Do We Really Know What Love Is?

Many of us are stumped to define it yet we all have an idea of it

Love is why we marry, or at least that’s what many of us believe. Of course, something as fragile as love alone isn’t a good enough reason to create a life together, as noted marriage historian Stephanie Coontz has written volumes about.

Still, we want to believe that love is essential in marriage. That’s fine except, what is love? Many of us are stumped to define it, and even those of us who can define it often find that others may not agree with our definition. Yet we all have an idea of what love is.

A friend, a college professor who teaches a class in love, says her students are terrified of having to define love, terrified by the idea that love should even be defined. Hate, narcissism — they have no problem agreeing on definitions for those. But love? They shrug, a defeatist shrug, and say, “Well, it’s different for everyone.”

Is it? If love is different for everyone, then what love are we talking about when we’re building a marriage around it or divorcing because we no longer have it? What love are we talking about when we insist people marry “for love”?

Do we even know how to love?