.

The red cluster denoted collaboration among Florida State University, University of Michigan, University of Washington, and Indiana University; the green cluster represented Ohio State University, University of Basel, and Nanyang Technological University; while the blue cluster embodied York University, the University of Toronto, Northwestern University, and Carleton University. Northwestern University, Florida State University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Toronto were the major nodes in the cooperative network.

Analysis of references

Reference analysis played a critical role in bibliometric research, as the references with the highest citation bursts formed the foundation of knowledge at the forefront of research (Fitzpatrick 2005 ). In Fig. 8 , the current study presented the most relevant references on romantic love, which had experienced a surge in citations over the past decade. By the end of 2022, Mikulincer and Shaver’s ( 2016 ) articles had seen a significant increase in their citation counts, with the highest spike (14.35) observed in 2016, followed by Wincentak et al.’s ( 2017 ) studies (9.9). These two studies had been widely cited over the years and accurately captured the latest trends in romantic love research.

These references were represented by red and green bars, indicating their frequent and less frequent citation, respectively.

Mikulincer and Shaver’s ( 2016 ) delved into the causes and methods for measuring individual differences in adult attachment, as well as how to modify attachment styles, using several empirical studies. Additionally, they explored the cutting-edge genetics, neurological, and hormonal substrates of attachment, expanding the impact model’s depiction of how the attachment system functioned. In the study, Wincentak et al. ( 2017 ) discussed the prevalence of dating violence among adolescents of different genders using a meta-analysis method, while also examining the potential regulatory effects of age, demographics, and measurement. Research has shown that in adolescent dating violence, the crime rate of women was significantly lower than that of men. Based on the analysis of these articles, current research trends in romantic love included adult attachment and the examination of adolescents’ irrational beliefs about love and the resulting adverse consequences, such as dating violence.

Analysis of keywords

Keyword burst refers to keywords that have shown a sharp increase in frequency over time, enabling the assessment of the current study focus in this area and reflecting the development pattern of future research. The current study extracted the burst terms of various years in the area of romantic love to obtain the burst terms of various years in the area of romantic love (see Fig. 9 ). As we’ve seen, the field had a diverse range of research interests. By the end of 2022, the three words with the highest peak were “same-sex” (2020–2022), “conflict resolution” (2020–2022), and “social relationships” (2020–2022):

Same-sex: in a society that valued heterosexual relationships, same-sex relationships were often met with shame and stigma, leading to additional pressures uniquely linked to their sexual orientation and partnership (Feinstein et al. 2018 ; Rostosky and Riggle 2017 ). Moreover, the online conduct of gay individuals has been demonstrated to have significant implications for their sexual risk behaviors and emotional well-being in romantic relationships (Zhang et al. 2022b ). The development of effective dual interventions has been shown to enhance the health and well-being of same-sex couples and their families. These interventions should also educate parents about the potential negative effects of heteronormative assumptions and attitudes on their children’s positive adolescent development (Pearson and Wilkinson 2013 ).

Conflict resolution: previous research has shown the irony that a person’s favorite individual, such as their romantic partner, is often the very person with whom they engage in destructive behavior during conflicts, making this destructive response one of the most challenging issues in relationships (Alonso-Ferres et al. 2021 ). As a result, it was critical to effectively resolve conflicts in a constructive manner. The emergence of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as a novel conflict resolution approach prompted researchers to explore this matter. Ultimately, they discovered that there were no differences in pain, anger, and conflict resolution levels between face-to-face and CMC discussions (Pollmann et al. 2020 ). Another study focused on neural activity during conflict resolution, revealing that mediation could enhance conflict resolution and was linked to increased activity in the nucleus accumbens, a crucial area of the brain’s reward circuit (Rafi et al. 2020 ). The finding emphasizes the importance of identifying neural mechanisms that could enhance conflict resolution and improve relationship outcomes. By exploring various conflict resolution approaches and associated neural mechanisms, researchers can facilitate a deeper understanding of how to successfully resolve conflicts and enhance relationship satisfaction.

Social relationships: long-term relationships are vital to the mental health of both humans and animals. Positive emotions and experiences, such as romantic or platonic love, play a significant role in the establishment and maintenance of social bonds. With this in mind, researchers integrated brain imaging studies on emotions characterized by social connections to investigate whether and how humans and animals experience social emotions and influences similarly in the context of social relationships (Zablocki-Thomas et al. 2022 ). An ecological and cross-cutting perspective study found that black Americans viewed their partner’s interactions regarding discrimination as an opportunity for their romantic partner to offer support, as revealed in semi-structured interviews (Rice 2023 ). Furthermore, as romantic relationships represent one of the most unique types of social connections, researchers utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning techniques to explore the neurobiological mechanisms of romantic relationships (Eckstein et al. 2023 ), offering valuable insight for the preservation and maintenance of social relationships and interactions.

Over the last 10 years, the most popular keywords were “same-sex” (11.07), “dating relationships” (9.22), and “HIV” (9.05), indicating high demand for these topics in recent years. The keywords with the longest blasting times were “dating relationships” (2014–2017) and “delinquency” (2014–2017). The phrases that were still trending in 2022 were hotspots.

Figure 10 illustrated the relationship between keywords. The connection strength between two nodes was a quantitative measure of their relationship. The most frequently used keyword, “romantic relationship,” was represented by the largest node in Fig. 10 (see Table 6 ). The “romantic relationship” (2036) node had thicker lines than “attachment” (766), “gender” (728), “satisfaction” (664), “behavior” (529), “marriage” (508), “commitment” (419), “adolescents” (417), “associations” (395), and “intimate partner relationship” (336). The nodes had a minimum link strength of 150. The close connections between “romantic relationship” and “marriage,” “commitment,” and “intimate partnership” demonstrated the importance of stable, long-term relationships in maintaining romantic love (Fu et al. 2012 ).

The connection strength between two nodes was a quantitative measure of their relationship. The total link strength of a node was the sum of its link strengths relative to all other nodes (Liao et al. 2018).

Keywords are essential in identifying the central themes and prospective avenues of a publication. By examining the co-occurrence of keywords, one can discern the current trajectory of research and development in a specific field (Zhang et al. 2022c ). In the present investigation, a total of 16,148 keywords were extracted from 6858 articles related to romantic love, with 10,571 being used only once, accounting for 65.46% of the total keywords. Through keyword co-occurrence analysis, six distinct color-coded clusters were identified, comprising attachment, gender, romantic relationships, personality, communication, and dynamics. The red cluster, attachment, delved into the complex relationships among commitment, fulfillment, companionship, and attachment insecurity. To address the diminished satisfaction in partner relationships caused by attachment insecurity, promoting healthy dualistic coping strategies (DCS) was recommended (Peloquin et al. 2022 ). The green cluster, gender, focused on the issues of dating violence victimization experienced by young individuals of different genders, with sexual minorities being particularly vulnerable to bullying (Cosma et al. 2022 ). The blue cluster, romantic connections, primarily examined the link between depressive symptoms and violent intimate partner relationships. Recent studies showed that dating violence and peer victimization were prevalent among young individuals (Smith et al. 2021 ) and that dating aggression was associated with both internalized and externalized psychopathology in young couples (Lantagne and Furman 2021 ). Additionally, the misuse of internet dating may lead to depression (Toplu-Demirtas et al. 2020 ). Apart from the six clusters mentioned, there was a noticeable trend toward integrating research with neuroimaging technology, which might lead to the emergence of new clusters in the realm of romantic love. The interconnectedness of attachment, gender, and romantic relationships was evident in the strong theoretical foundation and widespread attention these clusters received, whereas the clusters of personality, communication, and dynamics were more peripherally related. Due to their significance, future research on romantic love will continue to explore topics such as intimate partner violence, teenage dating violence victimization, attachment insecurity, and sexual abuse, with a focus on the three interconnected clusters of attachment, gender, and romantic relationships. In traditional notions, our understanding of romantic love had primarily consisted of terms such as romantic relationships and intimate commitments. However, practical issues such as misperceptions about love and a lack of regard for partners have gradually shifted the subject matter of research pertaining to romantic love toward dating violence. The research trajectory demonstrates a shift in the focus of romantic love research from a more idealized perspective toward a more realistic one. Finally, Fig. 11 displayed a keyword timeline graph that depicted when the most prevalent keywords first appeared and their evolving importance over time.

This keyword timeline graph was depicted when the most prevalent keywords first appeared and their evolving importance over time.

The current study used advanced bibliometrics and literature data visualization techniques with CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Web of Science to examine the growth of research publications in the field of romantic love, as well as the main research nations, journals, and emerging trends. The thorough review provided insight into the present status of development and research in this field, while also clarifying the historical path of scholarship and providing clear guidance for future research. Using bibliometric methods, the study investigated romantic love research from 2013 to 2022. The results showed a steady increase in publications on this topic, with a slight decrease noted in 2019, likely due to the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic research. However, the analysis of current trends indicates a projected increase in research output on romantic love in the coming years.

Romantic love has been a global phenomenon, with Europe and the United States leading in widespread participation and clear concentration. Among the top 10 countries producing research in this field, the United States led with 4092 publications between 2013 and 2022. China, ranking fourth in terms of publications, emerged as the most prolific developing nation (328). However, compared to the United States, China lagged behind in publications and international collaboration. Therefore, China needs to expand its research efforts in this area and broaden its international partnerships. The top ten research institutions, mainly universities, played a vital role in advancing this field. Notably, nine out of ten of these institutions were located in the United States, further highlighting the preeminent position of American academic institutions in this area of study.

