A Brief History of Romance

At some point during evolution apes develped the ability to become emotionally attached to one another. This emotional attachment would eventually come to be known as “love”. The ability to love each other helped us survive. We developed the ability to emotionally bond into communities and families where we became largely inclined to cooperate with one another. These communities and families turned out to be far more effective than any claw or any fang for our survival.

As humans, we instinctively develop loyalty and affection for those who show us the most loyalty and affection. This is all love really is: an irrational degree of loyalty and affection for another person-to the point that we’d let ourselves come to harm or even die for that person.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato argued that the highest form of love was actually this non-sexual, passionless love between two family members or between two close friends since passion and romance and sex often make us do ridiculous things. Most people in the ancient world, looked upon romantic love with skepticism, if not absolute horror. Many cultures treated it as some sort of unfortunate disease we all have to go through and get over in our lives, kind of like chickenpox. In fact, classic stories like The Iliad or Romeo and Juliet weren’t celebrations of love, but warnings

For most of human history, people didn’t marry because of their feelings for one another. Feelings didn’t matter in the ancient world.Why? There are fields to plow and cows to feed, and barbarians to fight. There was no time for romance. And certainly no tolerance for the risky behaviors it encouraged among people. Marriage was meant for baby-making and sound finances.

It wasn’t until the industrial age that things began to change. People began to take up work in city centers and factories. Their income, and thus their economic future, was no longer tied to the land and they were able to make money independent of their family. They didn’t have to rely on inheritances or family connections, and so the economic and political components of marriage ceased to make much sense.

The new economic realities of the 19th century then cross-pollinated with the ideas that emerged from the Enlightenment about individual rights and the pursuit of happiness, and the result was a full-blown Age of Romanticism. The new ideal was not only to marry for love but that that love was to live on in bliss for all of the eternity. Thus, it wasn’t until the relatively recent 150 years ago that the ever-popular “happily ever after” ideal was born.

Romance and all of the weight we tend to put on it is a modern invention, and primarily promoted and marketed by a bunch of businessmen who realized it will get you to pay for movie tickets and/or a new piece of jewelry.

Romance is an easy sell. We all enjoy seeing the hero get the girl. We enjoy seeing the happy ending. We enjoy believing in “happily ever after.” It feels good. And so the commercial forces that arose in the 20th century took it and ran with it.

Feelings are definitely real, but is romance just an artificial construct?