Love: Confused or Conditional

I love your eyes, your cherry lips

The love that always lingers

Your way with words and random blips

Your skilled computer fingers

 These lines are written by John Denver, a famous lyricist. The last line is a thought provoking one, which depicts the future of love and future of mate selection. Denver tries to say love and working skills both are important. 

Social change is unavoidable. It changes our socio-personal dynamics and social institutions. It allows us to think something unimaginable.

Can you imagine that your children will prefer to live as childless parents? Can you imagine a family with several husbands and one wife? (The craze for a boy still dominates and also a genetic tinkering is on the way to pre select the sex of your child)  Finally, can you imagine homosexual’s families with children as their own?  

We can ignore these permutations but cannot deny its possibilities. We have noticed many types of changes in our conventional institutions. The family has changed, from extended to joint then joint to sub-nuclear. In case of institution of marriage, traditional form of marriage converted into trail marriage and Dual career marriage (both husband and wife are in jobs) transformed into Dual career marriage with no children which is trending form of marriage now.

What about LOVE then. Is love also changing its dynamics and having a new spectrum?  In the pre-industrial era, physical strength, compatibility, submissiveness and level of tolerance were the attributes of partner selection. Love was more biological or physical.  In the next era, physical love converted into Meta physical and psychological.  Romanticism was dominated by songs, poems and imagination. Companionship, sex (not for progeny), warmth and support became the features of love. Finally, the modern era comes. Love is in the air and everywhere. Love overshadows the barrier of caste, color, class and income; these were previously played a vital role in love and marriage.

New era lovers fall in love, they prefer to working rather than simply waking –up. They prefer weekends rather than weekdays. They prefer reciprocal gift exchange. Modern day love has added sexual and psychological need plus a sound rational brain plus conscience, responsibility, self-discipline and work matter virtues. Love birds discard the single minded logic also.

Love has been a confused entity for society.  For example :  If I love myself then I am selfish or narcissist, If I love other then I am self-loathing or dissatisfied and if I love my opponents or enemy then my love is ineffective.  

The structural changes of love may look like rational but selection of a mate is purely emotional and hormonal. The evolution of love explains us to be more skilled and innovative in practice. But, Love doesn’t have any nomenclature. Above all, love is blind.