In the current study, we have discovered noteworthy findings regarding notable authors in the field of romantic love. The research studies have primarily focused on four distinct perspectives: the Limerence Theory, the Rate of Change in Intimacy Model, the Self-Expansion Model, and the Triangular Theory of Love. These perspectives have proposed four possible sources of romantic passion and assessed empirical evidence for and against each. Among the authors, Emily A. Impett has emerged as the most prolific author (Carswell and Impett 2021 ). Frank D. Fincham, who has the highest H-index, has conducted extensive research on the interplay between mindfulness and idiosyncratic mindfulness in romantic relationships. Notably, his research on adolescent intimate partner violence has received the most citations (Cui et al. 2013 ; Frank and Ross 2017 ; Kimmes et al. 2018 ). Furthermore, we found that an author’s centrality and citation frequency did not always correlate with their number of publications, indicating that various factors had contributed to an author’s academic influence (Zhang et al. 2022a ).

The term “burst term” refers to a term that unexpectedly appears in research and may indicate new directions or a novel perspective derived from research (Xu et al. 2022 ). According to Fig. 8 , the following references experienced a citation burst by the end of 2022: (1) Mikulincer and Shaver ( 2016 ) delved into the causes and measures of individual differences in adult attachment, explored the modifiability of attachment styles, and unveiled cutting-edge research in genetics, neurology, and hormones associated with attachment. They also extended the impact model’s depiction of the attachment system’s operation. (2) Wincentak et al. ( 2017 ) conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the prevalence of dating violence among adolescents of various genders, while also examining the potential impact of age, demographic factors, and measurement methods. Their findings suggested that the rate of perpetration of dating violence was significantly higher among male adolescents than female adolescents. In other words, male adolescents were more likely to engage in dating violence than their female counterparts. This gender difference in dating violence rates highlighted the need for targeted prevention and intervention efforts to address this issue among young people.

CiteSpace displayed keywords in bursts, as shown in Fig. 9 . These data were significant for reference in cutting-edge prediction research. The terms “same-sex,” “conflict resolution,” and “social relationships” might be used frequently in the coming years, indicating potential areas of focus within the domain of romantic love:

Same-sex: same-sex relationships faced unique pressures and stigma in a society that largely valued heterosexual partnerships, leading to feelings of shame and additional stressors based on sexual orientation (Feinstein et al. 2018 ; Rostosky and Riggle 2017 ). Notably, studies have revealed that the online behavior of gay individuals could significantly impact their emotional well-being and sexual risk behaviors within their romantic relationships (Zhang et al. 2022b ). To improve the health and well-being of same-sex couples and their families, effective dual interventions have been developed, including educating parents about the potential harm caused by heteronormative assumptions and attitudes on their children’s adolescent development (Pearson and Wilkinson 2013 ).

Conflict resolution: prior research has revealed the paradox that a person’s beloved partner, such as their significant other, is often the individual with whom they engage in harmful behavior during conflicts. The negative reaction could be one of the most challenging issues in a relationship (Alonso-Ferres et al. 2021 ). Therefore, it is imperative to resolve conflicts in a successful manner. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has emerged as a novel approach to conflict resolution, and researchers have investigated this matter, concluding that there are no disparities in the levels of pain, anger, and conflict resolution between face-to-face and CMC discussions (Pollmann et al. 2020 ). Another study explored the neural mechanisms during conflict resolution, and researchers discovered that mediation could improve conflict resolution and was linked to elevated activity in the nucleus accumbens, a crucial area in the brain’s reward circuit (Rafi et al. 2020 ).

Social relationships: long-term relationships play a critical role in maintaining the mental health of both humans and animals. Positive emotions and emotional experiences, such as romantic or platonic love, are intricately linked to the formation and sustenance of social bonds. To gain insights into how social emotions manifest in both humans and animals, researchers integrated brain imaging studies of emotions associated with social connections (Zablocki-Thomas et al. 2022 ). From an ecological and cross-cutting perspective, another study found that Black Americans viewed their partner’s interactions around discrimination as an opportunity for their romantic partner to provide support, as revealed in semi-structured interviews (Rice 2023 ). Furthermore, given the unique nature of romantic relationships in social interactions, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms of such relationships (Eckstein et al. 2023 ), which could serve as a reference for the preservation and cultivation of social relationships.

To our knowledge, our study represented a novel application of quantitative bibliometric tools such as CiteSpace and VOSviewer to analyze the literature on romantic love over the past decade. While our analysis yielded intriguing insights into the research landscape of this field, our study was not without limitations. First and foremost, our sample was limited to articles and reviews available in a single database, and thus, may not have been fully representative of the entire research landscape on this topic. Second, the current study restricted our data collection to English-language publications, and future studies may benefit from including publications in other languages to ensure a more comprehensive analysis. Additionally, including different types of publications, such as conference papers and working papers, might have provided further insights into recent advancements in the field. Furthermore, it could be acknowledged that the analysis in the current study could be expanded to consider the contributions of other scholars and institutions in the field, beyond those captured by our data set. Finally, while the bibliometric tools used in our analysis were objective, our interpretation of the results remained subjective and may have been subject to varying interpretations.

Concluding remarks

Research significance and future development.

The present study’s comprehensive analysis of the literature on romantic love, as well as its reporting of research findings across diverse domains over the past decade, offered a solid groundwork for future research and potential worldwide applications. From 2013 to 2022, a staggering 6858 articles and reviews on romantic love were published globally, indicating a bright future for this field of inquiry. In terms of research potency, the United States led the pack, with the University of California System accounting for the majority of publications in the area of romantic love, and Emily A. Impett ranking as the most prolific contributor. The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships had published the most articles on romantic love research, while the most recent trends in romantic love-related keywords included “same-sex,” “conflict resolution,” and “social relationships.” The current research was predominantly centered around intimate relationships, evolutionary psychology, sexual orientation, and symptoms of depression. The trends elucidated by these findings underscore the holistic and interdisciplinary nature of romantic love within the realms of psychology, sociology, biology, and neuroscience. Subsequent investigations into romantic love hold the promise of a more profound amalgamation of methodologies derived from psychology and neuroscience, thereby illuminating the physiological underpinnings of love and emotional experiences. This prospect entails a meticulous exploration of brain activity, probing how intricate psychological processes intertwine with biology to forge the intricacies of romantic relationships. Furthermore, romantic love research stands poised to cultivate seamless integration and interdisciplinary cooperation across a spectrum of fields in the future, yielding profound ramifications.

Method limitation

The current study, which utilized tools such as CiteSpace and Vosviewer for a quantitative analysis of the literature on romantic love over the past 10 years, is the first of its kind to our knowledge. Our investigation, though producing intriguing results through bibliometric analysis and visualization of related articles, is not without its limitations. Firstly, the samples utilized were limited to a single database (WOS), which may not encompass all relevant publications on the subject. Secondly, the scope of our data collection was limited to articles and reviews in English only, leaving out potential information from other types of publications such as working papers and conference papers. In future studies, a broader consideration of different languages should also be given. Additionally, the neural mechanism and physiological function of romantic love remain an under-researched area with limited empirical evidence to support ongoing controversy.

Data availability

Original data for the current study are available via this link: https://rec.ustc.edu.cn/share/0d874150-b039-11ee-be97-f5a41b2eeb6e .

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This research was supported by the Starting Fund for Scientific Research of High-Level Talents at Anhui Agricultural University (rc432206) and the Outstanding Youth Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Anhui Province (2022AH030089) to SL.

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Han, Y., Luo, Y., Chen, Z. et al. A decade of love: mapping the landscape of romantic love research through bibliometric analysis. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 187 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02665-7

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The present study examined the associations between perceptions of love and marital satisfaction and gender moderations among Korean middle-aged married men and women. Two hundred and four married middle adults aged 40 to 59 living with heterosexual spouses in Seoul participated in this study. Regression based moderation analysis was utilized using PROCESS MACRO. Results showed that the average of love perception was the moderate level, and men reported higher perceptions of love, passion, commitment, and marital satisfaction compared to women, while no gender difference in perception of intimacy. Also, love and its three components were positively associated with marital satisfaction. The moderation effect of gender on the association between perception of intimacy and marital satisfaction was significant. Specifically, women showed stronger association between perception of intimacy and marital satisfaction than men did. These results imply that love plays an important role in strengthening marital quality in general, but the intimate interactions were gendered in middle adulthood marriage context in South Korea.

The middle-aged adults in Korea perceived moderate levels of triangular love and high levels of marital satisfaction.

Men reported higher perceptions of love and marital satisfaction than women, while no gender difference in intimacy.

Perceptions of triangular love were positively associated with marital satisfaction in middle adulthood.

Women showed stronger association between perception of intimacy and marital satisfaction than men did.

Further research is needed to examine marital love by more expanded lifespan, gender, and socio-cultural perspectives.

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Yoo, G., Joo, S. Love for a Marriage Story: The Association Between Love and Marital Satisfaction in Middle Adulthood. J Child Fam Stud 31 , 1570–1581 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02055-6

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Love and Marriage

Americans believe that love is the main foundation of marriage. Most who never have been married say they would like to be at some point in their lives. However, statistics show Americans aren’t rushing to the altar, and the U.S. marriage rate is at an all-time low—only 51% of adults were married in 2011, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

The romantic ideal of marriage plays out in survey data that show whether they are married or not, Americans are more inclined to choose “love” as a reason for marriage than any other factor. In a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, love wins out over “making a lifelong commitment,” as well as “companionship,” “having children,” and “financial stability” as a very important reason to wed

Among married people, 93% say love is a very important reason to get married; 84% of unmarried people say so. Men and women are equally likely to say love is a very important reason to get married.

