Arranged marriage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriage

Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures a professional matchmaker may be used to find a spouse for a young person.

Arranged marriages have historically been prominent in many cultures. The practice remains common in many regions, notably South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Caucasus. In many other parts of the world, the practice has declined substantially during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Forced marriages, practiced in some families, are condemned by the United Nations. The specific sub-category of forced child marriage is especially condemned. In other cultures, people mostly choose their own partner.

History

Arranged marriages were very common throughout the world until the 18th century. Typically, marriages were arranged by parents, grandparents or other close relatives and trusted friends. Some historical exceptions are known, such as courtship and betrothal rites during the Renaissance period of Italy and Gandharva Vivah in the Vedic period of India.

Marriage in Greco-Roman antiquity was based on social responsibility. Marriages were usually arranged by the parents; on occasion professional matchmakers were used. For the marriage to be legal, the woman's father or guardian had to give permission to a suitable man who could afford to marry. Orphaned daughters were usually married to cousins. The couple participated in a ceremony which included rituals such as removal of the veil. A man was typically limited to only one wife, though he could have as many mistresses as he could afford.

In China, arranged marriages (baoban hunyin, 包办婚姻) – sometimes called blind marriages (manghun, 盲婚) – were the norm before the mid-20th century. A marriage was a negotiation and decision between parents and other older members of two families. The boy and girl were typically told to get married, without a right to demur, even if they had never met each other until the wedding day.

Arranged marriages were the norm in Russia before the early 20th century, most of which were endogamous.

Until the first half of the 20th century, arranged marriages were common in migrant families in the United States. They were sometimes called "picture-bride marriages" among Japanese-American immigrants because the bride and groom knew each other only through the exchange of photographs before the day of their marriage. These marriages among immigrants were typically arranged by parents or close relatives from the country of their origin. As immigrants settled in and melded into a new culture, arranged marriages shifted first to quasi-arranged marriages where parents or friends made introductions and the couple met before the marriage; over time, the marriages among the descendants of these immigrants shifted to autonomous marriages driven by individual's choice, dating and courtship preferences, along with an increase in interracial marriages. Similar historical dynamics are claimed in other parts of the world.

Arranged marriages have declined in prosperous countries with social mobility and increasing individualism; nevertheless, arranged marriages are still seen in countries of Europe and North America, among royal families, aristocrats and minority religious groups such as in placement marriage among Fundamentalist Mormon groups of the United States. In most other parts of the world, arranged marriages continue to varying degrees and increasingly in quasi-arranged form, along with autonomous marriages.

Enforcement

See also: Honor killings

A woman who refuses to go through with an arranged marriage, tries to leave an arranged marriage via divorce or is suspected of any kind of "immoral" behaviour, may be considered to have dishonored her entire family. This being the case, her male relatives may be ridiculed or harassed and any of her siblings may find it impossible to enter into a marriage. In these cases, killing the woman is a way for the family to enforce the institution of arranged marriages. Unlike cases of domestic violence, honor killings are often done publicly for all to see and there are frequently family members involved in the act.

Comparison

Marriages have been categorized into four groups in scholarly studies:

• Forced arranged marriage: parents or guardians select, the individuals are neither consulted nor have any say before the marriage
• Consensual arranged marriage: parents or guardians select, then the individuals are consulted, who consider and consent, and each individual has the power to refuse; sometimes, the individuals meet – in a family setting or privately – before engagement and marriage as in shidduch custom among Orthodox Jews
• Self-selected marriage: individuals select, then parents or guardians are consulted, who consider and consent, and where parents or guardians have the power of veto.
• Autonomous marriage: individuals select, the parents or guardians are neither consulted nor have any say before the marriage

Gary Lee and Lorene Stone suggest that most adult marriages in recent modern history are somewhere on the scale between consensual arranged and autonomous marriage, in part because marriage is a social institution. Similarly, Broude and Greene, after studying 142 cultures worldwide, have reported that 130 cultures have elements of arranged marriage.

Extreme examples of forced arranged marriage have been observed in some societies, particularly in child marriages of girls below age 12. Illustrations include vani which is currently seen in some tribal/rural parts of Pakistan, and Shim-pua marriage Taiwan before the 1970s (Tongyangxi in China).

