What is love?

The Great Whatever

What is love? If you ask someone on the street, they will tell you that it's essentially a kind of secular magic. Perhaps not so secular, given how it was Christianized when it was made universal -- but we're talking about the dirtier love that happens between people who bond and have sex and perhaps rear children. It can't be defined, yet it's the most important thing in the world. Isn't that weird? Aren't important things usually those that affect people to such an extent that they can say what they are? Alzheimers is important, because it wrecks your functionality in the world and your livelihood. When asked what Alzheimer's is, do we says it's ineffable? Hardly.

What's funnier about love is that for something so supposedly ineffable, it has real social effects, tangible ones. Usually, these effects include men falling in love with women, and then after producing children for them (or, often, some other man separate form the 'provider' producing children for them), giving them a livelihood. Love is a kind of glue that keeps men attached to women. It's a kind of story, whose spiritual significance is that men should stay attached to women because mythologically, the 'reward' a man receives for doing so is something beyond value, 'love.' Of course, love is literally beyond value, which is the funny part: you can't feed an empty stomach with love, and at the end of life, no love is going to save you. Hence 'love' is an excellent narrative for accomplishing its social goal, precisely because it requires nothing of anyone yet claims supreme importance for itself.

Hypothesis: Love is a heterosexual social mechanism primarily designed for lower status men to aim at women. All other variations on love are outgrowths of, and analogies to, this. Its primary function is to bond lower status men to women in order to provide them incentive to mate with (or think they are mating with, while being cuckolded by stronger/better men), and provide for, those women. Women are recipients of love, men are givers of love. Women, strictly speaking, do not love men; and homosexual couples love one another only insofar as they are imitating the heterosexual mechanism through the universalization of enlightenment ideology that is ignorant of its historical roots. We see this through the fact that in heterosexual relationships, by and large, love is one-sided. Men do sometimes fall over themselves for women; women consider this to be above them, and do not show the same outward affection toward men, and often times don't even really seem to be that interested in them, beyond the social value that a relationship with a man affords.

The reason that women do not love men is quite simply that they do not need to. Women have wombs and sex appeal, and so are intrinsically valuable -- men already want to mate with them, and so women do not need to be given a metaphysical incentive to seek men. Rather, men seek them, and all they have to do is accept (or 'settle for') a man that propositions them. Hence, a woman is something to be 'attained.' Men aspire to women; women deign to be with men.

Higher status men also, by and large, do not love women, at least not in the same way that lower status men do. This is because higher status men, being of superior stock, already can mate with women whenever they want, and there is no narrative required for them to want to settle down with women and accept their poorer lot in life, because they don't have a poorer lot (they are genetically successful). Lower status men, however, are prone to unrest, and are by and large disposable unless they protect and serve women. Few lower status men would do this if they did not believe that women had an intrinsic, magical worth. Since they have no material worth for a man (a woman will not protect you, provide for you, or likely even care about you), she must attain a mystical quality that goes beyond any facts -- she must be the object of 'love.' This placates the lower status men so that he performs his duty willingly, with the belief that he is getting something out of the relationship, though no one can say what this is.

Later outgrowths of the notion of love, such as universal spiritual love, and so on, are just imitations of this basic function that love serves. Properly speaking, women and homosexuals don't love, because they don't need to be duped by it in order to serve a social function. To the extent they do, it is because love has been socially transformed into something that everyone believes themselves to have a 'right' to, not realizing that this is not some beneficial 'thing' that we all ought to pass around, but a historically contingent social mechanism that serves a very specific purpose in binding heterosexual men to women (by heterosexual here I don't mean any ineffable essence of sexual attraction to the opposite gender/sex, but socially and functionally heterosexual, i.e. someone who thinks of themselves as a breeder and attaches large self worth to putting penises and vaginas together and rubbing them).