But love only goes so far. Most Americans cast cold water on a central premise of many a song or poem, that each person in the universe has only one true love. About seven-in-ten (69%) people do not agree with that notion; only 28% do. Among those who do agree, men (31%) are slightly more likely to do so than women (26%). Young and old, married and unmarried are equally skeptical.

Do You Want to Marry?

Especially for those who have never wed, marriage remains a life goal. About six-in-ten (61%) men and women who have never married say they would like to get married, according to the 2010 Pew Research survey. Only 12% say they do not want to marry and 27% are not sure.

That same survey found that a trip to the altar is not so appealing for those who have been there before.  Among divorced adults, only 29% say they would like to marry again, with women more likely than men to say they do not want another trip down the aisle. Among widowed men and women, only 8% want to wed again.

Men and women’s attitudes about marrying for the first time are not different among young adults. But among never-married adults ages 30 to 50, men (27%) are more likely than women (8%) to say they do not want to marry.

Though they say they would like to wed, most Americans are not in a hurry to do so. In 2011, the median age at first marriage was at a record high—about 29 for men and about 27 for women, according to census data. The median age at first marriage, which declined for the first half of the 20 th century, has been rising since then. As recently as the early 1980s, the median age for men was 25 and for women 22.

Why this apparent disjunction between belief and reality? Marriage now has more competition from other lifestyles, such as living alone or living with an unmarried partner. A rising share of births are to mothers who are not married, meaning that marriage is no longer seen by many as the only gateway to parenthood. (The divorce rate has gone down since the 1980s and is less of a factor than it used to be.)

The postponement of many markers of adulthood also plays a role. A rising share of young adults, especially women, are pursuing advanced degrees, and waiting for marriage until they are done with their education and established in the workplace. The choices of these young adults are in large part responsible for the growing share of Americans who have never married.

Still, so far, the vast majority of Americans do marry at some point. Among those ages 45 and older, about nine-in-ten have been married.

Is Marriage an Important Goal?

Marriage is an important goal for most Americans, although it may not be their top priority. Having a successful marriage is “one of the most important things” in life for 36% of adults, according to a 2011 Pew Research survey . An additional 48% said it is “very important but not the most” important. Being a good parent was seen as “one of the most important things” by a larger share of adults (53%).

Men and women overall do not answer differently in rating the priority of a successful marriage to them, but there are differences among young adults, ages 18 to 34. About four-in-ten (39%) young women say that having a successful marriage is “one of the most important things” in their life, compared with about three-in-ten (29%) young men who say so.

Advantages of Marriage?

What are the advantages of marriage? According to the public, it is easier for a married person than a single person to raise a family (77% say so). But in other realms of life asked about in the 2010 Pew Research survey, most people do not think either married or single people have an easier time of it. In fact, about half or more think there is no difference between being married or single in the ease of having a fulfilling sex life, being financially secure, finding happiness, getting ahead in a career or having social status.

Among the minority who say marital status does make a difference in life, marriage is deemed better in all of the listed realms but one. When it comes to getting ahead in a career, being single wins out, 24% to 14%.

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The Love and Marriage Relationship Analysis Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction, critique of the ‘significance of romantic love for marriage’, a critique of ‘marriage in the eleven cultures’.

Social psychology is a special branch of mentality study because it deals with how we think, believe, and act. Indeed, many beliefs have been propagated by some individuals in matters of intimate relationships. Few of the beliefs are right, but innumerable of such principles may emerge as insufficient in countless ways. For instance, there is a popular belief among diverse writers and some psychologists that love is a requirement for stable intimate relationships such as marriage (Daniel, 2020). To such individuals, it is love that brings two people together in such a way that they feel the exigency to commit to each other for an eternity. In addition, the affection itself is used as a measure of the strength of the marital relationship (Daniel, 2020). The existing emotional disposition at the beginning of the marriage sets the expectations for both couples so high that when trouble rocks their future marital life, stability becomes problematic (Daniel, 2020). Without a doubt, people who believe in love as a precondition for marriage have no regard for arranged marriages.

In the article “The significance of romantic love for marriage,” research was conducted to establish the relationship between love and marriage. The study was conducted on 605 subjects who were grouped as married or single, stable or divorced partners, among many other aspects (Willi, 1997, p.171). The author continues to explain why he was inspired to do the investigation. He writes, “It continues to be mysterious why certain marriages are successful and others are not” (Willi, 1997, p.171). The author summarizes the context particulars with key hypotheses that his exploration intended to address. Analytically, the details presented by the writer gives are clear and devoid of ambiguity that some researches on relationship science may contain (Miller, 2018). In essence, the introductory facts that the author has provided are specified and give any reader who is not a psychologist a rough idea of what the research is all about.

The article has also elaborated on the research method that was used to achieve its main objective. Specifically, questionnaires are used in the research, and each questionnaire consists of fifty-eight questions, which are subdivided into four distinctive parts (Willi, 1997, p.171). Sociodemographic statements are extracted from the subjects and their partners. Respondents’ extent of happiness and satisfaction in eleven areas of their relationships is then explored (Willi, 1997). The ratings for satisfaction in all the areas are given at a scale of between 1 to 7, with 1 denoting the lowest level and 7 – the highest.

The most important aspect is then investigated by the respondents, on when they did fall in love with their current partners, whether it was love at first sight or not (Willi, 1997). Therefore the questionnaires were administered in an orderly manner, and they rotated around the topic of love as the research had indicated. This shows that the researcher was determined to obtain accurate results from the subjects with the least, and that is the strength of the research.

After the questionnaires were administered to the specific subjects in the research, several results were obtained. The author, Willi, gives the summary of his results under four subtopics with respect to the category in which the results were obtained. According to Willi (1997), the investigation had a total of 418 women and 187 men as the main subjects (p. 172). Other results have been tabulated, and the descriptive statistics are well indicated in the article. Here again, lies the strength of the research as it systematically presents the key results without interpretation, in an orderly and logical sequence using illustrative materials such as tables (Miller, 2018). The statistical test results have also been included in the results section, and to a large extent, this shows how the research is organized.

However, the research has its share of weaknesses that need to be addressed by future researchers. The type of research that Willi has employed in this case is descriptive research because he uses some numbers to quantify the parameters which he investigates (Miller, 2018). From a psychological point of view, it is very difficult to determine a cause and an effect from descriptive research (Miller, 2018). For instance, the research talks of having a happy marriage as a result of love between the partners. Even if the respondents who attribute their stable marriage life to love explain their case, the researchers cannot determine any truth. As such, no conclusion can be made that a stable marriage emanated from love. In essence, the research that was conducted is susceptible to errors because it relied heavily on descriptive research only.

Additionally, the article has some weaknesses in the discussion section that the author either intentionally or accidentally omitted. Instead of clarifying several issues relating to the results, the author discusses the selection of his sample and why it represents a whole lot of the Swiss population (Willi, 1997). More precisely, the research article should have talked about the potential limitations and weaknesses of his study because he has not clearly stated the conclusion (Miller, 2018). Evidently, the omission of the weaknesses and limitations in the discussion of the research article does not give a relative importance to the interpretation of the results that the researcher has indicated. Nonetheless, the results that are obtained from the research show that love is significant to a happy marriage or partnership.

Another article that is of great importance to social psychologists is “Love and marriage in the eleven cultures.” The research was intended to demystify the common stereotypic thought that American society considered love as a necessary precondition for marriage (Levine et al., 1995). According to the article, there have been few studies to conclude that indeed the American society views love as a prerequisite for marriage. More interestingly, the authors give background information by stating the loopholes which were in the previous studies that showed that actually love was significantly associated with marriage (Levine et al., 1995). In order to bring more generality to the issue of love and marriage, the authors cross-examine the cross-cultural preponderance of the importance that is placed on marriages (Levine et al., 1995). Simply put, the study tries to explain the relationship that exists between cultural differences and the importance of love to marital decisions (Miller, 2018). This is the best article because it compares relatively many countries’ subjects as compared to other studies before. As a matter of fact, the background information of the article is its strength.

More explicitly, the study was conducted on some students who were doing liberal arts studies from eleven different countries. Though not clear which method was used, it was probably the questionnaire or the interview method because the article states that the subjects were asked certain questions. Certainly, this was a strength for the research studies as it guarantees the accuracy of the data that has been collected and from the students (Miller, 2018). On the other hand, the fact that the students were all doing liberal arts makes the information to be skewed since their field of studies is associated with the exploration of social arts in some ways. Substantially, this can make the study have some form of predetermined outcome, which can affect the reliability of the investigation.

The results of the study also show the systematic way in which the information is categorized. From the results, many students agreed, regardless of their country of origin, that if love completely disappears from marriage, then it would be better if couples make a clean break and start their lives over (Levine et al., 1995). Strikingly though, quite a number of students agreed to the question that the disappearance of love should not be a sufficient decision for ending a relationship (Levine et al., 1995). Some would argue that the research was confusing to the students, but the truth is that the results are rigorous, and therefore that alone guarantees the quality of the collected data. Therefore, the organization of the study results and the conciseness of the questions which were addressed to the students make the research possess the required strengths of a good research article.

