Romance
The biological definition
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:
The biological definition
Romantic love is a motivational state typically associated with a desire for long-term mating with a particular individual. It occurs across the lifespan and is associated with distinctive cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social, genetic, neural, and endocrine activity in both sexes. Throughout much of the life course, it serves mate choice, courtship, sex, and pair-bonding functions. It is a suite of adaptations and by-products that arose sometime during the recent evolutionary history of humans.
Philosophy
!Roman copy of a Greek sculpture by [Lysippus depicting Eros, the Greek personification of romantic love](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/ErosbowMuseiCapitoliniMC410.jpg/250px-ErosbowMuseiCapitoliniMC410.jpg)
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