"All you need is love...love is all you need." The Beatles sang this interminably. "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love," sang Burt Bacharach in close harmony. "Love makes the world go round" is proverbial. And the value of love is ancient: Vergil rhapsodized that "Omnia vincit Amor "-- love conquers all; and by the time Chaucer's Prioress wore her gold broach, the tag had been reversed "Amor vincit omnia", meaning the same thing, only the grammar had changed -- but she probably expressed a more carnal version of love than St. Augustine's famous dictum: "Love and do what you will." "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," said Christ (Mat 19 :19). St. John states: "God is love."(1 John 4 :8).
The consensus persists over the centuries about the power of love and our need for love: to love and to be loved. Some add that love is hard work, and that compromise, a sense of humour and a bad memory are essential to keep love alive and fresh, as well as sex, the glue that keeps couples together and the oxytocins and endorphins high.
But there is no such consensus about what love is -- for two main reasons. First, there are so many types of love, and second, the two principal theories of love are contradictory.
The experts--notably psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and the rest of us--recognize many types of love: romantic, passionate sexual love, platonic love, filial, parental and sibling loves, companionate love, infatuation, puppy love, lust, patriotism, friendship, the transcendent love for humanity exemplified by Dr. Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, and the love of God (in the three monotheistic faiths) or gods. Anthony Giddens talked about congruent love, which he defined as egalitarian; and Zygmunt Bauman referred to liquid love: fluid, evanescent and always flowing downhill. All are loves, but they are not the same, and should not be confused -- but they are, all the time, resulting in rape, incest, unhappy marriages, and scandals like the Clinton-Lewinski affair.
Plus, they can all change. C.S. Lewis postulated four loves in his eponymous book, but Francis Bacon only three: "Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it." Rosemary Houghton favoured one love: "love is one, the vital human impulse towards completeness and freedom." It is "self-giving" (1971 :178-9). Bob Marley also sang one love, and had many.
"Love is a many splendoured thing" clearly, as Ringo Starr opined; but it can also be a tangled, volatile and dangerous thing. Our understanding is not helped by Lord Byron's couplet: "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart. 'Tis woman's whole existence." Is that true? Does love mean different things to men and women? Or do you reckon that the variation in attitudes within each sex outweigh any differences between us? And the practice of love is constantly changing as we change, and so do the economy, our circumstances and gender expectations. Love is tricky that way. As Shakespeare said: "The course of true love never did run smooth." More briefly: "Love hurts "(Incubus).
The feminization of love and the valorization of mothers over fathers is part of this debate. Fathers' work as providers is not seen as love, but as duty, while mothers' loving at home, and traditionally as care-givers, is not seen as work. Neither perception is valid, though common; and the reality is reversing rapidly anyway as men's work is evaporating and women are becoming the majority in the labor force.
Therefore, the many types of love, the gender debate, and the constant change make love difficult to theorize. But we can try.