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All of the above is descriptive and contains no value judgments. If you find any of the above repulsive, you cannot blame me, because I am only reporting how these gender roles and love in fact work regardless of any opinion of them.

coolazice

I pity anybody who has never experienced a woman (or a gay person) in love. Women love all the time, even when it serves them no purpose, and does them no good. That is the way desire works. Those who have never seen this first hand are impoverished, and have likely been transformed into resentful chauvinists due to their frustrations in love.

(The above is also descriptive and contains no value judgements...)

The Great Whatever

↪coolazice

But it's simply a fact that love does not really play the same role in gay communities that it does in heterosexual ones. It's even a serious question regarding homosexuality whether the notion of 'gay marriage,' for example, makes sense at all, with many gay people advocating against it, since they view it as (rightly) a heterosexual bourgeois institution that historically homosexuality has no connection to (along with 'love,' the application of which to homosexuality is a very recent phenomenon that people are viewing ahistorically as if all kinds of love have always just sprung up magically from nowhere 'equally'). Heterosexuality benefits from stability, since its social purpose is the rearing of children in family units, which homosexuality is not historically to tied to (though it is becoming that way now with the mainstreamization of homosexuality, and perhaps will more radically change soon). To try to lump homosexuality in with heterosexual social practices is to practice a kind of ideological colonization that fails to understand how anything could be different from a certain heterosexual 'order' of things, and in particular an order from a male perspective (again, since heterosexual men are the ones that are supposed to 'love'). And thre's a good case to be made that the homosexuals who are advocating for gay love and marriage in this way are Uncle Toms who want in good with their heterosexual masters.

Likewise for women -- just look at any heterosexual relationship. In answer to the question of whether the man loves the woman, the answer will be maybe, with there being a higher chance the lower status the man is. As to the question of whether the woman loves the man, the answer is likely no. Women simply do not show the same kinds of exaggerated affection for men as the other way around, for the simple reason that they do not need to, and so the institution doesn't apply to them. They are in some sense literally above it, and for them men are fungible as accessories of social status and protectors, whereas it 'benefits' low status men to idolize women and hypostatize their female traits into something like worship. Emotionally, women are generally in a superior relationship over men in romantic dealings for this reason.

Also, the idea that people do something 'for no reason.' Pure ideology -- of course that's what the system wants you to think. There's no reason for this! It's magic, it's eternity! The way things currently are isn't contingent on anything! That's how they always were!

Soylent

Love is not ineffable but it is innumerably describable (or at least describable in many ways) and that makes it equally difficult to nail down. We can survey people to get a data set and try to extract a common element to love, but there are going to be outliers and those tend to be exaggerated when contemplating love.

I would guess a biological/evolutionary theory of love would make the mother-child relationship primary and all other "loving relationships" are a by-product of the mother-child attachment. We could probably extrapolate from the mother-child relationship to your theory insofar as the closer the roles of the male and female approach the mother-child relationship (high-status woman, low-status man), the stronger the love claim.

The Great Whatever

We can survey people to get a data — Soylent

Can we? If we admit that the notion of love is susceptible to empirical observation, we've robbed it of its significance on its own terms. Love survives as a social notion precisely by being unquantifiable. There are no data metrics we can use to record it, precisely because if there were, it wouldn't be love we were studying.

The only way we can empirically study love is not on its own terms, externally as a social mechanism that it claims not to be.

I would guess a biological/evolutionary theory of love would make the mother-child relationship primary and all other "loving relationships" are a by-product of the mother-child attachment. We could probably extrapolate from the mother-child relationship to your theory insofar as the closer the roles of the male and female approach the mother-child relationship (high-status woman, low-status man), the stronger the love claim. — Soylent

That seems possible, but I haven't thought about it. I'm interested in the notion of romantic love specifically, but maybe there's some deeper connection there. Though parental 'love' is weird because as compared to romantic love it's just so obviously self-serving and conditional on certain criteria, in ways that I think even those who buy into love would admit. Romantic love tries to be 'higher,' to be instituted for no reason whatsoever (see coolazice's post above), even though of course this is bogus, but parental love doesn't even pretend to be mysterious in that way, the familial link is totally obvious to everyone.