Types

There are many kinds of arranged marriages, some of these are:

• Arranged exogamous marriage: is one where a third party finds and selects the bride and groom irrespective of their social, economic and cultural group.
• Arranged endogamous marriage: is one where a third party finds and selects the bride and groom from a particular social, economic and cultural group.
• Consanguineous marriage: is a type of arranged endogamous marriage. It is one where the bride and groom share a grandparent or near ancestor. Examples of these include first cousin marriages, uncle-niece marriages, second cousin marriages, and so on. The most common consanguineous marriages are first cousin marriages, followed by second cousin and uncle-niece marriages. Between 25 and 40% of all marriages in parts of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are first cousin marriages; while overall consanguineous arranged marriages exceed 65 to 80% in various regions of North Africa and Central Asia.

The bride and groom in all of the above types of arranged marriages, usually do have the right to consent; if the bride or the groom or both do not have a right to consent, it is called a forced marriage. Forced marriages are not the same as arranged marriages; these forced arrangements do not have the full and free consent of both parties, and no major world religion advocates for forced marriages. Arranged marriages are commonly associated with religion; a few people in some religions practice this form of marriage the religion does not promote it.

According to The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 of India, non-consensual marriages and marriages where either the bridegroom is below the age of 21 years or the bride is below the age of 18 are prohibited for the Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs and Jains.

Non-consanguineous arranged marriage is one where the bride and groom do not share a grandparent or near ancestor. This type of arranged marriages is common in Hindu and Buddhist South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Christian Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Consanguineous marriages are against the law in many parts of United States and Europe. In the United Kingdom uncle-niece marriages are considered incestuous and are illegal, but cousin marriages are not forbidden, although there have been calls to ban first-cousin marriages due to health concerns. While consanguineous arranged marriages are common and culturally preferred in some Islamic countries and among migrants from Muslim countries to other parts of the world, they are culturally forbidden or considered undesirable in most Christian, Hindu and Buddhist societies. Consanguineous arranged marriages were common in Jewish communities before the 20th century, but have declined to less than 10% in modern times.

Causes and prevalence

Over human history through modern times, the practice of arranged marriages has been encouraged by a combination of factors, such as the practice of child marriage, late marriage, tradition, culture, religion, poverty and limited choice, disabilities, wealth and inheritance issues, politics, social and ethnic conflicts.

Child marriage

Main article: Child marriage

 

"Marriage à-la-mode" by William Hogarth: a satire on arranged marriages and prediction of ensuing disaster

Child marriage, particularly those below the age of 12, does not prepare or provide the individual much opportunity to make an informed, free choice about matrimony. These child marriages are implicitly arranged marriages. In rural areas of East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, poverty and lack of options, such as being able to attend school, leave little choice to children other than be in early arranged marriages. Child marriages are primarily seen in areas of poverty. Parents arrange child marriages to ensure their child's financial security and reinforce social ties. They believe it offers protection and reduces the daughter's economic burden on the family due to how costly it is to feed, clothe and (optionally) educate a girl. By marrying their daughter to a good family, the parents improve their social status by establishing a social bond between each other.

According to Warner, in nations with the high rates of child marriages, the marriage of the girl is almost always arranged by her parents or guardians. The nations with the highest rates of arranged child marriages are: Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Yemen, India and Pakistan. Arranged child marriages are also observed in parts of the Americas.

Poverty

In impoverished communities, every adult mouth to feed becomes a continuing burden. In many of these cultures, women have difficulty finding gainful employment (or are simply prohibited from doing so), and their daughters become the greatest burden to the family. Some scholars argue that arranging a marriage of a daughter becomes a necessary means to reduce this burden. Poverty, thus, is a driver of arranged marriage.

This theory is supported by the observed rapid drop in arranged marriages in fast growing economies of Asia. The financial benefit parents receive from their working single daughters has been cited as a reason for their growing reluctance to see their daughters marry at too early an age.

Late marriage

Late marriage, particularly past the age of 30 years old, reduces the pool of available women for autonomous marriages. Introductions and arranged marriages become a productive option.

For example, in part due to economic prosperity, about 40% of modern Japanese women reach the age of 29 and have never been married. To assist late marriages, the traditional custom of arranged marriages called miai-kekkon is re-emerging. It involves the prospective bride and groom, family, friends and a matchmaker (nakōdo, 仲人); the pair is selected by a process with the individuals and family involved (iegara, 家柄). Typically the couple meets three times, in public or private, before deciding if they want to get engaged.

Limited choices

Migrant minority ethnic populations have limited choice of partners, particularly when they are stereotyped, segregated or avoided by the majority population. This encourages homogamy and arranged marriages within the ethnic group. Examples of this dynamic include Sikh marriages between 1910 and 1980 in Canada, arranged marriages among Hasidic Jews, and arranged marriages among Japanese American immigrants before the 1960s, who would travel back to Japan to marry the spouse arranged by the family, and then return married. In other cases, a girl from Japan would arrive in the United States as a picture bride, pre-arranged to marry the Japanese American man on arrival, whom she had never met.

