The desire for romantic love in marriage is deeply rooted in our psychological makeup.
Romantic ideas about the heart fly in the face of known fact, but that doesn't matter and never has. People many thousands of years ago knew that the heart is basically a blood pump, but that didn't keep them from also believing it was the seat of romantic love (and all other strong emotion).
I've never believed in or understood romantic love. Love at first sight was always a complete joke to me.
Anthropologists have found evidence of romantic love in 170 societies. They've never found a society that did not have it.
Romantic love is an addiction.
Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.
I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy.
When you're in the throes of this romantic love, it's overwhelming - you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 A.M. every day - Why? Because she's there.
Romantic love allows you to focus mating energy. Attachment sustains that relationship as long as necessary to raise your baby.
Psychologists maintain that the dizzying feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months to - at best - three years.