In as much as the article has a well-structured discussion section, it has some inadequacies. Firstly, the study shows that there existed strong cross-cultural differences in beliefs about love as a precondition for establishing a marriage (Levine et al., 1995). Secondly, the study also postulates that there were substantial cross-cultural differences in beliefs on love to sustain relationships (Levine et al., 1995). All the arguments that the research advances are premised on the hypothesis that was initially established. Nevertheless, the discussion section does not give any comparison to any similar study that has been done before but rather complements such studies. The study is in support of the idea that prior findings for the US, indicating relatively few sex differences in credence in the necessity of romantic love in marriage as also accurate for other countries (Levine et al., 1995). Apparently, the article was propagating the ideas of other researches that were conducted before and did not actually compare. In point of fact, this is a great weakness on the part of the article as it does not provide alternatives for further interpretations of the earlier studies.

In summary, I find the two articles that talk about the relationship between love and marriage as appealing texts in view of psychosocial analysis. While “The significance of romantic love for marriage” posits that love is a prerequisite in maintaining a stable marriage, “Love and marriage in the eleven cultures” brings a new dimension to the discussion. As clearly evident through analysis of the second article, love itself is a precondition for marriage in most Westernized countries such as the US, followed closely by the Latin American countries such as Brazil. Based on the article “Love and marriage in the eleven cultures,” I find the argument that love is a prerequisite for a stable marriage to be partially true. An important reason why I base my conclusions on the article is that it posits that the thought of love as a precondition to marriage was an idea that many thought to be American only. It is only after the research, was when it was realized that the idea was widespread all over the world.

Daniel, S. (2020). How important is love in a marriage? . Professor’s House. Web.

Levine, R., Sato, S., Hashimoto, T., & Verma, J. (1995). Love and marriage in eleven cultures . Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology , 26 , 554-571. Web.

Miller, R. (2018). Intimate Relationships (8 th ed.). Mc Graw Hill education.

Willi, J. (1997). The significance of romantic love for marriage . Family Process , 36 (2), 171-182. Web.

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Marriage is found in virtually all societies, and the majority (some 90%) of people in every society get married at least once in their lifetime (Carroll & Wolpe, 1996; Ember, Ember, & Peregrine, 2006). Cultures vary with regard to what is considered appropriate premarital behavior, whom one marries, how one marries, a proper marriage ceremony, and length and purpose of the marriage. Each culture also defines marriage differently although there are some common criteria across many societies. Marriage is typically defined simply as a “socially approved sexual and economic union, usually between a woman and a man”  (Ember et al., 2006, p. 343), which is generally denoted symbolically in some way (e.g., ceremony, certificate, symbols—rings). Normally, there are reciprocal rights and obligations between the two spouses and their future children. Viewing marriage as a social process where new relationships are set up between the kin of both the husband and the wife essentially describes all forms of marriage. With this, marriage maintains social patterns through the production of offspring.

Traditionally, marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman with children born to the woman being recognized as legitimate offspring to both parents (Royal Anthropological Institute, 1951). Marriage was thought to change the status of a man and a woman, stipulate the degree of sexual access for the married partners, establish the legitimacy of the children born to the wife, and create relationships between the kin of both the wife and husband. Anthropologists have since noted the exceptions to this standard definition and have expanded it to reflect broader practices. As such, Miller (2008) offers a working definition of marriage given the complexity of practices that fall under the umbrella of marriage— “a more or less stable union, usually between two people, who may be, but are not necessarily, co-residential, sexually involved with each other, and procreative with each other” (p. 140).

British anthropologist Edmund Leach (1955) observed that marriage may accomplish the following depending on the society. Leach described these rights of marriage as possibilities for either or both spouses:

• Establish legal father and mother of children
• Provide control over sexuality of spouse
• Give rights to labor of spouse
• Give rights over spouse’s property
• Create a joint fund of property (for children)
• Begin a socially significant affinal relationship between spouses and their relatives

In some cultures, there are other reasons for marriage. For instance, the Hindu religion considers marriage sacred and representative of the marriage between the sun goddess Surya and the moon god Soma. Without a wife, a man is considered spiritually incomplete (Kumari, 1988). Representing the two interacting principles of Yin (female, passive, weak) and Yang (male, active, strong), long-term relationships in China are thought to be a spiritual necessity that ensures survival. Still others may marry to gain higher status (Sonko, 1994).

From the ethnographic literature, we know that one group of people did not have marriage as it has been typically defined. During the 19th century, a caste group in southern India called the Nayar appear to have treated sexual and economic relations between men and women as separate from marriage. At puberty, Nayar girls took ritual husbands but after the ceremony, the husband had no responsibility for his wife and typically never saw her again. The girl lived in a large household with extended family and was visited by other men through the years. If she became pregnant by any of them, the man was not responsible for supporting her or the child except for paying for a midwife. The female’s relatives remained responsible for supporting her. Thought to be a response to extended male absence during military service, Nayar unions seemed to fulfill the needs of this particular caste group within a historical and cultural period. Today, the Nayar men are not involved in soldiering to the extent they once were, and stable marital relationships have become the norm (Ember et al., 2006).

Across societies, many people live in long-term, common-law domestic partnerships that are not legally sanctioned. Some people have civil marriages which are licensed and legalized by a justice of the peace while others go through religious marriage ceremonies so they are united from a religious perspective but not a legal one (Kottak, 2008).

Every society has directives and ideological notions about whom one should marry ranging from arranged marriages to exogamous individual choice of partner. Sometimes these directives are informal and implicit, and other times they are formal and explicit. Marriage is one of the primary ways to establish relationships of affinity in contrast to consanguine relationships, which are from bloodlines.

Exogamy and Endogamy

Exogamy, the practice of seeking a husband or wife outside of one’s own defined social group, has adaptive value because it links people into a wider social network that can nurture, provide for, and protect during times of need (Kottak, 2008). For example, the Hindus of northern India practice village exogamy in order to ensure that spouses live in a far-away village or town. In addition, exogamy ensures genetic diversity between groups and maintains a successful human species.

In contrast, endogamy is the practice of marriage within a particular group so that the spouse comes from a specific social category. Sometimes endogamy is based on geographic location. For instance, village endogamy is favored in the eastern Mediterranean among both Christians and Muslims, and among Muslims throughout India and among Hindus in southern India. In other cultures, endogamy occurs to maintain a strong kinship network. Some religious and ethnic groups prefer endogamy in order that groups remain intact. An extreme example of endogamy is India’s caste system, which, although abolished in 1949, still remains in terms of structure and ideology. Royal endogamy, usually royal brother-sister marriage in a few societies, is similar to caste endogamy whereby certain sacred, political, and economic functions can be maintained. Inca Peru, ancient Egypt, and traditional Hawaii allowed royal brothersister marriages. Other kingdoms, including European royalty, have practiced endogamy through cousin marriage rather than brother-sister marriage (Kottak, 2008).

Hypergyny, Hypogyny, and Isogamy

Status also plays an important role in the selection of a spouse across cultures. Hypergyny, or “marrying up,” indicates a marriage where the bride has a lower status than the groom. Hypergyny is commonplace in northern India especially among upper-status groups and in middle- and upper-class individuals in the United States. The opposite of hypergyny is hypogyny, or “marrying down,” in which a bride has a higher status than the groom. Hypogyny is relatively rare cross-culturally. Isogamy is marriage between partners who are status equals and occurs in cultures where gender roles are viewed as holding equal value (Miller, 2008).

Arranged Marriages

Arranged marriages are marriages that are “arranged” by parents of the bride and groom based on whether they believe the families are good matches. Arranged marriages are well-known in many Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries. The most important criteria that parents consider are the family’s reputation, social status, education, occupation and income of the spouse, and the absence of undesirable family traits like mental illness or divorce (Miller, 2008).

Cousin Marriages

An example of kin endogamy is cousin marriages, which has two forms: parallel cousins and cross-cousins. The marriage between parallel cousins is comprised of the children of either one’s father’s brother or one’s mother’s sister (linking siblings are the same gender). The marriage between cross-cousins includes children of either one’s father’s sister or one’s mother’s brother (linking siblings are of different genders). Parallel-cousin marriage is practiced by many Muslim groups in the Middle East and northern Africa, especially patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage, which is cousin marriage into the father’s line (Miller, 2008). Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage (cousin marriage into the mother’s line) is favored by Hindus of southern India but only includes about a fourth of the population (Ramesh, Srikumari, & Sukumar, 1989).

Levirate and Sororate

Still common as a form of second marriage, cultural norms in many societies require individuals to marry the spouse of deceased relatives so that alliances between descent groups can be maintained. Levirate is the custom of a man marrying his brother’s widow. Sororate describes when a woman marries her deceased sister’s husband. In some societies, this practice is permitted but not required and widows make other arrangements (Potash, 1986).

There is a plethora of research about what attracts people to potential mates. Proximity has long been linked to attraction, and physical attractiveness seems to be a key ingredient in romantic relationships especially for males. Several hypotheses have been proposed about what attracts someone to a partner for a romantic relationship. The matching hypothesis proposes that people with equal physical characteristics select each other as partners (Brehm, 1985). The similarity hypothesis proposes that people with similar demographics of age, race, religion, social class, education, intelligence, attitudes, and physical attractiveness tend to form intimate relationships (Brehm, 1985). Another approach is the reciprocity hypothesis, suggesting that people like others who are unlike them (Byrne & Murnen, 1988).