Custom

Arranged marriage may be the consequence of certain customs. For example, in rural and tribal parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, disputes, unpaid debts in default and crimes such as murder are settled by a council of village elders, called jirga. A typical punishment for a crime committed by males involves requiring the guilty family to marry their virgin girls between 5 and 12 year old to the other family. This custom requires no consent from the girl, or even her parents. Such arranged child marriages are called vani, swara and sak in different regional languages of Pakistan.

Another custom in certain Islamic nations, such as Pakistan, is watta satta, where a brother-sister pair of one family are swapped as spouses for a brother-sister pair of another family. In other words, the wife is also the sister-in-law for the males in two families. This custom inherently leads to arranged form of marriage. About 30% of all marriages in western rural regions of Pakistan are by custom watta-satta marriages, and 75% of these Muslim marriages are between cousins and other blood relatives. Some immigrant families prefer customary practice of arranged marriage.

In 1770, Empress Maria Theresa sent 14-year-old Maria Antonia to France to marry Louis-Auguste

Politics

Further information: Royal intermarriage

 

The arranged marriage in 1697, of Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, age 12 to Louis, Duke of Burgundy, heir apparent to the throne of France, as a result of the Treaty of Turin (1696). The marriage created an alliance between Louis XIV of France and the Duke of Savoy.

Arranged marriages across feudal lords, city states and kingdoms, as a means of establishing political alliances, trade and peace were common in human history. When a king married his son to a neighboring state's daughter, it indicated an alliance among equals, and signaled the former's state superiority. For example, the fourth daughter of Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, Marie Antoinette, married the dauphin (crown prince) of France, who would become King Louis XVI.

Wealth and inheritance issues

Throughout most of human history, marriage has been a social institution that produced children and organized inheritance of property from one generation to next. Various cultures, particularly some wealthy royals and aristocratic families, arranged marriages in part to conserve or streamline the inheritance of their wealth.

Tongyangxi, also known as Shim-pua marriage in Taiwanese – literally child or little daughter-in-law – was a tradition of arranged marriage, in which a poor family would arrange and marry a pre-adolescent daughter into a richer family as a servant. The little girl provided slave-like free labor, and also the daughter-in-law to the adoptive family's son. This sort of arranged marriage, in theory, enabled the girl to escape poverty and the wealthy family to get free labor and a daughter-in-law. Zhaozhui was a related custom by which a wealthy family that lacked an heir would arrange marriage of a boy child from another family. The boy would move in with the wealthy family, take on the surname of the new family, and marry the family's daughter. Such arranged marriages helped maintain inheritance bloodlines. Similar matrilocal arranged marriages to preserve wealth inheritance were common in Korea, Japan and other parts of the world.

Bride-wealth

Main article: Bride price

In many cultures, particularly in parts of Africa and the Middle East, daughters are valuable on the marriage market because the groom and his family must pay cash and property for the right to marry the daughter. This is termed as bride-wealth and locally by various names such as Lobola and Wine Carrying. The bride-wealth is typically kept by the bride's family, after the marriage, and is a source of income to poor families. The brothers, father, and male relatives of the bride typically take keen interest in arranging her marriage to a man who is willing to pay the most wealth in exchange for the right to marry her.

Religion

Some religious denominations recognize marriages only within the faith. Of the major religions of the world, Islam forbids marriage of girls of a devout parent to a man who does not belong to that religion. In other words, Islam forbids marriage of Muslim girls to non-Muslim men, and the religious punishment for those who marry outside might be severe. This is one of the motivations of arranged marriages in Islamic minority populations in Europe.

Arranged marriage is practiced by members of the Apostolic Christian Church, an Anabaptist denomination of Christianity:

The marriage process in the Apostolic Christian Church begins with a brother in the faith deciding that it is time for him to be married. The brother makes it a matter of prayer that God will show him who is to be his wife. Once a sister in the faith is selected the brother speaks to his father about it. With the father's blessing the brother then takes his proposal to the Elder, or leader, of his local church. If the local Elder feels the request is reasonable and that the brother's spiritual life is in order, he will forward the request to the Elder of the prospective bride's church. If this Elder feels that the request is reasonable and that their spiritual lives are in order, then the proposal is forwarded to the father of the prospective bride. If the father is in agreement then the proposal is forwarded to the sister in the faith. She is to them make it a matter of prayer to determine if it is God's will that she marry this brother in the faith. If she agrees, then the proposal is announced to their respective home churches. Marriages generally follow short engagement periods, as strict church discipline, including excommunication, is applied to those who have premarital relations.

