Romance and romantic love encompass a number of ideas about love, which are interrelated for historical and cultural reasons:
passionate feelings of attraction—a mental state of "being in love", with focused attention (salience) towards a specific individual for courtship or pair bonding; the cultural practice or idealization of initiating intimate relationships for feelings like these, over more practical or ordinary concerns; a relationship or love affair initiated or maintained this way, which may be premarital or absent a commitment;: "Romantic love is a passionate spiritual-emotional-sexual attachment between a man and a woman that reflects a high regard for the value of each other's person. I do not describe a relationship as romantic love if the couple does not experience their attachment as passionate or intense, at least to some significant extent." and a love story involving these elements.
In psychology, romantic love is considered to be a motivation or drive, which is distinct from (but related to) the concept of attachment.
The terms romance and romantic love are used with multiple definitions, which can be contradictory at times.: "[I]t was only after several years of work that I began to realize fully the confused and contradictory reactions the subject of romantic love evoked in the writers of scientific literature." The philosopher Arthur Lovejoy once wrote that "The word 'romantic' has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing."; Lovejoy is quoted in a discussion of romantic love
Collins Dictionary defines romantic love as "an intensity and idealization of a love relationship, in which the other is imbued with extraordinary virtue, beauty, etc., so that the relationship overrides all other considerations, including material ones." The concept of romantic love also came to represent the idea of individualistic choice in marriage and sexual partners, although it's rarely realized fully and can be a source of both gratification and disappointment in relationships.
People who experience little to no romantic attraction are referred to as "aromantic".
General definitions The meaning of the term romantic love has changed considerably throughout history, making it difficult to easily define without examining its cultural origins. The term is used with multiple definitions by academics.: "English dictionaries distinguish 'romantic' with several definitions, but in reality, such tidy divisions are misleading. When we use the word, these different meanings bleed into each other." (p. 87); "The cultural history of 'romance' and various meanings of the word 'romantic' make it extremely difficult to define 'romantic love'. Academic psychology—usually quite pedantic about its terminology—has been unable to establish a consensus. Some psychologists use the term in accordance with its courtly origins, whereas others use it interchangeably with 'passionate love'. As a culture, we seem to have settled on the latter usage, viewing 'romantic love' and 'falling in love' as much the same thing." (p. 106): "The word romantic love is often used to distinguish from conjugal love, parental love, friendship love, and other types of close relationships. In this meaning, romantic love often assumes just heterosexual, passionate, and erotic love. Another meaning of the term romantic love differentiates it from other types of heterosexual love, the love between a man and a woman—realistic love, sexual love, etc. The key feature of romantic love in this sense is in accord with the true meaning of the word romantic, which is characterized by an idealized view of life—in this case, of love life. It is opposite to realistic, pragmatic love." (pp. xii–xiii); "According to several dictionaries, romantic love is characterized by strong affection and preoccupation with love, unrealistic and idealistic attitudes toward a partner, and the feeling l'amour toujours (French), that love will last forever and never end." (p. 14); "Many scholars over the recent decades attempted to answer the question about universality of romantic love [...]. [A] difficulty [...] was the lack of a comprehensive commonly accepted definition of romantic love." (p. 36) In Western culture, the term may be used indiscriminately to refer to almost any attraction between men and women or which includes a sexual component (heterosexual, homosexual, or otherwise), although romance and love are distinguishable concepts. According to the psychotherapist Robert Johnson, the conflation is based on a kind of confusion over terms, with a cultural history of idealizing falling in love and passion-seeking over more ordinary concerns like affection and commitment.
The term is often used to distinguish from other types of interpersonal relationships (conjugal, parental, friendship), and in contrast to the modern interpretation of platonic love (which precludes sexual relations). The notion that romantic love only occurs within a relationship of some kind, however, has been called a misconception. It has also been argued that romantic love can actually be "platonic" in some cases, for example, as in the case of a romantic friendship which involves passionate feelings without sexual desire.
In academic fields of psychology, the term romantic love might be used in reference to any of the common definitions (courtly love, romantic idealization, being in love, etc.). The psychologist Dorothy Tennov once criticized the reactions to romantic love in the scientific literature as "confused and contradictory".