How and why individuals are attracted to each other varies significantly across cultures. Despite some of the differences, there are cross-cultural similarities with regard to mate selection. In a well-known study conducted by evolutionary psychologist David Buss (1989, 1994), more than 10,000 respondents across 37 different cultures responded to questions about factors in choosing mates. In 36 out of 37 cultures, females, as compared with males, rated financial prospects as more important, and in 29 of the 36 cultures, they rated ambition and industriousness as more important. In all 37 cultures, females preferred older mates and males preferred younger mates. In 34 of the cultures, males rated good looks as more important than did females, and in 23 of the cultures, males rated chastity as more important than females. Buss concluded that his findings represented and supported an evolutionary framework of universal mate selection across cultures whereby females look for cues in potential male mates that signal resource acquisition and males place more value on reproductive capacity.

Others have emphasized the cultural differences in Buss’s study. As compared with more advanced or modern cultures, traditional, less advanced cultures place greater value on chastity, domestic skills (e.g., housekeeping), desire for home and children, and abilities to support the home (Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1988). In China, India, Taiwan, and Iran, chastity was viewed as highly desirable in a prospective mate while in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway, it was considered irrelevant (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). Being a good housekeeper was highly valued in Estonia and China and of little value in Western Europe and North America. Refinement/neatness was highly valued in Nigeria and Iran and less so in Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia. Being religious was highly valued in Iran, moderately valued in India, and little valued in Western Europe and North America (Buss, 1994, p. 199).

Gender differences were also revealed in Buss’s study. Women across cultures place high value on characteristics of men that relate to providing resources—good earning capacity, financial prospects, ambition, industriousness, and social status. Men across the 37 cultures place a high premium on the physical appearance of a potential mate; according to Buss (1994), this supports an evolutionary argument because men use physical attractiveness as an indicator that the woman is fertile and has good reproductive capacity.

Other similar studies have shown that men across cultures rate physical attractiveness higher than women do in terms of preferences in a marital partner (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1995). However, there seem to be more consistencies than differences in descriptions of physical attractiveness. For instance, female attractiveness cross-culturally is connoted by characteristics of kindness, understanding, intelligence, good health, emotional stability, dependability, and a pleasing disposition (Shiraev & Levy, 2007). Attractiveness is usually described in terms of cleanliness, health, and feminine plumpness. Although the degree of plumpness varies across cultures, extreme thinness seems to be considered unattractive and unhealthy (Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1988).

Other theories, such as the social construction perspective, suggest that interpersonal attraction is due to individual and cultural factors instead of evolutionary factors.

One study conducted in the United States highlights gender similarities in mate selection with both men and women rating kindness, consideration, honesty, and a sense of humor as important traits in mate selection (Goodwin, 1990). A more recent study (Pines, 2001) of American and Israeli students and their perceptions of romantic relationships combines both the evolutionary and social construction theories. Pines (2001) found that more men than women, regardless of culture, reported physical attractiveness as a major part of attraction (evolutionary theory). However, culture was important in other factors of attraction (e.g., compared with Israelis, Americans indicated status, closeness, and similarity as key determinants of attraction—social construction theory). In one study demonstrating different standards of beauty, Daibo, Murasawa, and Chou (1994) compared judgments of physical attractiveness made by Japanese and Koreans. In Japan, attractiveness ratings were positively correlated with large eyes, small mouths, and small chins. In Korea, however, attractiveness ratings were positively correlated with large eyes, small and high noses, and thin and small faces. Koreans were more likely than the Japanese to attach other judgments such as maturity and likeability to judgments of attractiveness (Daibo et al., 1994).

Patterns of courting and flirtation have similarities across many cultures (Aune & Aune, 1994), but there are many exceptions to the rules. Kissing, for example, is a widely acceptable cross-cultural phenomenon but is unknown to people in some cultures in Africa and South America, who would not consider kissing as an aspect of mate selection and reproduction (Shiraev & Levy, 2007). In Mediterranean cultures, physical affection is displayed by touching as a form of communication and is considered acceptable and appropriate, whereas in the United States it may be considered inappropriate with some groups. The expectation of marital fidelity appears to be almost universal, although among some Arctic peoples, it is customary to offer a host’s wife to a guest (Shiraev & Levy, 2007). Men everywhere react more negatively, as compared with women, when their partners share sexual fantasies about having sex with others. Women everywhere are more distressed than men when their partner is kissing someone else (Rathus, Nevid, & Fischer-Rathus, 1993).

A relatively new phenomenon is Internet dating and the development of computer-mediated relationships (CMR). Since the 1990s, the Internet has become a primary venue for social encounters across the globe—offering an expanded world of mate possibilities in a shorter period at less expense (Lawson & Leck, 2006). Although some theorists have lamented the technological isolation and reduction of face-to-face interaction leading to emotional disconnection or superficial attraction that can occur with the Internet (Lawson & Leck, 2006), others have suggested that the Internet can be helpful in promoting romantic relationships because physical attributes and traditional/ constraining gender and relationship roles are downplayed while other factors related to emotional intimacy (e.g., rapport, similarity, mutual self-disclosure) are emphasized (Lawson & Leck, 2006). Whitty and Carr (2006) describe how online relating is different than romantic and sexual relationships offline. Advantages include opportunity to “grow” a relationship, safe space to flirt and experiment with relationship development, and greater freedom for people who are anxious or introverted (Whitty & Carr, 2006). The biggest benefits of Internet dating are the sheer number of potential partners and the freedom of choice among partners (Lawson & Leck, 2006). In fact, in one study examining the dynamics of Internet dating, Internet daters reported being lonely and many said they were seeking comfort after a crisis situation. The majority of the respondents liked the control over the presentation of self on the Internet and the feeling of a safe environment for getting to know someone. Finally, respondents reported that Internet dating provided freedom from commitment and stereotypic roles (Lawson & Leck, 2006).

Some of the typical dating problems still remain with Internet dating—people still tell lies, trust has to be negotiated, presentation of self must be managed, compatibility continues to be important, and appearance and shyness issues do not completely disappear when dating online. Rejection and emotional pain still can be part of Internet dating, as they are with face-to-face dating. There is also a dark side of online relationships, including Internet infidelity, Internet addiction, pedophilia, cyberharassment, cyberstalking, and misrepresentation of self (Whitty & Carr, 2006). However, many Internet daters say they are willing to take the risks associated because of the advantages offered by this technology (Lawson & Leck, 2006). Overall, successful relationships online start with people being honest and upfront in their profiles (Whitty & Carr, 2006).

One of the most basic and universal rules of exclusion to marriage is the incest taboo, or a rule prohibiting marriage or sexual intercourse between certain kinship relations. The most common form of incest taboo across societies is against marriage or sexual intercourse between fathers and their children and mothers and their children. In the majority of cultures, brother-sister marriage is prohibited, although there are exceptions. Historically, brothersister marriage in royal families was considered the norm and even existed to some extent in the general population (Kottak, 2008). A prime example of this was brother-sister marriages of royalty in Egypt at the time of the Roman Empire (Miller, 2008). In some cultures, incest taboos include cousin marriage, although in other cultures, cousin marriage is considered a viable option in order to build localized kinship networks. In other groups, such as the Nuer of southern Sudan, the incest taboo includes all members of the patrilineage in order to create widely dispersed kin networks (Kottak, 2008; Miller, 2008).

One of the most practical explanations for the incest taboo is that it arose to ensure exogamy, which was evolutionarily advantageous in terms of increasing survival via the creation and maintenance of alliances outside the social network. Despite prevalence of the taboo, in one study across 87 societies, some occurrences of incest were identified (Meigs & Barlow, 2002). Reportedly incest was “widely practiced” among the Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil. Among the Ashanti people, punishment for incest shifted from death to merely being fined. Among 24 Ojibwa individuals, 8 cases of parent-child incest and 10 cases of brother-sister incest were found (Kottak, 2008). In Western societies, father-daughter incest is considered a risk under certain conditions (Meigs & Barlow, 2002). Father-daughter incest is most common with stepfathers and nonbiological male household members but also occurs with biological fathers, especially those who were absent or did little caretaking of their daughters in childhood (Kottak, 2008).

Societies have some way of marking the onset of marriage. Many societies have formal ceremonies and rituals that denote the beginning of marriage while others use symbolic or informal practices to indicate that a marriage has occurred. In the societies where a ceremony occurs, several elements emphasizing important aspects of the particular culture commonly occur as part of the ceremony. For instance, feasting and celebrations typically accompany marriage ceremonies, often with the underlying purpose of bringing the two families and friends together in unification. Shinto customs are still followed by many in Japanese wedding ceremonies with the drinking of rice wine (sake) after the ceremony to confirm the marriage (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). In some cultures, marriage ceremony customs include ritualized expressions of hostility between kin groups such as the trading of insults, which occurs on the Polynesian atoll of Pukapuka (Kottak, 2008). In Kenya, the rebuilding of a house in the bride’s village represents an important part of the marriage ceremony (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002).

The role of romantic love has been debated historically and cross-culturally. Many argue that romantic love did not become part of marriage until Western Europe and America accepted the idea given the strong influence of the Enlightenment and the individualistic emphasis during the French and American Revolutions (Coontz, 2007). Romantic love is more common in cultures where women are dependent on men economically, but increasingly, marriage based on romantic love is becoming widespread in many cultures (Levine, Sato, Hashimoto, & Verma, 1995).

There is cultural variation in the extent to which love plays a role in marriage. Marriage for love is a fairly recent development in the Western world and may be related to the individualistic orientation (Coontz, 2005). In many Western cultures, marriage is viewed as the culmination of romantic love represented by the idealistic and somewhat “fairy-tale” notion that people meet their soul mates, fall in love, marry, and live “happily ever after,” proving that “love conquers all” (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). People in collectivistic cultures place less emphasis on romantic love and love commitment in marriage. Historically, people married to acquire status through influential in-laws, for political reasons, to forge family alliances, to increase labor forces, and to effect business mergers. Romantic love was not unknown but it was not considered an essential part of marriage and thus was discouraged on the basis of being a selfish and weak reason to marry. For instance, in ancient India, love before marriage was perceived as irresponsible and antisocial. During the Middle Ages, the French viewed love as a type of insanity only curable through sexual intercourse either with the beloved or with someone else (Coontz, 2007).

In contrast, many of the arranged marriages common in Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world do not have romantic love as a basis (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). This “Eastern ideal” is based on the notion that individuals have several possible mates with whom they could have a successful and enduring marriage. Arranged marriage is still practiced in some places, such as India, where arrangements may be made between families during a child’s infancy. Such arrangements are typically based on the parents’ status and knowledge of other families and possible matches; the marriage is considered the blending of two families (Ember et al., 2006; Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). Arranged marriages are viewed as more than just a union between two individuals and more as an alliance between families and even communities (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). However, trends are changing even in countries where arranged marriage has been popular. For example, in Japan, love marriages are replacing the earlier practice of arranged marriages, yet traditional customs often remain as part of the ceremony.

For thousands of years, the institution of marriage served many economic, political, and social functions at the cost of minimizing the needs and wishes of individuals (Coontz, 2005). Especially in the last 200 years, marriage, particularly in Europe and America, has become more personal and private with a greater emphasis on the emotional and sexual needs of the couple. With this historical transition came free choice in mate selection as the societal norm and love as the primary reason for marriage. As Coontz (2005) notes, “Marriage has become more joyful, more loving, and more satisfying for many couples than ever before in history. At the same time it has become optional and more brittle. These two strands of change cannot be disentangled” (p. 306). For some, this transformation of marriage and love has been appreciated as a liberating option from restrictive social and cultural expectations. For others, the shift has meant a significant loss of rules and protocol for relationships with nothing offered in its place. With such factors, the need to marry or remain unhappily married decreases.

Coontz (2005) suggests historical factors that have supported single living and personal autonomy. Factors include the belief that women have just as much sexual desire as men; less societal/governmental regulation of personal behavior and conformity; reliable birth control, which became readily available in the 1960s, relieving women from fears of unwanted pregnancy; increasing economic independence of women; and more time- and laborsaving devices, which have lessened the demand on women to do housekeeping. Examining the role of love in marriage provides a unique lens that reveals many aspects of culture, economic, interpersonal, and emotional (Padilla, Hirsch, Muñoz-Laboy, Sember, & Parker, 2007).

Most marriages (approximately 75%) are accompanied by some type of economic transaction, and exchanges between partners of goods or services and their families and friends (Ember et al., 2006).

Bride Price

Bride price or bridewealth, common in horticultural and pastoralist cultures, is the transfer of goods or money from the groom’s family to the bride’s family. This is the most common economic transaction across cultures. Payment of the bride price can be in the form of money, livestock, or even food. Bride price still occurs globally but is most popular in Africa and Oceania. For example, the Nandi typically offer five to seven cattle, one or two sheep and goats, cowrie shells, and money equivalent to one cow as the bride price.

Brideservice is a type of bride price where labor is transferred from the groom to his parents-in-law over a designated time period. This still occurs in about 19% of societies that have an economic transaction as part of marriage. One particular example is the brideservice still practiced in the Amazon (Ember et al., 2006).

Exchange of Families

In a few societies (about 6% who have economic transactions at marriage), a sister or female relative of the groom is exchanged for the bride. This occurs, for example, among horticultural and egalitarian societies such as the Tiv of West Africa and the Yanomamö of Venezuela and Brazil (Ember et al., 2006).

Gift Exchange

Gift exchange between the two kin groups linked by marriage occurs in some 11% of societies that have economic transactions at marriage. In the United States, it is customary that the groom’s family is responsible for paying for the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding whereas the bride’s family is expected to pay the costs for everything else (Miller, 2008). Among the Andaman Islanders, kin groups become united through the parents exchanging gifts via a third party once a boy and girl have voiced their intention to marry (Ember et al., 2006).

A dowry is the transfer of goods (sometimes money) from the bride’s side to the new married couple for their use. Occurring in about 8% of societies with economic transactions at marriage, the dowry normally includes household goods such as furniture, cooking utensils, and perhaps even a house. Dowries are still practiced in parts of Eastern Europe, southern Italy, France, and India (Ember et al., 2006).

In parts of India, the dowry passes to the groom’s family making the more accurate term groom price (Miller, 2008). Sometimes, an indirect dowry is provided from the groom’s family by giving goods to the bride’s father who then passes them along to her. Among the Basseri of southern Iran, the groom’s father gives cash to the bride’s father in order to set up the couple’s new household (Ember et al., 2006).

In many cultures, marriage sanctions sexual relations between partners. In others, sexuality is confined to procreative purposes. Depending on the society, there are different views about procreation. In some societies, it is believed that spirits place babies in women’s wombs. Some cultural groups believe that a fetus must be nourished by continual insemination during pregnancy. The Barí of Venezuela believe that multiple men can create the same fetus (multiple paternity). When the baby is born, the mother names the men she recognizes as fathers and they assist her in raising the child (Kottak, 2008).

Sexual practices differ as well depending on the society. Some societies are more restrictive concerning sexuality. The regulation of premarital sex and extramarital sex differs depending on the society. For example, Inis Beag, off the coast of Northern Island, is a sexually conservative and prohibiting culture. Nudity is prohibited, sexual ignorance is widespread, female orgasm is unknown, marital sex occurs infrequently, and the idea of sexual pleasure is nonexistent (Messenger, 1993). In other societies, such as the Melanesian Islands in the South Sea, marital sex is perceived as a normal and natural form of pleasure; however, premarital and extramarital sex are almost equal to the crime of murder (Davenport, 1965). Reportedly, in the Melanesian Islands, marital intercourse including orgasm is expected to occur two to three times per day in the early years of marriage, and later to subside to once a day or less. Premarital masturbation is encouraged for both males and females. The Trobriand Islanders approve of and even encourage premarital sex and provide thorough instruction in various forms of sexual expression for adolescents, believing that it is important preparation for later marital activities. The Ila-speaking population of central Africa encourage trial marriage between adolescents so that girls can “play wife” with boys of interest before marriage. Reportedly, virginity in this group does not occur after age 10 (Ember et al., 2006). Other cultural groups, such as many Muslim societies, “test” the female’s virginity by displaying blood-stained sheets from the wedding night as proof of her premarital chastity.

Extramarital sex is fairly common across societies, with about 69% of men and 57% of women engaging in extramarital sex more than occasionally. Most societies have a double standard with regard to women’s sexual behavior and expect that women will have more restrictions against extramarital sex.

One commonality of sex occurring during marriage is privacy in almost all societies. North Americans typically find privacy in their bedrooms while others have to locate other private areas or sometimes perform coitus with others present. Nighttime is generally the preferred time for coitus in most cultures although there are examples of preferences for daytime sex (e.g., the Rucuyen of Brazil). There are other prohibitions in some cultures restricting sexual activity, for example, before certain activities like hunting or planting or because of certain events like death, pregnancy, or menstruation (Ember et al., 2006).

The acceptance of homosexual relations differs widely across societies. Some more restrictive societies deny homosexuality and thus forbid homosexual practices. Historically in other groups, like the Siwans of North Africa, there are examples of much greater permissiveness regarding homosexuality, and all males were expected to engage in homosexual relations. The Etoro of New Guinea are reported to have preferred homosexuality to heterosexuality with specific prohibitions against heterosexuality most of the days during a year. Furthermore, male homosexuality was thought to make crops flourish and strengthen males (Ember et al., 2006).

Typically, marriage has been between a male and a female, but some societies have recognized marriage between people of the same biological sex. In the anthropological literature, alternative forms of marriage have also been noted.

Monogamy is the marriage between two people (opposite gender if heterosexual and same gender if homosexual). Heterosexual monogamy is the most frequent form of marriage across cultures and constitutes the only legal form of marriage in many countries (Miller, 2008). Serial monogamy appears to be a common form of monogamy in North American, where people may have more than one spouse in their lifetimes but never legally at the same time (Kottak, 2008).

Same-Sex Marriages

Some societies recognize various kinds of same-sex marriages (Kottak, 2008). Same-sex marriages are legal in Denmark; Norway; Holland; South Africa; Ontario, Canada; and Massachusetts, in the United States. There is much debate politically and socially regarding the legal status of same-sex marriages (Miller, 2008).

Depending on the historical and cultural setting, samesex marriages have been accepted. In some African cultures, for instance, women may marry other women in order to strengthen their social and economic status among society (Kottak, 2008). Among the Nandi of Kenya, approximately 3% of marriages are female-female marriages. The Nuer of southern Sudan are also reported to have womanwoman marriage. In this type of marriage, a woman with economic means gives gifts to obtain a “wife” and brings her into the residential compound just as a man would do if he married a woman. The wife in a Nuer woman-woman marriage performs productive labor by having sexual relations with a man, as the two women do not have a sexual relationship with each other. Her children, however, will belong to the two women who are married (Miller, 2008). In former times, the Cheyenne Indians allowed married men to take berdaches (two-spirits/male transvestites) as second wives (Ember et al., 2006).

