Sex and Love: Are You in the Mood? 185
Intimacy: What Is This Thing Called Love?
As indicated in chapter 11, intimacy is a psychosocial stage. It refers to emotional
closeness between partners, an I-thou relationship in contrast to an I-it relation-
ship. It is generally believed that in order to have intimacy in a marriage a prereq-
uisite is to be in love with one’s partner. Consequently, an examination of the
concept of romantic love, and ideas related to it, will shed a certain amount of
light on sexual behavior in a long-term relationship.
Unlike many of the world’s cultures, our culture links sexual behavior, partic-
ularly within the institution of marriage, to romantic love. Romantic loveis a
mental and emotional state characterized by moments of joy and the idealization
of one’s partner. In her book Love and Limerence,the psychologist Dorothy Ten-
nov uses the term limerenceto identify the distinctive pattern of thoughts and
emotions associated with being in love. These include daydreaming about the
beloved one, the desire to have love returned, and the wish to spend a lot of time
in the other person’s presence. We use phrases such as “falling in love” to suggest
that the state of being in love is somewhat involuntary.
The concept of romantic love is an outgrowth of the Middle Ages tradition of
chivalry, a set of ideas and customs associated with knighthood. The knight was
expected to paycourtly loveto a noblewoman. This involved writing poems and
jousting in tournaments with the fair lady’s handkerchief tied to a lance. The lady was
often unattainable, and sexual desire was unrequited. The present-day concept of
courting a woman is obviously derived from the days when knighthood was in flower.
(a) Romantic love is a mental and emotional state characterized by moments of
and the of one’s partner.
(b) What term does the psychologist Dorothy Tennov use to identify the distinctive pattern
of thoughts and emotions associated with being in love?
(c) The concept of romantic love is an outgrowth of the Middle Ages tradition of
.
Answers: (a) joy; idealization; (b) Limerence; (b) chivalry.
It is only in relatively recent centuries, and primarily in the Western world,
that the concept of romantic love has been tied to actual marriage. The problem
is that romantic love has a certain tendency to fade after a marriage settles down
and children become members of the family. True, there may be romantic
moments, but one cannot expect a steady state of limerence to endure day after
day for years. Romantic love is replaced with conjugal love,a state of deep affec-
tion, mutual respect, and shared responsibilities. The partner is loved and there is
intimacy. And it is necessary to be more or less satisfied with conjugal love if one
