Love in Sociological Contents

This essay will try to answer the question: “Can there be a sociology of love?”. For a proper analysis of topic, it is essential to have a basic understanding of the concept of Sociology and Love.

Sociology helps individual to know about the development, structure and function of human society. Sociology is also important for individual because it throws light on the problem of individuals. As a matter of fact, sociology itself is difficult to comprehend even for the sociology students. Some commentators have suggested that sociology should not be included in the nursing curriculum, arguing that it can add no value to nursing education and training. The relevance of this study to nursing is not very clear. It has a major concern to the nursing students.

Love on the other hand, means true affection which to me should include the following characteristics listed below:

Love is patient, kind, it does not envy, and it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it’s not easily angered, and it keeps no records of wrongs. Love is interesting sociologically for so many reasons. We have: sexual love, intimate love, companionate love, romantic love, parental love, friendship love, inter-species love, love for places, belonging and views.

It is a word that is used prolifically to mean so much, which means it is very hard to define and study love; but intimate love between a couple is different. This is an emotion that gained prominence and significance over the past 100 years and has come to a legitimate range of instructions, ideologies and policies. In the United Kingdom we are structured by the norm of the loving couple, this is seen as keeping families and societies together and stable.

Love played an important part in women`s emancipation. The rise of romantic love and its link with marriage, meant women increasingly had more choice in their future partners. When we talk of parental love, sometimes in failing marriages and troubled adult relationships, a parent does love their children more than their partner. And children don’t want their parent to favour them over their parent. It makes them feel comfortable because they feel secure when their parents are secure with each other.

To have a good understanding of this subject of love and sociology, an evaluation of contractive sociological perspectives is very important.

The word sociological perspective are overview of human behaviour and it connection to the society as a whole. There are many subjects to be studied and discussed in the field of sociology, and the approach chosen to study a subject is called a perspective.

Perspective is thinking about something especially one which is influenced by the type of person you are or by your experiences. Different people in society from different cultural backgrounds have different behaviours, different ways of seeing things. A good knowledge of perspective will enable someone to manage and maintain love.

When studying in the field of sociology, everyone is going to approach topics in a different manner. No two people are going to have the exact same view on a subject. This also affects the way people express their love and admiration. Just as the saying goes, beauty is only found in the eye of the beholder.

These approaches are known as sociological perspective. These perspective name diverse ways in which different people choose to analyse a subject, and how they look at a society. “functionalist perspective definition” the functionalist perspective is a sociological approach which emphasizes the way that part of society are structured to maintain its stability.

These perspectives look at a society in a positive manner and see it as stable, with all the parts working together. Under the functionalist view, every social aspect of a society contributes to the society survival, and if not the aspect is not passed to the next generation.

In some of the survey, they spoke about enduring love that make us to study the following factors; relationship qualities, relationship with partner and relationship maintenance.

There are different types of love, for love to exist and flourish; it takes places in relationships between one and another. To look at love in sociological contents, we need to look at love in their institution. There is a saying which says: love is blind, Marriage is an institution for the blind. Marriage is called an institution because you ‘learn’ here – you learn to let go of your ego for the sake of your relationship by loving, caring and affectionate; you learn to be a family man/woman, make mistake, you learn to be a role model to your children, learn to be together, you learn to motivate your partner to do better in life.

Gabb and Finch says that, everyday moment and ordinary gesture create the texture of long-term couple relationship. He stated that the proposed ‘moments approach’ provide a lens through which a focus in couples’ everyday experience gain insight on processes, meanings and cross-cutting analytical themes, still making sure that feeling and emotionality remain firmly rooted.

In analysis of a specific social institution, the different researches show that Relationship includes pragmatics and emotions, choices and lack of choice, contentment and disenchantment – and all the spectrum of feelings and experiences in-between. Research has added significant insight into the range effective attachments that comprise intimate life, but there remains a particular absence of sociological informed studies of couples in long-term relationships, with regards to both the influence of culture, biography and socio-economic factors on their relationship experience and the interiority of their personal lives.

Romantic love or attractive love: is the obsessive thinking about and craving for a particular person- - evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time.

As Kabir, the Indian poet puts it: “The lane of law is narrow there is room for only one”.