Plural Marriages/Polygamy

Polygamy is marriage that involves multiple spouses, which is still permitted in many cultures (Miller, 2008). The most common form of plural marriage is polygyny, which is the marriage of one man with more than one woman. Polygyny in many societies serves as an indicator of a man’s wealth and prestige—in other words, the more wives he has, the greater status he accrues. In other societies, polygyny is practiced because a man has inherited a widow from his brother (levirate). In still others, polygyny is a way to advance politically and economically. For polygyny to work, there has to be some agreement among the wives about their status and household chores. Generally, there is a first wife or a senior wife who is in charge of the household and has some say-so regarding who is taken as another wife. For instance, among the Betsileo of Madagascar, each wife lived in a different village, but the senior, first wife, called “Big Wife”, lived in the primary village of her husband where he spent most of his time (Kottak, 2008). Other customs like having separate living quarters for cowives who are not sisters helps lessen jealousy among the cowives. The Tanala of Madagascar require the husband to spend one day with each cowife in succession and assist with cultivation of that wife’s land. If this rule is not followed, a wife can sue for divorce and alimony up to a third of the husband’s property. Such a practice gives cowives greater equality in matters of sex, possessions, and economics (Ember et al., 2006).

Marriage between one woman and more than one man (polyandry) is extremely rare, although it is still practiced in Tibet and parts of the surrounding Himalayan region. In Tibet, fraternal polyandry (brothers jointly marrying a wife) is still practiced. Fraternal polyandry is one of the least common forms of marriage globally, but in Tibet, it remains a viable and ideal form of marriage and family. Practically, the eldest brother is normally the dominant authority. The wife is expected to treat all brothers equally, and the sexual aspect of sharing spouses is not viewed as repulsive by males or females. Any offspring are treated similarly, and the children consider all the brothers their fathers. The typical explanation given for this type of marriage in Tibet is that it is a materialistic and economically advantageous one. The brothers do not have to divide their property and can therefore have a higher standard of living. Due to changes in social and economic conditions, polyandry may vanish within the next generation (Kottak, 2008).

Other Forms of Marriage

In the Brazilian community of Arembepe, people can choose among various forms of sexual union including common-law partnerships (not legally sanctioned), civil marriages, and “holy matrimony” (religious ceremony but not legally sanctioned). This means that some can have multiple spouses at the same time from the different types of unions (Kottak, 2008).

Also common among the Nuer was what EvansPritchard (1951) called the ghost marriage. The Nuer believed that a man who died without male heirs in his family was likely to trouble his living kin through an unhappy and angry spirit left behind. To appease the angry spirit, a relative of the dead man would often marry a woman “to his name” so that the woman was married to the ghost but lived with one of his surviving kinsmen.

The custom of female-male marriage practiced across societies appears to have adaptive functions that solve problems in societies. For instance, marriage has been proposed as an answer to gender division of labor that exists in every society. If societies designate different economic activities for men and women, there needs to be a mechanism by which the products of labor can be shared between men and women, and marriage is one possible solution.

Another interpretation of why marriage is universal is based on the extended care required for human infants. It has been suggested that infants have a prolonged dependency on the mother (typically the main caregiver in most cultures); this limits the kind of work she can do (hunting, for example). Therefore one solution is that the man must be available to help the woman with certain tasks, thus the mechanism of marriage (Ember et al., 2006).

A third interpretation of why marriage is universal is sexual competition between males for females. Marriage offers one possibility for reducing male rivalry and destructive conflict so that societies can survive (Ember, et al., 2006).

Many believe that divorce occurs more frequently in the modern United States as compared with other societies. However, anthropologists have reported comparable rates of separation and remarriage among hunting and gathering societies and other groups to those in modern-day industrial societies. For example, the highest rates of divorce ever recorded in the first half of the 20th century were in Malaysia and Indonesia, which surpassed the U.S. record rates of 1981 (Coontz, 2007). Depending on the society, ease of divorce varies. Marriage is much easier to dissolve in societies where marriage is more of an individual affair. In other societies where marriage represents a political and social union between families and communities, divorce is more difficult (Kottak, 2008). Considerable bridewealth and replacement marriages (levirate and sororate) work to preserve group alliances and thus decrease divorce rates. A wife among the Shoshone Indians could divorce her husband by merely placing her husband’s possessions outside the dwelling, which was considered her property. Divorce is official among the Cewa of East Africa when the husband leaves his wife’s village taking along his hoe, axe, and sleeping mat (Coontz, 2007). In the traditional society of Japan, a woman wanting a divorce had to complete two years of service at a special temple while the man could simply write a letter containing three and half lines in order to divorce his wife.

Coontz (2007) posits that the reasons for divorce in any given time period relate to the reasons for marriage. For example, a common reason for divorce in contemporary society is the loss of love, lack of individual fulfillment, or absence of mutual benefit. This has to do with the primary reason for marriage being love and romance.

In Western societies, there is more flexibility with the notion of a failed marriage. Generally, if romance, love, sex, or companionship dies out in a marriage, then couples in contemporary Western society may opt for divorce. However, sometimes for economic reasons, obligations to children, negative public opinion, or simply inertia, couples may maintain “failed” marriages. Among countries across the globe, the United States has one of the highest rates of divorce, although rates have dropped as compared with the 1970s. From historical records of divorce in the United States, there is an increase after wars and a decrease after tough economic times. The high rates of U.S. divorce are thought to be related to the economic independence enjoyed by many women and the cultural ideas of independence and self-actualization which give greater permission for people to abandon marriage if it is not working for them (Kottak, 2008).

A family is a group of people who consider themselves related through kinship, while a household is defined as people who share a living space and may or may not be related (Miller, 2008). Most households consist of members who are related through kinship, although an increasing number do not. For instance, a group of friends sharing living quarters or a single person living alone constitute a household. Young adults in the United States usually live away from home when they go to college. In more complex societies, family members tend to live apart from one another, while in more simple societies, the family and the household are impossible to differentiate (Ember et al., 2006). Across most societies, a primary function of families is the socialization and protection of children so that the children can obtain the cultural behavior, beliefs, and values necessary for survival. The nature of the family inevitably shifts and reflects the social and cultural changes in economics, education, and political systems (Georgas, Berry, van de Vijver, Kagitçibasi, & Poortinga, 2006).

All societies have families, although family form and households vary from society to society. The nuclear household, still commonly referred to as the nuclear family, comprises one adult couple, either married or “partners,” with or without children. Most people belong to at least two different nuclear families during their lifetime. Anthropologists distinguish between the family of orientation, the family in which one is born and grows up, and the family of procreation, the family formed when one marries and has children of his or her own. Nuclear-family organization is widespread cross-culturally and varies in significance from culture to culture, but it is not universal. For instance, in the classic Nayar group, the nuclear family is rare or nonexistent (Kottak, 2008). In contrast, in North America, the nuclear family is the only well-defined kin group and remains somewhat of a cultural ideal (Ember et al., 2006). Such a family structure is thought to arise from industrialism and contributes to geographic mobility and isolation from extended family members. Many North American married couples live far away from their parents in locations generally determined by their jobs in communities (neolocality) and establish households and nuclear families of their own (Ember et al., 2006).

An extended household is a domestic group containing more than one adult married couple related either through the father-son (patrilineal extended household) or motherdaughter line (matrilineal extended household) or through sisters and brothers (collateral extended household). Extended families are the prevailing form in more than half of the world’s societies (Ember et al., 2006). For example, in former Yugoslavia, extended-family households, called zadruga, consisted of several nuclear families living together. The zadruga was headed by a male household head and his wife, considered to be the senior woman. Also included were married sons and their wives and children, and unmarried sons and daughters. Each nuclear family had their own sleeping quarters; however, many items were freely shared among members in the zadruga (e.g., clothes, items from the bride’s trousseau, and other possessions). The Nayar, a caste of southern India, provide another example of extended households. The Nayar lived in matrilineal extended-family compounds called tarawads (residential complexes with several buildings headed by a senior woman and her brother). The tarawads were home to the woman’s siblings, her sisters’ children, and other relatives of matrilineal descent. These compounds were responsible for child care and provided the home for retired Nayar men who were military warriors (Ember et al., 2006).

Expanded-family households (those that include nonnuclear relatives) also exist in some cultures. For example, in lower-class families of North America, expanded-family households are more common than in middle-class families. If an expanded-family household consists of three or more generations, then it is considered an extended-family household. Collateral households, another type of expanded family, include siblings and their spouses and children (Ember et al., 2006). Polygamous married people are considered to constitute complex households in which one spouse lives with or near multiple partners and their children. Descent groups including lineages and clans of people claiming common ancestry may reside in several villages, but rarely come together for social activities. These descent groups are common in nonindustrial foodproducing societies (Kottak, 2008).