Since religion is important in the Hindu community, parents often find spouses that have the same religion for their children. When two people with different religions fall in love, one must convert to the other's religion, forsaking their own. It is socially unacceptable for people to intermarry, which is why parents arranging a marriage for their children will make sure they marry someone from the same faith. Hindus favor religious segregation, so many of them do not keep friendships with those from other religions. A study shows that 45% of Hindu's only have friends who have the same religion as them and 13 percent have friends with different religions. This trains children to only desire to be around those of the same religion since intermingling of religious friendships and marriages are not too common. Furthermore, the people must marry within their caste system and most have a specific type of religion. They are taught this from a young age and it is considered one of the most important rules. When love outside of a person's caste happens, the parents sometimes threaten to kill the lover. Families fear of the opinions of the public is another reason why parents forbid their children from marrying outside their caste. The lowest, known as the untouchables, are seen as unclean and they are not even allowed to walk past someone from a higher caste because of fear that they will defile them.

Controversy

Arranged marriages are actively debated between scholars. The questions debated include whether arranged marriages are being used to abuse international immigration system, to inherently violate human rights, particularly women's rights, if they yield more stable marriages for raising children, the next generation, and whether there is more or less loving, respectful relationship for the married couple.

Sham marriages

In the United Kingdom, public discussion has questioned whether international arranged marriages are a sham without the intention that the spouses will live as a couple, a convenient means to get residency and European citizenship to some male or female immigrants, who would otherwise be denied a visa to enter the country. These fears have been stoked by observed divorces once the minimum married residence period requirement is met. MP Ann Cryer has alleged examples of such abuse by West Asian Muslim families in her motion to the UK's House of Commons. The United States has seen a similar controversy with sham arranged marriages.

Human rights

Various international organizations, including UNICEF, have campaigned for laws to ban arranged marriages of children, as well as forced marriages. Article 15 and 16 of The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) specifically cover marriage and family law, which support such as ban.

Arranged marriages are a matter of debate and disagreements. Activists, such as Charlotte Bunch, suggest that marriages arranged by parents and other family members typically assume heterosexual preference and involve emotional pressure; this drives some individuals into marriages that they consent under duress. Bunch suggests that all marriages should be autonomous.

In contrast, preventing arranged marriages may harm many individuals who want to get married and can benefit from parental participation in finding and selecting a mate. For example, Willoughby suggests that arranged marriages work because they remove anxiety in process of finding the spouses. Parents, families and friends provide an independent perspective when they participate in learning and evaluating the other person, past history, behavior, as well as the couple's mutual compatibility. Willoughby further suggests that parents and family provide more than input in the screening and selection process; often, they provide financial support for the wedding, housing, emotional support and other valuable resources for the couple as they navigate past the wedding into married life, and help raise their children.

Michael Rosenfeld says that the differences between autonomous marriages and arranged marriages are empirically small; many people meet, date and choose to marry or cohabit with those who are similar in background, age, interests and social class they feel most similar to, screening factors most parents would have used for them anyway. Assuming the pool from which mates are screened and selected is large, Rosenfeld suggests that the differences between the two approaches to marriages are not as great as some imagine them to be. Others have expressed sentiments similar to Rosenfeld.

Stability

Divorce rates have climbed in the European Union and the United States with increase in autonomous marriage rates. The lowest divorce rates in the world are in cultures with high rates of arranged marriages such as Amish culture of United States (1%), Hindus of India (3%), and Ultra-Orthodox Jews of Israel (7%). According to a 2012 study by Statistic Brain, 53.25% of marriages are arranged worldwide. The global divorce rate for arranged marriages was 6.3%, which could be an indicator for the success rate of arranged marriages. This has led scholars to ask if arranged marriages are more stable than autonomous marriages, and whether this stability matters. Others suggest that the low divorce rate may not reflect stability, rather it may reflect the difficulty in the divorce process and social ostracism to the individuals, who choose to live in a dysfunctional marriage rather than face the consequences of a divorce. Also, the perception of high divorce rates attributed to self-arranged marriages in the United States is being called into question.

Love and respect in arranged versus autonomous marital life

Various small sample surveys have been done to ascertain if arranged marriages or autonomous marriages have a more satisfying married life. The results are mixed – some state marriage satisfaction is higher in autonomous marriages, others find no significant differences. Johnson and Bachan have questioned the small sample size and conclusions derived from them.

