What Is Love?

What is this thing called love? This simple question begs for an answer.   The symptoms of


love are familiar enough.   A drifting mooniness in one’s behavior and thought, the fact that it


seems as though the whole universe has rolled itself up into the person of the beloved, something


so wonderful that no one on earth has ever felt about a fellow creature before.   Love is ecstasy


and torment, freedom and slavery.   Love makes the world go round.


        Until recently, scientists wanted nothing to do with it.   The reason being that love is life’s


most intense feeling and love is mushy. Science is hard.   Anger and fear are emotions that have


been researched in labs and can be quantified through measurements.   Pulse and breathing rates,


muscle contractions, etc.   Love cannot be charted or measured.   Anger and fear have a definite


roll in human survival: fighting or running. Love does not. And since it is possible for humans to


mate and reproduce without love, all the swooning and sighing is beside the point.


        Up until the past decade, serious scientists assumed that love was all in the head.   Now the


research has become more intense. This may be because of the spreading of AIDS and that casual


sex carries mortal risks.   Others point to the growing number of female scientists and suggest that


they may be more willing then their male colleagues to take love seriously.   Whatever the reason,


science has come around to a view that romance is real.   That it is bred into our biology.


        We have always been influenced by love in our culture. It is a dominant theme in music,


television, films, novels and magazines.   It is a commercial bliss.   People will do or buy anything


with a promise of romance.  


        Does this imply that love is just a false emotion that we picked up after years of it being


drilled into our...