BC

One definition I like is that "love is a combination of lust and trust." (Word is Out, 1976 gay documentary)

Erotic love feels good, and it generally is good. Reciprocal love validates the individuals in the pair. Other loves (filio, agape, storge) are also good--maybe they are more of a virtue than erotic love, but erotic love is indispensable.

Much of what we are taught about love is baloney--saccharine clichés. There are, for instance, some practical reasons for lovers to be faithful in the relationship. Sexually transmitted infections are unpleasant. Having several lovers at one time is exhausting and immensely time consuming. (Love demands more than sex.) I don't believe that strict sexual fidelity to one person is essential to love, though fidelity in love certainly helps relationships last. (That is, the primary loved partner always comes first.)

I agree with TGW about gay marriage -- it's something that those who are most interested in assimilation and parity in relationships want. I lived with my partner for 30 years without marriage. We stayed together because we wanted to stay together. Marriage wouldn't have improved on that. I liked the idea of the socially unsanctioned relationship. Liked it better that there wasn't official approval.

Ciceronianus

Dammit, I thought this was going to be about the Haddaway song.

The Great Whatever

I liked the idea of the socially unsanctioned relationship. Liked it better that there wasn't official approval. — Bitter Crank

I feel the same way, even with outright unknown relationships ('on the DL'), that's even better. There's something liberating about knowing that a relationship doesn't come about because it's socially expected that it should. That's a variable that you simply cannot, ever, remove from a heterosexual relationship, and in a way it cheapens every heterosexual relationship no matter how 'sincere.'

TheWillowOfDarkness

I think you've duped been by the very illusion you despise, TGW. The equivocation you are making between feelings, ethics and resources is rather telling. No doubt men are frequently the ones who seek women, who perform the grand "romantic" gestures, in an effort to by picked by woman, but what does this, if anything, have much to do with any actual relationship? When exactly did relationships between men and women, the care for each other, the ongoing desire to be with each other, ever run on the basis of such exaggerated displays of affection? Never.

Such displays are, at most, mere moments which draw attention. Relationships themselves are run on a much more mundane sort of care, one which is not about how someone its the greatest treasure, but rather one which sees the well-being of other people as important. Love, in the sense you are talking, is not the connection found in any relationship (which is unsurprising; it is not a connection at all) and so cannot be the presence of a relationship. Men don't love women either. They've just fallen for the illusion that they do. (just as we might say some women have fallen for the illusion that men love them, that relationships are constituted by a man making grand gestures towards you).

The sort of values and interactions you are talking about are not the presence of any person's (man or women) feelings or relationship. Rather, it is noting an expression of social interaction: that many men are seeking women and, as such, many women don't have to make a "grand gesture" to draw the attention of a man. On underlying level, you still believe in love. You actually think those men are performing grand gestures are gaining something of absolute value (women), while those women are of no material value to men (and so women are "tricking" men into an materially exploitative relationship, where they don't have care for the man). The truth that love has never existed and relationships are not constitute on that basis has eluded you.

You are so worried about the doxa of human relationships that you are ignoring what they are.

_db

Love is described as ineffable because it is the only thing that has the capability of fulfilling the hole in our lives. We are born alienated from the world and alienated from other people, completely metaphysically isolated for the entirety of our lives. To feel love is to come as close as is possible to merging the consciousness of two people; it is to feel more concern for another person than about yourself, and is the height of compassion. To love is to know that the journey of life is to be shared.

Wayfarer

It's a word that is severely over-used in English as it pertains to very many different kinds of things. There is of course the love between friends, lovers, spouses, companions, and so on. But that is often entertwined with other emotions and can easily turn into other emotions - jealously, possessiveness, even hatred.

In early Christian teaching there is a quality of selfless love called 'agápē' which is said to be the quality of love of Jesus and therefore the kind of love to aspire to.

