Is Love a Social Construct?: Responses from Quora

I was going through one of my favorite Tumblr blog (which happens to be a sociology blog) when I stumbled upon the discussion of whether or not love is a social construct. I read through and I found a link that led me to another discussion, on the same issue, on a site called Quora. 

The following are responses I found interesting, especially the first one which I completely agree with, and which puts a lot into perspective.


Is love a social construct?

"Yes and no. There's a triggered biological reaction we call "in love" and then there's the social construction of what love means and how it unfolds. The former is largely biological. The latter is largely social. 
Be careful about the cultural portrayal of romantic love in media. There's a reason why all fairy tales end in "happily ever after" but all protagonists start the story with broken families (e.g., both parents dead, divorced, step-parents). We end up with this mythical perspective of "love" that contradicts itself even in fairy tales.
The biological reaction we call love isn't designed to last. See Dorothy Tennov's book on Limerence. The biological fire often leads to irrational, emotional, drama-filled scenarios. Great for starting a relationship. Awful for sustaining it.
The problem is that the transition from burning fire to sustained warmth is something that gets much less air time. We're simply bombarded with the same media message of "fire, fire". Robert A. Johnson said it best in his book on love. We're so intoxicated by this cultural myth of fiery love that "if a direct, uncomplicated, simple relationship offers us happiness, we won’t accept it." 
Many people who have difficulty with relationships have unrealistic expectations of what love is due to these media portrayals of love--i.e., they're waiting for the "perfect" person, or they want to feel fiery love all the time."--- Nick Yee, Research Scientist: Psychology of Virtual Environments

"Love is a unequivocally a physiological response.  The heart palpitations, the constant flashes of that person in your mind, the "warm fuzzies"...all that is biological.  If love were a social construct, then it would not appear in all cultures.  But it does.  Men fall head over heals for women, and vice versa from Mississippi to Mumbai."--- Rod Graham

"Helen  Fisher, Biological Anthropologist and leading expert on the biology of love and attraction, gives this answer in the new issue of United  Academics Magazine "Love Hurts."  

"No.  Romantic love is a brain system that evolved millions of years ago to  drive ancestral men and women to focus their mating energy on a specific  individual to start the mating process. It has specific pathways in the  brain, is associated with a specific constellation of psychological  traits, and is found in every society on earth.” 

---Carian Thus

"Society certainly DOES tell us how to love one another and whom we should love. Just think of all the media (movies and television in particular) that present a specific kind of romance and version of love to us. This media reinforces certain ways of dating, certain types of partners, and certain ways of experiencing love that strongly influence how we approach love and what we expect from it."          ---Robert Jones

This next one!!

"Love is a force of nature, it might be THE force of nature. 

It certainly is not a strictly human social construct - your dog in fact really does love you. Mommy dolphins really love their baby dolphins, just like mama bears and mama wolves and mama gorillas, and other animals that will kick your ass for getting anywhere near their children. 

In the same way we build physical constructions around forces of nature, we have built social constructions around the force of love. Sure, society has harnessed this force for it's own purposes, just as we use dams to harness the power of gravity and the flow of water to generate power. 

Hold your baby for the 1st time. That feeling is not you being manipulated by the media. It's just as real as gravity, and just as powerful too."---Chris Keath

Find the entire discussion here 

Brilliant Life Tips

Titled "Advice For College Grads from Two Sociologists", this made so a lot of sense to me! Check them out, I hope one or two of them resonate within you as they did with me!

1. Don’t Worry About Making Your Dreams Come True

College graduates are often told: “follow your passion,” do “what you love,” what you were “meant to do,” or “make your dreams come true.”  Two-thirds think they’re going find a job that allows them to change the world, half within five years.  Yikes.

This sets young people up to fail. The truth is that the vast majority of us will not be employed in a job that is both our lifelong passion and a world-changer; that’s just not the way our global economy is. So it’s ok to set your sights just a tad below occupational ecstasy.  Just find a job that you like.  Use that job to help you have a full life with lots of good things and pleasure and helping others and stuff.  A great life is pretty good, even if it’s not perfect.

2. Make Friends

Americans put far too much emphasis on finding Mr. or Ms. Right and getting married. We think this will bring us happiness.  In fact, however, both psychological well-being and health are more strongly related to friendship.  If you have good friends, you’ll be less likely to get the common cold, less likely to die from cancer, recover better from the loss of a spouse, and keep your mental acuity as you age.  You’ll also feel more capable of facing life’s challenges, be less likely to feed depressed or commit suicide, and be happier in old age.  Having happy friends increases your chance of being happy as much as an extra $145,500 a year does.  So, make friends!