Scholars ask whether love and respect in marital life is greater in arranged marriages than autonomous marriages. Epstein suggests that in many arranged marriages, love emerges over time. Neither autonomous nor arranged marriages offer any guarantees. Many arranged marriages also end up being cold and dysfunctional as well, with reports of abuse.

In some cultures where arranged marriages are common; there is a higher inequality between men and women. Some believe that those in arranged marriages might have a more satisfying union since they have realistic expectations and are not clouded by emotion when going into the marriage, while others believe it can lead to unhappiness and discontentment in the marriage. Many people that are in autonomous marriages look at arranged marriages as a way of force, but results have shown that many people go into arranged marriages out of their own free will. According to one study, the divorce rate was 4% for arranged marriages, while in the U.S., 40% of autonomous marriages end in divorce. There's also been questions about sexual gratification; In Japan it was reported that the men in arranged marriages are more sexually satisfied, while in autonomous marriages the partners are in the middle. In India, there showed to be an equal amount of compassionate love shown between arranged marriages and autonomous marriages.

Theories of love

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_love 

Theories of love can refer to several psychological and sociological theories:

• Attachment theory
• Color wheel theory of love (based on the 1973 book The Colors of Love by John Lee)
• Compassionate vs. passionate love theory (based on research by Elaine Hatfield)
• Filter theory
• Reward theory of attraction
• Rubin's scale of liking and love (based on research by Zick Rubin)
• Triangular theory of love
• Vulnerability and care theory of love

Love

Love is a complex, ever-changing concept that has evolved over the course of time. Different societies, cultures and eras have attached different values to the word and have different perspectives on the concept. In the 17th century, one's family would pick the person one was going to marry based on social class and economical status. In some cultures, girls are married by the age of 14 or even younger. In traditional definitions of love, love has been compared to God because of the power it has over those who believe in it. Love has the ability to be the source of human happiness, sense of worth, and a source of healing from hurt or suffering.

In the 18th century, romantic love expressed sensibility and authenticity as it stood for "the truth of feeling".  Many people view love as the reason for living. Symbolic interaction theorists believe that shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motives behind people's actions. Cultural norms regarding the experience of love vary, so that the emphasis in relationships is on sexual attraction, romantic courtship, intimate friendship, or commitment.

Although love can be the motive for some people's actions and bring people joy, love can also bring us sadness. "Love does us no good if we love the wrong person." When people open their hearts, show their flaws, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses to the wrong person, it can result in heartbreak, then causing feelings of regret. So why do humans deal with such a complicated thing such as love? Humans "need to love and to be loved".

The four types of love described in philosophy include agape, phileo, storge, and eros. Agape is a type of unconditional love that is less common in society but more apparent between individuals and their god. Phileo is a love used to describe friendship between individuals. This love is commonly seen between friends in public, especially as displays of warm gestures. Storge is another type of love that is expressed through parenting. Eros is a romantic love which was a type of love forbidden in early society and is still forbidden in some societies today. These different types of love are expressed differently based on culture.

Love: A cultural perspective

Over the course of history, love has been expressed and shown differently all over the world. Displays of love are different based on societal norms. Love can include acts such as self sacrifice, compromise, courting, kissing, sex, emotional contact and companionship that contributes to happiness in relationships. Different cultures have adopted new customs. For example, in Japan, public displays of affection are discouraged, and people believe in showing their love for their partner in a different way like packing their lunch for work. In France, people show their love by holding hands, kissing and initiating sexual relationships. The United States has a different perspective on love. People believe in going on dates, having casual sex, and are open to meeting new people on social media or dating apps. The customs in the US are generally more liberal than other parts of the world. Marriage traditions are largely cultural as well.

Marriage customs

Marriage is a legal binding, or union of two individuals who have commited to each other for the rest of their lives. Marriage is a commitment that two people have made with one another. The tradition of marriage has greatly evolved over the centuries. In the 19th century, marriage was less of a choice of love, but rather a choice made by the parents of the individuals to satisfy political or economic factors in families. In India, arranged marriages are still part of their culture. Now elopement, also known as love marriage, has become dominant in some parts of India. Marriage in Japan is more liberal when it comes to picking who they are going to marry. Arranged marriage in Japan would begin with courtship that would allow love to develop and would lead to an arranged marriage. In the United States, marriage customs would depend on the person's roots and values. The wedding and marriage depend on what each individual believes is right.