In Buddhism there are different qualities of compassion used in various contexts - Karuṇā, one of the four 'divine abodes', two of others being metta, compassion for all, and mudita, rejoicing in the well-being of others. (The last is like the opposite of Schadenfreude.)

Love is, of course, all those things and more, and generally, the most important thing you can have. It doesn't mean you don't need a lot of other things to survive, but to survive without it is not worth much.

schopenhauer1

↪The Great Whatever

Interesting post..

I had a post a while back describing the general term of love as encompassing the idea of "care". Caring for someone strongly is love. Romantic love adds in an element of sexual attraction or sexual relationship with another. So romantic love = strongly caring + sexual attraction and/or relationship.

If this is the definition of love, I am not sure what to make of your claims in regards to this. What you seem to be describing is an interesting one-sidedness. Essentially you are claiming that in heterosexual relationships, females will not show affection for males at anywhere near the same levels that males will show females. I think this has to be broken down. In the initial phases of courtship, I think you have a point that males display more interest in the female. Whether this is cultural or biological, I am not sure. However, if a female is smitten or her interest is "sparked" (whether right away by the male's "higher status" or through the courting of the moderate or lower status male), you seem to imply another layer which is that females do not have feelings of care or sexual attraction or desire a sexual relationship with someone they care strongly for once the courting has taken place. Do you really think females have no ability to care for someone that they also want a sexual relationship with? In other words, do you think that females are not capable of romantic love? Or do you believe that females do have strong feelings of care and sexual relationship, but they simply don't display it?

The Great Whatever

When exactly did relationships between men and women, the care for each other, the ongoing desire to be with each other, ever run on the basis of such exaggerated displays of affection? Never. — TheWillowOfDarkness

My claim is that by and large, men care for women, but not vice-versa. There are individual exceptions to this, but there are men who care for women because they are men and their partners are women, while the reverse is not true. In other words, romantic care and love, from a social standpoint, is heterosexual and unidirectional.

So when a comedian says something like this:

Like all comedy, it's simultaneously a joke and not a joke. This is not to say that women are deficient; it's to say that love isn't what people claim it is.

Relationships themselves are run on a much more mundane sort of care, one which is not about how someone its the greatest treasure, but rather one which sees the well-being of other people as important. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree. The bread and butter of a relationship is ultimately things like paychecks, child rearing, and obedience.

The Great Whatever

Do you really think females have no ability to care for someone that they also want a sexual relationship with? In other words, do you think that females are not capable of romantic love? Or do you believe that females do have strong feelings of care and sexual relationship, but they simply don't display it? — schopenhauer1

I think that women are under no social pressure to love or care for their partner, like men are. What that means is that a woman can love a man, and some do, but if she does it is due to emotional idiosyncrasies. Whereas there are structural reasons that men love women; they love women because of the social roles allotted to them. In other words, women only love when they are loving people; but men are often led to love because that is what is required of them as men. It's like the divide between personal bigotry and systematic racism.

From a social point of view, heterosexual relationships are constructed such that from a woman's point of view, a man is fungible and reducible to what he provides for her; but the man, in order to keep the relationship going, because the women provides nothing materially for him, has to be given a spiritual significance to make her attractive. So the women cannot be fungible, but must be intrinsically valuable while the man is disposable. Hence the man aspires to the woman, not vice-versa, and love originates in men towards women, not vice-versa.

schopenhauer1

Whereas there are structural reasons that men love women; they love women because of the social roles allotted to them. In other words, women only love when they are loving people; but men are often led to love because that is what is required of them as men. — The Great Whatever

Can you explain what you mean by structural reasons vs. idiosyncrasies? Are you saying men are pressured into caring for women more than women are pressured into caring about men? If this is the case are you saying that most women do not necessarily care about their partner, but accept them being around because they get the benefits of care that men display? That is if you accept my definition of romantic love being care + sexual attraction and/or relationship.