Globalization, including technological advances and international migration, has increased the opportunity for interactions among different types of people and contributed to rapid changes in the structure and function of marriage and the family. The institution of marriage continues to retain popularity although many of the details of marriage are undergoing transformation. For instance, the Internet has provided new forms of finding a potential partner and courtship. Also, the age of first marriage is rising in most places due in part to increased emphasis on completing education and higher marital aspirations (e.g., owning a house). Marriages between people of different nations and ethnicities are another example, now increasingly commonplace and leading to pluralistic practices and customs of marriage and family. Coontz (2007) claims that marriage “has been displaced from its pivotal position in personal and social life” (p. 15) with many children being raised in alternative settings. The definition of marriage has also changed, given that most people today live in a global climate of choice with many options. This makes divorce and other relationship forms like cohabitation viable options for many people across the world.

In many societies, people choose to have children without being married, or being a single parent becomes a necessity, and thus one-parent families are becoming more common globally. Traditionally, single-parent families have been more common in Western societies, but there continues to be a large increase in one-parent families with the majority headed by women (approximately 90%). In the 1970s, of the Western countries, Sweden had the highest rates of single-parent families, but now the United States has the largest percentage. One-parent families occur for several reasons, including divorce/separation of two-parent families, births outside of marriage, deaths of spouses, and single people who decide to have children. Some parents may choose to remain single because of lack of suitable partners. For example, in the former Soviet Union, the ratio of women to men is much higher because males are more likely to have died from war, alcoholism, and accidents. In other countries, a common explanation is that one-parent families are able to manage because of support from the state; for example, in Sweden, unmarried and divorced mothers receive significant social supports, maternity leave, and educational leave (Ember et al., 2006).

Another family form that is making a comeback, at least in the United States, is the multigenerational family (three or more generations living together). According to the 2000 Census, there are almost 4 million U.S. multigenerational households; this represents about 4% of all households, and this number continues to rise. The majority of these households include grandparents living with their children and their grandchildren in the house of the grandparent. In about one third of these households, the grandparents live in the home of their children (or son- or daughter-in-law) and their grandchildren. A very small percentage of these households are comprised of grandparents and great-grandparents as well as children and grandchildren of the grandparents (Generations United, 2006).

Some of the reasons for the rise in multigenerational households include financial factors such as high housing costs, high cost of living, child care/elder care expenses, unemployment, parents returning to school, and parents working to save money to become independent. Cultural reasons such as immigration, value systems, importance of ritual and celebration of holidays and events, and desire to stay connected with one’s cultural group all are reported reasons for multigenerational households. Other reasons include individual beliefs that child care and elder care are family responsibilities or that age-integration within communities is important, and a desire to be involved and connected with offspring and elders. Situational factors such as the inability to live alone after being widowed, a divorce that requires moving to a parent’s home with children, an illness requiring regular care and assistance, single parenting, housing shortages, and extended life span also promote multigenerational households (Generations United, 2006). In the future, multigenerational families are expected to become more commonplace and continue to increase. By 2010 in the United States, it is expected that more children will know their great-grandparents, people in their 60s will be caring for 80- to 90-year-old parents, more children will grow up with the support of older relatives, and there will be an increase in four-generational households (Generations United, 2006).

Grandparenting in general is a relatively new phenomenon as of the last 100 years, due to increased life expectancy and good health. The number of grandparents parenting grandchildren has increased generally due to crisis situations involving drugs, divorce, desertion, and death (Glass & Huneycutt, 2002). Other factors contributing to the increase of grandparents raising their grandchildren include high teenage-pregnancy rates, more parents in prison (with some 80% having dependent children), more women using drugs, and parents dying from AIDS. All of these scenarios that lead to the number of grandparents raising their grandchildren are thought to be on the rise.

Increasing numbers of lesbian women and gay males are exploring parenting options (McCann & Delmonte, 2005) and taking on parenthood through donor insemination, surrogacy, fostering, and adoption. Although there appears to be no definitive research pointing one way or another, gay parenting has been a contentious issue for many because of the presumed damaging effects that gay parents can have on their children. Concerns have been raised regarding whether the child will become homosexual, whether the child will be bullied, whether the child will have appropriate opposite-sex role models, and more (McCann & Delmonte, 2005).

Another complexity for family structure is the challenge presented by international migration. Parents may still identify with their ancestral culture and children often become immersed in the new culture, quickly adapting to the language and customs. This can cause rifts in the relationship between parents and children and can contribute to disagreements about social issues like dating, clothing, and careers. Sometimes children also serve as cultural brokers for their parents, navigating complex and unfamiliar bureaucratic systems since their parents may not speak the language or be acculturated to the new country and customs. Immigrant children typically adapt to the dominant culture faster than their parents, which also contributes to conflict between parent and child—parents trying to hold on to previous traditions, while children are adapting to the new, dominant culture as their new way of life. Immigrant children frequently become masters of both cultures, easily adapting between both worlds (Suárez-Orozco & SuárezOrozco, 2001). Immigrant parents are often conflicted between encouraging their children to develop the cultural competencies of the dominant culture and trying to maintain their own traditions (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001). In addition, resettlement issues such as obtaining housing, food, and employment, and dealing with the bureaucracy of immigration and documentation, can overwhelm parents’ ability to attend to their children. Immigrant families may also experience stress due to adaptation to the United States, including such tasks as learning and/or enhancing English skills and finding employment, housing, and schools; these are difficult tasks for anyone, but especially for immigrants as they also deal with new and different social/cultural expectations and attitudes.

International adoption (sometimes referred to as transnational adoption) is becoming more common in the United States and European countries. Although still on a relatively small scale, international adoption represents a significant shift from historical adoption practices and constitutes an entirely different family structure (Conn, 2009). More than 20,000 internationally adopted children enter the United States each year from China, Russia, and Guatemala.

Marriage and family are universal forms of mating and relating; however, the forms of marriage and family are variable depending on social, cultural, and historical influences (Ferguson, 2007). Family arrangements are more diverse now than ever before, and relationships have shifted from having a biological emphasis to a social emphasis. In the future, there is likely to be increased diversity and transformation in the institution of marriage, along with family forms and households, across the globe (Miller, 2008).

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Times Insider

An Intimate Look at Modern Love and Marriage

Amanda Montei, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, spoke to more than 30 married people for whom sex is not essential.

By Sarah Bahr

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

When Amanda Montei began reporting an article last year about married couples who had little to no sex, she didn’t know how forthcoming people would be about their sex lives.

But to her surprise, many of the couples were willing — grateful, even — to talk about it.

“It was almost like a pressure valve was released,” Ms. Montei said of her conversations with more than 30 married people who are among the 50 percent of American adults having sex once a month or less . “Most couples I talked with said speaking to me felt like a relief because they were able to talk openly about their sexual lives without judgment.”

The article, which was published this month in the Modern Love issue of The New York Times Magazine, is based on phone and video conversations with couples in seven states, as well as Canada, Britain and Italy, and took Ms. Montei five months to report.

“My main takeaway was that there are so many factors that influence a person’s desire,” she said. “It’s a really complicated negotiation with the self and the body and our current cultural moment.”

In a phone conversation from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ms. Montei discussed how she helped sources feel comfortable sharing intimate details of their private lives and what questions she hopes to tackle next in her reporting. These are edited excerpts.

How did you come up with the idea for this article?

I published a book last fall about motherhood and sexuality and received lots of notes from readers who connected with it and saw themselves represented in it, and who found that motherhood impacted the way they viewed their bodies, sexual lives and relationships. Writing and publishing the book made me more curious about women’s sexual lives, especially how desires can change with age and parenthood; what marriage has tended to demand of women; and how people in long-term heterosexual relationships navigate those changes today.

There’s also been a shift lately in the public conversation around traditional marriage. We’ve seen so much coverage of polyamory and questions about monogamy, but less coverage of marital sex and what that looks like today. I wanted to explore that.

Did you ask people to use their full names?

I tried, but most people asked for some level of anonymity. I think that speaks to how much shame and secrecy there is surrounding this issue. Many couples I spoke to said this isn’t something they talk about with other people; that was especially true for the men.

How did you get sources to open up?

I’ve written candidly about my life, so I think that helped some of my sources open up. These couples knew I was there to listen and didn’t have a predetermined agenda.

What was your biggest reporting challenge?

There was so much I wanted to say about the history of marital sex. There are lots of women who have written to me with experiences of trauma and violation in their marriages. There are also couples who aren’t straight or monogamous. For me, this was a study of heterosexuality and monogamous marriage today, and it felt important to stay focused on that.

What was the biggest surprise?

I expected to find a lot of straight men who were impatient with women who had a low sense of desire, or who felt disconnected from their desire. But I found that the men I spoke to were really patient, empathetic and thoughtful about issues of consent. They were curious and trying to figure out the best ways they could support their partners.

Were you surprised by the reader response?

The piece definitely took off in a way I didn’t expect. People have opinions about marriage and sex, and the popularity of the piece shows how desperate people are to talk about these topics. They want to have more open conversations about sex, desire, partnership and what all of that looks like today.

What questions do you still have after reporting this article?

One thing I didn’t have space to examine in the piece is how cultural beliefs about desire, sex and our expectations of intimacy in relationships are circulating online. There are some ways that digital spaces and social media have made room for more diverse representations of desire, sexuality and partnership. But there are also plenty of pro-marriage accounts, influencers and so-called intimacy experts who advocate regressive ideas about married women.

In the era of wellness culture and the unregulated relationship-coaching industry, we also see a lot of relationship, intimacy, and sex coaches online advocating fairly traditional gender roles, often under the guise of health or relationship stability. Other figures are more earnestly helping people understand and articulate their desires and sexualities.

Sarah Bahr writes about culture and style for The Times. More about Sarah Bahr