Society influences love

Society plays a big role in the way we see love based on social differences such as gender, race, economical status, religion, education, and ethnicity. In today's society, there are other major factors that influence how love is perceived by individuals. The biggest influence that we see in modern society is social media and films. Media influences the expectations we have of what love should be. Young adults are the target population that is mainly influenced by an unrealistic idea of love that they see repeatedly in films. For example, The Notebook projects that love can conquer all, the idealization of one's partner, the idea of soul mates or a one and only and love at first sight.

Necessity of love

Love allows people to attribute a sense of purpose for living. From the moment of birth, relationships are made: mother and child, father and child, grandparent and child, and the like. As people grow older and enter into schools, jobs, and get involved in their communities the number of relationships, they have grown, as does their ability to maintain these relationships. Love can have a powerful effect on the human body. Irving Singer wrote, "For a person in love … life is never without meaning." A person's life is built the love between two people – their parents, the love they share for the friendships they make and eventually, the person they marry and have children of their own with. The feelings love brings: happiness, empathy, mutual respect, a sense of purpose, can lead to stronger motivation, less stress, a positive outlook on life, and hope. 

Love allows humans to communicate through their emotions. To love effectively, one has to love themselves first: to love another person's flaws and quirks, one has to love their own flaws and quirks.

Humans are not the only species in the world that can feel love and its effects. Non-human animals can feel love as well, although it is less complex and less creative. Many animals feel emotions. When a dog wags its tail or licks its owner after being parted for a few hours, this is interpreted as happiness. When a person leaves for work in the morning and their dog cries at the window, it exhibits sadness. A growling dog who doesn't like it when someone touches its favorite toy is showing anger. Animals can feel love as well as other basic emotions humans feel. Dogs that grow up with siblings create strong bonds with their siblings. If their sibling dies, the dog can go into depression and refuse to eat.

Love holds a higher significance than many people might assume. For example, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed a theory called "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs". In this hierarchy, Maslow presents the different levels of priorities and needs we have as human beings. Maslow has listed physiological needs as the first essential need of human beings. Following physiological needs is safety needs which include the innate need for security, health, jobs, work, etc. Finally in third comes the need for belonging. Maslow describes this need as love, affection, family, friends, and intimacy. Although Maslow lists belonging on the third tier of the hierarchy of needs, one may argue that the sense of belonging, along with love and affection, could be the foundation of the pyramid of needs. When we explore the possibilities and actions that people take for love, it is clear how powerful it can be. For example, parents who are willing to risk their lives or die in the place of their child would be putting their belonging needs over their physiological need of safety. The motivation to express and feel love may overpower any physiological need that humans have.

Types of love

Humans come across different types of love as they reach different levels of maturity in their life, such as the love a mother feels for their child, the love that involves the instant attraction to a person, and the love that comes from years of being together. The love humans share for their family and friends can be viewed as "slow love". This love is based on finding shared interests and lifestyles that connect people to each other. It is a love that can be carried out because of the common interests that bind them together. It is more of a mental attraction than a physical attraction. Visually, we make interpretations on love based on the way a person looks. "Harmonism" and "echoism" are the ways a face is constructed that makes one physically attractive: the distance between the forehead and nose, the distance between the mouth and chin, how close the eyes are together, and the sweep of one's eyebrows. The biochemical level fluctuation of a person can also explain the question “Who We Love”. People who have expressive traits, such as curiosity and liveliness, tend to be drawn to people who have similar personalities. People who are cautious and socially conforming are attracted to their same kind as well. However, people who are foremost with expressive traits of sex hormones tend to be enchanted by their opposite kinds. People with a relatively high testosterone hormone are analytical and tough minded. They tend to choose people with a relatively high estrogen hormone who are empathetic and pro-social. Besides the biochemical level explanation, there are also a few other elements that affect people’s choices of mates. Another factor that influences who people choose to love is timing. Love can happen when one least expects it. Furthermore, people more easily fall in love when they are emotionally aroused, especially in a hard and lonely time. This is because such a mental state is associated with arousal mechanisms in the brain and elevated levels of the stress hormone, both of which increase the level of the romantic passion hormone: dopamine. Distance is another element that influences people’s love choices: people tend to choose to fall in love with those close to them. Childhood experience also influences mate choices. By the teenage years, people gradually construct a catalog of aptitudes and mannerisms they are looking for in a mate. Subtle differences in their experiences shape romantic tastes. Physical looks matter as well. From an anthropological point of view, a male tends to choose a female with a visual sign of youth and beauty, which indicates her high estrogen level and strong reproductive ability. However, a female with a more pragmatic and realistic goal, tends to choose a male with education, ambition, wealth, respect, status, and masculine appearance.