The Great Whatever

↪schopenhauer1

Sure. When I say something is structural, I mean it happens in virtue of some social category that a person belongs to. So, for example, if I'm tall, that's a social structural advantage. That is, certain advantages will accrue to me because I am tall. I may still get shit on, in the way a short person does, but in most causes, not because of my height, but for independent idiosyncratic reasons. Being short is a structural disadvantage: if you are short, you will make less money, people will take you less seriously, and so on, because you are short: for that very reason.

So my claim is that men love women because they are men and women are women (for structural reasons). The reverse is not true. If a woman loves a man, it is because of her personal traits independent of her gender. In other words, love from women directed towards men is always in spite of these structural biases, not because of them.

That is if you accept my definition of romantic love being care + sexual attraction and/or relationship. — schopenhauer1

I think this doesn't get quite to the heart of love, which involves far dirtier and more mundane things, like the transfer of money, the rearing of children, and various forms of socially accepted obedience (accepting, in the case of men, that your female partner has a serious say in who your friends are, what you wear, and so on).

schopenhauer1

Sure. When I say something is structural, I mean it happens in virtue of some social category that a person belongs to. So, for example, if I'm tall, that's a social structural advantage. That is, certain advantages will accrue to me because I am tall. I may still get shit on, in the way a short person does, but in most causes, not because of my height, but for independent idiosyncratic reasons. Being short is a structural disadvantage: if you are short, you will make less money, people will take you less seriously, and so on, because you are short: for that very reason. — The Great Whatever

Ok, I see what you are saying now.

So my claim is that men love women because they are men and women are women (for structural reasons). The reverse is not true. If a woman loves a man, it is because of her personal traits independent of her gender. In other words, love from women directed towards men is always in spite of these structural biases, not because of them. — The Great Whatever

Do you think this is due to biological or cultural reasons?

I think this doesn't get quite to the heart of love, which involves far dirtier and more mundane things, like the transfer of money, the rearing of children, and various forms of socially accepted obedience (accepting, in the case of men, that your female partner has a serious say in who your friends are, what you wear, and so on). — The Great Whatever

But is what you are saying more to do with living arrangements, cultural expectations and the like? In other words, can't the mundane things be more of a byproduct of love (i.e. living together in the same space, being legally bound by a marriage, etc.). What you describe is a mix of cohabitation and marriage agreements, but not necessarily love proper which may be the impetus for cohabitation and marriage arrangements.

Also, what is your answer to the question from the previous post: If this is the case are you saying that most women do not necessarily care about their partner, but accept them being around because they get the benefits of care that men display?

TheWillowOfDarkness

My point is though, that is all the doxa of a "male role," not actual interactions between people. In this respect, men are expected to care for women (the provider of the household) in ways women are not meant to have any part in. The problem is this all social smoke and mirrors. It has nothing to do with actual relationships and people who care for one another.

When I say you appear to still believe in love, I mean you are confusing this social expectation for who and how people care for one another. In practice both men and women care for each other because they are concerned for the others well-being, which makes the supposes insight you have to relationships here spectacularly irrelevant. For any functioning relationship, where a man and a woman care for each other to the extent which constitutes their relationship, the doxa of who has social value has become moot.

So many of those lower class men, who you deride as being tricked into giving-up their stuff, genuinely care about the well-being of their female partner. They commit time and resources because they care about the well-being of their partner. Rather than being manipulated in the service of falsehood, these men are making the decision to help those whose well-being matters to them a great deal.

Thus, the whole structural trend you are supposedly identifying is profoundly dishonest about human relationships. What many men do, provide time and resources to the female partner or family, is misrepresented as having nothing to do with genuinely caring about a female partner and his children, when a lot of the time that's exactly what it is. (sometimes concurrently with someone buying into the doxa that a man must provide for his female partner and family. Just because a man mistakenly places his identity as man in providing for his family, it doesn't mean he doesn't care for them and provide them with resources out of concern for their well-being ).

You are confusing actual relationships for doxa which surrounds them.