3. Don’t Worry  about Being Single

Single people, especially women, are stigmatized in our society: we’re all familiar with the image of a sad, lonely woman eating ice cream with her cats in her pajamas on Saturday night. But about 45% of U.S. adults aren’t married and around 1 in 7 lives alone.

This might be you.  Research shows that young people’s expectations about their marital status (e.g., the desire to be married by 30 and have kids by 32) have little or no relationship to what actually happens to people.  So, go with the flow.

And, if you’re single, you’re in good company.  Single people spend more time with friends, volunteer more, and are more involved in their communities than married people. Never-married and divorced women are happier, on average, than married women. So, don’t buy into the myth of the miserable singleton.

4. Don’t Take Your Ideas about Gender and Marriage Too Seriously

If you do get married, keep going with the flow.  Relationship satisfaction, financial security, and happy kids are more strongly related to flexibility in the face of life’s challenges than any particular way of organizing families.  The most functional families are ones that can bend.  So partnering with someone who thinks that one partner shouldsupport their families and the other should take responsibility for the house and children is a recipe for disaster.  So is being equally rigid about non-traditional divisions of labor.  It’s okay to have ideas about how to organize your family – and, for the love of god, please talk about both your ideals and fallback positions on this – but your best bet for happiness is to be flexible.

5. Think Hard About Whether to Buy a House

Our current image of the American Dream revolves around homeownership, and buying a home is often taken for granted as a stage on the path to full-fledge adulthood. But the ideal of universal home ownership was born in the 1950s.  It’s a rather new idea.

With such a short history, it’s funny that people often insist that buying a house is a fool-proof investment and the best way to secure retirement.  In fact, buying a house may not be the best choice for you. The mortgage may be less than rent, but there are also taxes, insurance, and the increasingly common Home Owners Association (HOA) fees. You may someday sell the house for more than you bought it but, if you paid interest on a mortgage, you also paid far more than the sale price.  You have freedom from a landlord, but may discover your HOA is just as controlling, or worse.  And then there’s the headache: renting relieves you from the stress of being responsible for repairs. It also offers a freedom of movement that you might cherish.

So, think carefully about whether buying or renting is a better fit for your finances, lifestyle, and future goals. This New York Times rent vs. buy calculator is a good start.

6. Think Even Harder about Having Kids

One father had this to say about children: “They’re a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit.” In fact, having children correlates with both an increasedsense of purpose in life and a long-lasting decrease in individual and marital happiness.  Having kids means spending a lot of your short life and limited income on one source of joy. It’s not a bad decision. But it’s also not the only good decision you can make. We want to think we can “have it all” but, in fact, it’s a zero sum game. You have only so much time and money and there are lots of ways to find satisfaction, pleasure, and meaning in this life.  Consider all your options.

7. Remember: If You Change Your Mind, You’re Still Right!

For some reason Americans feel ashamed when they discover they’re wrong.  So much so that we often refuse to admit it or go on the counter-attack.  Being told we’re wrong, though, is really great!  It means we have a good chance of not making that mistake in quite that way again. That doesn’t mean it feels good, but it is a very good thing to learn how to accept that we’re wrong – and, trust us, you will be, lots and lots of times, about many different things — without treating every correction as a threat to our very identity.  So next time someone corrects your facts, logic, or point of view, say “Hey thanks!”

8. Listen When People Point Out Your Privilege

One of the hardest ways to be wrong involves saying something that is inadvertently prejudicial. When someone points out that something we said or did was racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, classist or otherwise, we often feel attacked.  Remember, though, that if someone bothers to engage with you on this kind of issue, it means they thinkyou’re worth it.  It’s really easy to write someone off as racist; it’s much harder to start a dialogue on the issue. If they do the latter, it’s because they’ve decided that you’re a good person who’s worth their time and energy.  So instead of launching into an explanation for why and how you can’t possibly be prejudiced, ask “Can you tell me what you mean?” and listen listen listen.

9. Make Allies and, Yes, Change the World

C. Wright Mills one said that sociology was both terrifying and magnificent.  It is terrifying because it teaches us that our lives are not ours to determine, but are subject to cultural norms and institutional forces over which we have very little control.  It’s magnificent, however, because once we can see the system for what it is, we can agree to change it. In other words, we’re stuck in a system not of our own making, but we’re in it together.  So, when you come across an unfair workplace, an unjust law, a biased educational practice, or some other injustice, know that — with the right allies, hard work, and a little luck — you may just have the power to change it.

About the Authors:

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter andFacebook.  

Gwen Sharp is a professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter.

 

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/05/24/advice-for-college-grads-from-two-sociologists/

Wisdom Nugget: Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

“You can’t own a human being. You can’t lose what you don’t own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don’t, do you? And neither does he. You’re turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can’t value you more than you value yourself.”