The literary tradition
The word romance is derived from the Latin word Romanus, meaning "Rome" or "Roman". In the modern day, the word is used with multiple connotations, but its history has a connection to the telling of love stories. After the fall of the Roman Empire, a Latin adverb Romanice (from Romanus) became used to mean "in the vernacular" to identify languages which were derivatives of Latin, when Latin itself was used in more formal contexts at the time. In Old French (one of the Latin derivatives), this later became romans or romanz, which referred both to the language itself, and also to works composed in it. In the Middle Ages, this romans/romanz took on a meaning as referring specifically to a type of narrative verse about chivalry and love (called chivalric romance).: "Until the end of the 18th century, "romantic" had been used, in several languages, to denote matters pertaining to romance and the roman, that is, to the genre of chivalric literature, composed in the vernaculars of the medieval romance languages (which themselves become the focus of Romantic attention); or, by extension, to indicate the fantastic, enchanted, or mysterious, as it manifested itself in the plots and landscapes of that genre, and as it could also be applied to modern works of art."
Some of the earliest literature containing themes considered "romantic" in a more modern sense was written by French poets known as troubadours—initially often exploring themes of unrequited love, and emphasizing the worship of a lady (a "cold, cruel mistress"). Poets like Chrétien de Troyes were encouraged by royalty to compose works exemplifying certain ideals (now called "courtly love"), notably in the towns of Poitiers and Troyes; later, Andreas Capellanus was influenced by this culture to write The Art of Courtly Love. Courtly love also became emphasized as a theme for chivalric romance, a popular form of literature at the time. The French word romans was anglicized into romance, and initially the term romantic love referred to those attitudes and behaviors of courtly love.
Courtly love involved themes elevating the status of the woman, of passionate suffering and separation, and a transformation of the lovers to another plane of existence. This is said to have originated from the troubadour poetry and the work by Capellanus, although they were also influenced by even earlier works. Often, stories inspired by this tradition are depictions of tragic or unfulfilled love. Some examples of "romantic love" stories in this vein are Layla and Majnun, works of Arthurian legend (i.e. Lancelot and Guinevere), Tristan and Iseult, Dante and Beatrice (from La Vita Nuova), Romeo and Juliet and The Sorrows of Young Werther. Rather than always being pessimistic, however, others expressed an early "humanistic" perspective on passion—that is, idealizing "human love" in contradiction to religious ideals or social interference—as in the happy ending found in Aucassin and Nicolette. The modern romance novel as it's known today (e.g. by Jane Austen) emerged during the 18th-century period of the larger movement.
Modern depictions of this type of love story are in Twilight (Edward Cullen and Bella Swan), and Star Wars (Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala).
The courtly and romantic traditions are said to have influenced attitudes towards love in Western culture, attitudes which continue to be present in the modern day. The cultural movement is critiqued for promising a kind of "story-book" or "fairy-tale" love when the stories themselves actually involve depictions of suffering and tragedy, perhaps making the culture "blind to love's madness". According to the cultural critic Denis de Rougemont, "Happy love has no history—in European literature. And a love that is not mutual cannot pass for a true love."
Romantic beliefs In the social sciences, the term romantic love has been used to refer to the idealization of a love relationship, reminiscent of the attitudes depicted in the literary tradition. The set of beliefs associated with the phenomenon is also called romanticism. Lovers with romantic beliefs and attitudes tend to idealize their loved one and live in a world of fantasy. They believe in a "soul mate" or "one true love", and believe that "true love" will last forever. They believe that "true love" will overcome all obstacles, that love is the only legitimate basis for selecting a mate, and that one should "follow their heart" and reject reason and rationality. Romantic love in this sense is contrasted with rational, practical, pragmatic, or realistic love.
Stanton Peele, who pioneered the concept of "love addiction", has criticized the romantic cultural ideal as being "less critical and evaluative"—therefore underlying "unhealthy extremes" he says of addictive relationships, lovesickness, and limerence.
Peele considers the view of Erich Fromm, that love "chiefly engages a person's concern for others", suggesting one looks beyond basic attachment theoretical concerns (parallels between love and infant attachment) to include healthy growth along several avenues.
Judging more appropriate love objects. Learning from one's experiences, and avoiding self-destructive patterns. Expanding awareness of life opportunities beyond one core attachment. Recognizing one's obligations towards one's lovers, and other people.
Being in love
Researchers use romantic love to refer to the mental state which laypeople might refer to as "being in love". A variety of other terms are also used to refer to this, including passionate love, infatuation, limerence, obsessive love, eros (ancient Greek concept) and eros/mania (love styles).
The evolutionary anthropologists Bode & Kushnick undertook a comprehensive review of romantic love from a biological perspective in 2021. They considered the psychology of romantic love, its mechanisms, development across the lifespan, functions, and evolutionary history. Based on the content of that review, they proposed a biological definition of romantic love: