What is Love? (How does Love relate to Marriage?)

I'm not talking about Haddaway's hit song "What is love", but he does ask a good question. In 1993, "What is Love" hit the #2 spot in the UK (and #11 in the US), the same year the song was released. Other songs with the same title have been recorded by Jennifer Lopez and Nevershoutnever!.

Even though Haddaway never attempts at an answer, but rather just repeats the question over and over to a constant Eurodance beat, the question that he is asking is a very thought provoking one. What is Love? Or rather for me, how does Love relate to Marriage?

Starting with the first part of the question: What is Love (academically speaking)?

Robert Sternberg, an American psychologist, has a triangular theory of love, in which he describes different types of love in the context of specific combinations of three main attributes of love: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment. Different combinations of these three attributes identify different types of love. For example, if only Intimacy is present, Sternberg calls this 'liking' someone. If you add Commitment to the Intimacy, then you have Compassionate Love. However, if you were to combine Passion and Intimacy (without commitment), you have an Infatuation. The full Triangle can be seen here.

John Lee, another psychologist, identifies 'styles' of love in his book Colours of Love (1973). 'Ludus' lovers see love as a game. 'Pragma', pragmatic love, focuses on the logical and practical side of love. 'Eros', the love of Beauty (Literal), is a love style of Passion and Romance. 'Mania' is a love style that is full of passion and sexual desire, but is out of control and often times leads to stalking. 'Storge' love is calm but lacks passion. Finally, 'Agape' love, the love of the Bible, is unconditional love that is selfless and giving.

Psychology identifies many ways in which we love people. Likewise, there are many people that we love. I love my family. I love my friends. I love my God. But, I do not intend on marrying them. It is my best guess (I have not conducted research on this, but studies probably show...) that people get married because they love each other. For this discussion, I would like to separate Love and Marriage, not permanently because I do believe Love to be an Important part of marriage, but rather for the purpose of examining their relationship. In order to fully examine the relationship between these two topics they must be looked at individually before they can be examined together.

To me, marriage and love can be explained in a way similarly to a square and a rectangle. A square can be described as a rectangle because it has two sets of equal parallel sides, but a rectangle can not be described as a square because it does not have four equal length parallel sides. Likewise, I believe that Love is a part of marriage, but love does not specifically mean marriage. Having separated love from marriage as a cause to the effect, I now pose the question, if marriage is not about love, then "what is marriage?"

I doubt that Haddaway, nor anybody else, will ever release a hit song (much less record a song) entitled "What is Marriage?" But at a time where marriage is under attack as an institution, perhaps now is a good time to ask.