Another reason why we love who we love has to do with culture and history. Take incest, for example. In some Western cultures, falling in love with one's first cousin could be seen as possibly 'taboo' and therefore morally and lawfully wrong. However, it is legal to marry one's cousin in many western countries, e.g. the UK. Similarly, in some Muslim tribes, it is perfectly acceptable to fall in love with one's cousin. In the past, kissing cousins in Western societies were not uncommon. In addition, in the past, mixed-race marriages were illegal in the United States. This led to people only marrying people of the same race. However, now that the society of the United States has changed drastically, it is common and completely acceptable to find couples of different races.

Another type of love people come across in their life is sexual love. As an individual crosses over from a child to a teen to an adult, this type of love becomes more relevant in their life. According to Milligan, "Sexualized intimate love is delusional and requires an overestimation of the person we love." A sexual love is a misconception of the person's beauty, intelligence, or charm. This type of love can reveal a lot about the person who's feeling such strong passionate feelings. It gives more insight into the lover than it gives about the loved one. Sexual love is not love at first sight – it is basic human instinct and hormonal responses.

Attachment Theory of Love

Psychiatrist and psychologist John Bowlby, was the first to develop the attachment theory of love in the Western culture. It focuses on the relationships or attachments that form between people. It starts with attachments made in infancy, stating that it is important for children to have a relationship with their primary caregivers in order to experience normal development. Though the underlying concepts originated in Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation research, Bowlby put the concepts into a more comprehensive theory. There are three tenets of this theory:

1. The creation of bonds is an intrinsic need.
2. Emotions and fear need to be regulated to increase vitality.
3. Adaptiveness and growth need to be encouraged.

According to this theory, one person in the relationship uses the other person as a “secure base”, exploring the world from this person and using them as a safe place to return to when stressed or experiencing perceived danger. Bowlby’s theory was extended from infants to adults by Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver. There is a transition of this attachment from the parent to a peer in adulthood. It is thought that proximity-seeking behavior is the first thing needed for this transition to occur. Much like the attachment styles identified in infants, there were 4 attachment styles identified for adults. These styles are secure, anxious -preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful avoidant. These attachment theories can influence adults differently in their romantic lives.

Secure-Attachment

Adults who have a secure attachment style will be good at conflict resolution, will be flexible in their thinking, will communicate effectively, will not be manipulative, will have no fear of being enmeshed, will think they can positively impact their relationship, and will care for their partner in a way that they wish to be cared for. They understand that there are a multitude of potential partners that could fulfill their needs and, therefore, feel confident leaving a partner that does not meet their needs. Research suggests that only one partner with a secure attachment style is necessary for a relationship to function in a healthy manner.

Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment

Adults who have an anxious-preoccupied attachment style tend to become overly dependent on their partners. They typically have trust issues, lower self-esteem, and higher levels of worry in their relationships. It is believed that these individuals may not have been able to develop the necessary defenses against separation anxiety and this leads to an emotional reaction to the perceived threat of separation. This thought pattern can lead these individuals to self-sabotage, causing them to tend to go after partners with a dismissive-avoidant style.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment

Adults with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style want to be independent. This desire for independence can lead these individuals to avoid relationships. They often have a hard time trusting other people and also view themselves highly. Their high self-esteem is supported by over emphasizing their competency and achievements. It is thought that this attachment style stems from trying to avoid being rejected or truly having no interest in being close to other people.

Fearful-Avoidant Attachment

Lastly, adults with a fearful-avoidant attachment style are not sure how they feel about intimate relationships. They have conflicting feelings of wanting emotional intimacy and feeling uncomfortable with it. They have trouble trusting others. They often feel that they are unworthy of affection. They also tend to avoid intimacy, or at least do not seek it out.

Criticism of Attachment Theory

There are still areas of this theory that have not been explored, such as contextual attachment within relationships. There has also been criticism for this theory. This includes criticism over Bowlby’s wording of “partial deprivation” to describe a relationship with a caregiver that is unsatisfying. Critics claim that this wording was too vague and allowed people to over-extend this to any issues within the parent-child relationship. Other criticism stems from Hilda Lewis’ research which was not able to show a connection between separation from the mother and behavior. There have also been some calls to remove attachment disorder from clinical psychology because some critics believe that there is no professional consensus on what “attachment” means and how it should be utilized in the clinical setting.