The Great Whatever

Do you think this is due to biological or cultural reasons? — schopenhauer1

We're all disciples of Schopenhauer here, aren't we? Culture is biology, it's all will.

In other words, can't the mundane things be more of a byproduct of love (i.e. living together in the same space, being legally bound by a marriage, etc.). — schopenhauer1

No. If you like, there is a demand these arrangements be met, and love is a vehicle through which this gets done, or these things are actually part of love to begin with.

Also, what is your answer to the question from the previous post: If this is the case are you saying that most women do not necessarily care about their partner, but accept them being around because they get the benefits of care that men display? — schopenhauer1

Yes. By and large, I think women merely put up with men and do not really care for them.

The Great Whatever

The problem is this all social smoke and mirrors — TheWillowOfDarkness

The world is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to understand the world, you have to understand that.

TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes. By and large, I think women merely put up with men and do not really care for them. — The Great Whatever

This is what I'm talking when I say you have fallen for the very illusion you despise. You think caring is defined in putting someone on a pedestal, by making your own value and identity based on their presence.

No matter how much a woman cares about a man's well-being, you will say it doesn't really exist because she doesn't consider herself a failure as a women if she doesn't provide for him. You are thinking the "love," the falsehood, which you despise so much, is the only way humans can care for each other.

The world is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to understand the world, you have to understand that. — The Great Whatever

A more beautiful expression of your equivocation of the world with doxa would be hard to find.

schopenhauer1

We're all disciples of Schopenhauer here, aren't we? Culture is biology, it's all will. — The Great Whatever

Good point. Evolutionary psychology can also be invoked for those who don't like the Schopenhauer metaphysics aspect.

No. If you like, there is a demand these arrangements be met, and love is a vehicle through which this gets done, or these things are actually part of love to begin with. — The Great Whatever

So in other words, it is all to propagate the species. So do you think that women care only enough for there to be offspring to take care of? Similarly, do you think that men care more intensely so that the situation for offspring can occur in the first place?

The Great Whatever

So do you think that women care only enough for there to be offspring to take care of? Similarly, do you think that men care more intensely so that the situation for offspring can occur in the first place? — schopenhauer1

Maybe, but they don't experience it that way in their individual psychology. Men experience it as love for the women, women as love for their children. (I also think that structurally, men have no reason to care for children, and do not as much as women do; the fact that men don't much care for kids is part of why love needs to entrap them into a situation that doesn't benefit them). That is the function each unwittingly performs, though, yes.

And of course the ultimate goal of breeding is to breed more suffering.

schopenhauer1

Maybe, but they don't experience it that way in their individual psychology. Men experience it as love for the women, women as love for their children. (I also think that structurally, men have no reason to care for children, and do not as much as women do; the fact that men don't much care for kids is part of why love needs to entrap them into a situation that doesn't benefit them). That is the function each unwittingly performs, though, yes.

And of course the ultimate goal of breeding is to breed more suffering. — The Great Whatever

Couldn't this be studied in such a way to verify this behavior scientifically? It makes sense in a theoretical way, but this seems like something that can be verified by testing. Of course, even then, it would have to be multiple testing, across cultures, probably over many generations. That would have to be a very extensive research project.

The Great Whatever

Couldn't this be studied in such a way to verify this behavior scientifically? It makes sense in a theoretical way, but this seems like something that can be verified by testing. Of course, even then, it would have to be multiple testing, across cultures, probably over many generations. That would have to be a very extensive research project. — schopenhauer1

I didn't think it was controversial that men are less attached to their children than women, on whatever metric you care to use. Or am I wrong about that?

_db

Yes. By and large, I think women merely put up with men and do not really care for them. — The Great Whatever

I would tend to agree with you in that most women tend to be this way. Very machiavellian. But men tend to also objectify women instead of seeing them as people.

