Marriage was considered a legal contract where property, titles, and usually a dowery traded hands between families. Technically, love had very little to do with the transaction. However, love is a basic human need. Our ancestors certainly did seek affection and it played a HUGE role in their lives. So much, that they put it down in poetry, song, and artwork.

The Greeks even identified four types of love:

 

Storge: Or familial love, the love felt for family and kinship.

Philia: Friendship. This was so important to the Greeks, it had its own word and set of rules.

Eros: Romance and Desire. Also so important, the Greeks personified this emotion as a child of Aphrodite.

Agape: Divine Love. The ultimate expression of unconditional love. A denial of self. The highest form of love you can aspire towards.

 

 

Plato, in his work “The Symposium”, discusses in detail the concept of love and soul mates. I highly recommend it for further reading. He has persuasive arguments for the true love felt between hetero and homo sexuals.