The world is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to understand the world, you have to understand that. — The Great Whatever

According to your perspective, the world is all smoke and mirrors. This doesn't strike me as a very strong argument.

schopenhauer1

I didn't think it was controversial that men are less attached to their children than women, on whatever metric you care to use. Or am I wrong about that? — The Great Whatever

I am not sure. You might find a lot of instances where fathers are very concerned about the well-being of their children. Although it seems to be true that fathers may be the most likely to leave a mother and child, this may be due to maladaptive strategies of evolution. I've heard of a theory where females are more selective with mates because they want to see if the potential mate is willing to stick around in order to take care of the child. Poor choice selection means more of a chance the offspring won't survive. So, though there might be a tendency for bad fathers, this is not the ideal choice for females who want to see their offspring thrive.

But see, this just shows you the very theoretical nature of evolutionary psychology. A lot of it is "just so" theories and hard to pin down what is an adaptation, or what is an "idiosyncrasy" as you might call it. There are many variables, biases, and cultural contingencies that make even an accurate hypothesis hard to distill. A lot of the mating game rituals have become their own runaway stories. Something was written down long ago, it became a trope, and the trope manifested as real in the culture, and the culture became the trope to a slight degree. What was originary and what was the trope becomes muddled. Then the trope is considered originary when it perhaps is not. Then, a reaction against the trope poses an opposite theory, but that is even worse as it is a reaction to a false original theory to begin with, and on it goes. Again, this comes down to the fact that much of it cannot be verified it "feels" true.

I say this as someone who admires a metaphysics that is also unverifiable (empirically). This I realize, but the difference is I fully understand that metaphysics proper is almost impossible to verify empirically and so is sort of a known unknown. Unlike this, evolutionary psychology can subtly try to assert a point as empirical when it is not quite empirical.

The Great Whatever

So, though there might be a tendency for bad fathers, this is not the ideal choice for females who want to see their offspring thrive. — schopenhauer1

Right, this is why the 'beta male' or provider needs love to entice him. Women are 'mixed maters.' One class of men fathers the children, and another class raises them (the ones that love the women).

But see, this just shows you the very theoretical nature of evolutionary psychology. A lot of it is "just so" theories and hard to pin down what is an adaptation, or what is an "idiosyncrasy" as you might call it. — schopenhauer1

I don't really care about the evolutionary history, though, I care about the synchronic function of these social roles, which you can observe happening right now.

schopenhauer1

Right, this is why the 'beta male' or provider needs love to entice him. Women are 'mixed maters.' One class of men fathers the children, and another class raises them (the ones that love the women). — The Great Whatever

But not all "good fathers" are simply fathering someone else's child.

I don't really care about the evolutionary history, though, I care about the synchronic function of these social roles, which you can observe happening right now. — The Great Whatever

I don't know though. Don't some (many perhaps) women cry and show emotions of pain when they lose a significant other via breakup, death, or long time away? This seems to show care.

I think I agree with you more on the idea that women have a tendency to not be invested with care early on in the mating process. This also is consistent with the idea of finding an ideal mate. Certainly, some women will cheat (just like some men), and maybe even desire (unconsciously) to sleep with some more alpha dude.. However, just like men who may "settle" for someone who is more caring (a good long term trait) over some other trait, so might women realizing the risk of hurting a "good thing" even if sexual attraction is there for someone else.

In fact, though people certainly give into their instincts to mate with some new, attractive mate that comes along, I'm willing to bet many or most people in a committed relationship are also willing to weigh that against the odds of losing out on someone they know they get along with. In many cases, this idea would not even cross their minds. Now, there might be trade offs, but the opportunity cost might be too high for most people to want to leave someone they have invested so much time and energy with. Additionally, the longer the couple stay together, the more they know about each other adding to the sense of care, creating a kind of feedback loop for care. The more you know, the more nuances there are to care about in the significant other. This again, creates a relationship with a high capital (someone who knows the nuances), that is difficult to build again and would be a loss of time, energy, and interpersonal knowledge on possibility of something that (though might seem shiny, "alpha", attractive, etc.) might be worse off or not work out.

The Great Whatever

But not all "good fathers" are simply fathering someone else's child. — schopenhauer1

Sure, but cuckolding is an important structural reproductive phenomenon, and a lot of male and female reproductive identity don't make sense without it.

As to the good fathers, of course there are some good fathers, just as there are some loving wives. But a father never loves his children because he's a father, whereas a mother does because she is a mother. This is what I mean by the difference between psychological idiosyncrasies and structural phenomena.

I don't know though. Don't some (many perhaps) women cry and show emotions of pain when they lose a significant other via breakup, death, or long time away? This seems to show care. — schopenhauer1

Everyone cries when they lose something that causes them pain at its loss. But you can't tell from the crying whether it's because you've lost a person or an asset.

Certainly, some women will cheat (just like some men), and maybe even desire (unconsciously) to sleep with some more alpha dude.. — schopenhauer1

I don't think it's unconscious. People don't want to have sex with ugly, unfit, etc. people, that's just a fact. Lots of marriages are sexless, usually as a result of the woman's lack of interest, not the man's. Sexual attraction just isn't required for marriage, and most men aren't that great looking. Sexually, men seem to like women more than women seem to like men.

I'm willing to bet many or most people in a committed relationship are also willing to weigh that against the odds of losing out on someone they know they get along with — schopenhauer1

Notice that that doesn't show care for the person, though, any more than weighing the consequences of breaking the law shows care for the law.

Additionally, the longer the couple stay together, the more they know about each other adding to the sense of care, creating a kind of feedback loop for care. The more you know, the more nuances there are to care about in the significant other. This again, creates a relationship with a high capital (someone who knows the nuances), that is difficult to build again and would be a loss of time, energy, and interpersonal knowledge on possibility of something that (though might seem shiny, "alpha", attractive, etc.) might be worse off or not work out. — schopenhauer1

Well, it works the other way too. Familiarity breeds contempt.

schopenhauer1

Sexual attraction just isn't required for marriage, and most men aren't that great looking. Sexually, men seem to like women more than women seem to like men. — The Great Whatever

But you are now conflating marriage with love. Can you have a relationship beyond the social construct of marriage where both parties are mutually caring for each other, or is it your contention that if marriage was taken out of the equation, women wouldn't want to be with men at all? Also, wouldn't this be a phenomena that could be tested in some way? Has it been?

Everyone cries when they lose something that causes them pain at its loss. But you can't tell from the crying whether it's because you've lost a person or an asset. — The Great Whatever

Again, wouldn't this only apply in regards to marriage and children rather than strictly relationships?

I don't think it's unconscious. People don't want to have sex with ugly, unfit, etc. people, that's just a fact. Lots of marriages are sexless, usually as a result of the woman's lack of interest, not the man's. Sexual attraction just isn't required for marriage, and most men aren't that great looking. Sexually, men seem to like women more than women seem to like men. — The Great Whatever

Does this assertion apply in regards to strictly romantic relationships without necessarily marriage and children?

Notice that that doesn't show care for the person, though, any more than weighing the consequences of breaking the law shows care for the law. — The Great Whatever

Again, does this apply without marriage and children? I would imagine that it isn't an idea of punishment or obligation, just a loss of someone who you care for and who cares for you, for an unknown person who might not care at all for you, no?

Well, it works the other way too. Familiarity breeds contempt. — The Great Whatever

This is true, and I wonder how much early human ancestors having shorter lifespans have something to do with largely avoiding this in early humans.

Don't get me wrong, TGW, you have some good points, but my skeptical side wants to call to attention the more nuanced aspects of this area of human behavior. As Schopenhauer explained, romantic love is probably the most important phenomena to the species. It is also one of the most explicit examples of Will in action. The pursuit of love causes so much angst, tensions, drama, etc. The illusion that everyone seems to tell themselves is that the pain in pursuing romantic love is worth the rewards, but for many reasons you bring up, the system is set up to almost always not be the case. It is a major part of suffering in the human experience.

What is love?

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