Vertical and Horizontal Structure of Love

Vertical Structure

Social psychologist, Philips Shaver, and colleagues found that attachment processes could be represented in a hierarchy. By collecting data about males’ and females’ cognition of “Love”, researchers used a prototype approach to investigate the concept of love. “Love” is a basic level that concept includes super-ordinate categories of emotions: affection, adoration, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, arousal, desire, passion, and longing. Love contains large sub-clusters that designate generic forms of love: friendship, sibling relationship, marital relationship etc. Such as, “affection”, similar to “companionate love” in social psychology field, is the term most strongly co-occurs with terms in its generic sub-cluster and not with other terms in other sub-cluster groups: “Affection” for example contrasts significantly with “passionate love”, which belongs to the second large sub-cluster – “Lust”.

Horizontal Structure

Love can also be examined along a horizontal dimension with a prototype approach. Psychologists Beverley, Fehr and James Russell designed and conducted six experiments to examine the concept of love horizontally: Free Listing of Subtypes of Love; Rating the Goodness of Love Examples; Reaction Time to Verify Love Category Memberships; the Fuzzy Boarder of Love definition; the Sustainability of the Subcategory of Love; Love Subcategory Family Resemblances. For example, Beverly Fehr and James Russell examined the concept of love by carrying out the fifth experiment, the Sustainability of the Subcategory. They selected 10 sentences that defined “Love” written by one group of participants and 10 definitions of “Love” from textbooks. They asked other groups of participants to judge how weird or natural those sentences sounded when the word “Love” in those definitions was substituted by targeted sub-category terms. When a prototypical sub-type substituted, such as friendship, the sentence sounded subjectively natural. However, when a peripheral sub-type, such as infatuation, took the place of “Love” in the definitions, it yielded subjectively peculiar results. “In sum, Fehr identified a set of features of love that appear to have a clear prototype structure in terms of some features being better and some being poorer exemplars of the concept of love, and this difference appears to affect other aspects of the way love-related phenomena are processed.”

Later Arthur Aron and Lori Westbay expanded the underlying structure of love prototype of Fehr’s research. To understand the way people deal with love-related information, Aron and Westbay examined the latent structure and individual differences within Fehr’s subgroup structure with three validation tests. They concluded that people generally understand the concept of love centralizing around three dimensions (passion, intimacy and commitment) which correspond to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love. An individual’s prototype of love limits his or her experience of a relationship, but the degree of these three dimensions that the individual emphasizes on depends on circumstances of that relationship.

Love in the 21st century

Today, love is still highly valued in the Western society. Love is viewed as important and special. It is put on a pedestal, making it almost impossible to fulfill all the expectations that people have for their relationships and marriages. For example, with the rising of "promposals", which are extravagant ways of asking someone to prom, the ways that the expectations of romance are increasing are illustrated. Today, sex lives are commonly flaunted rather than hidden as they used to be. Compared to the past, people are more open to sexuality, promiscuity, and divorce. As the world continues to change the views on love, its significance will continue to modify as the minds of people change.

Eros (concept)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_(concept) 

 

The Love of Helen and Paris by Jacques-Louis David (1788)

Eros (/ˈɪərɒs/, US: /ˈɛrɒs, irɒs, -oʊs/; from Ancient Greek ἔρως (érōs) 'love, desire') is a concept in ancient Greek philosophy referring to sensual or passionate love, from which the term erotic is derived. Eros has also been used in philosophy and psychology in a much wider sense, almost as an equivalent to "life energy". The Protestant author C. S. Lewis posits it as one of the four ancient Greek words for love in Christianity, alongside storge, philia, and agape.

In literature

The classical Greek tradition

In the classical world, erotic love was generally referred to as a kind of madness or theia mania ("madness from the gods"). This love passion was described through an elaborate metaphoric and mythological schema involving "love's arrows" or "love darts", the source of which was often the personified figure of Eros (or his Latin counterpart, Cupid), or another deity (such as Rumor). At times the source of the arrows was said to be the image of the beautiful love object itself. If these arrows were to arrive at the lover's eyes, they would then travel to and 'pierce' or 'wound' their heart and overwhelm them with desire and longing (lovesickness). The image of the "arrow's wound" was sometimes used to create oxymorons and rhetorical antithesis concerning its pleasure and pain.

"Love at first sight" was explained as a sudden and immediate beguiling of the lover through the action of these processes, but this was not the only mode of entering into passionate love in classical texts. At times the passion could occur after the initial meeting; for example, in Phaedra's letter to Hippolytus in Ovid's Heroides: "That time I went to Eleusis... it was then most of all (though you had pleased me before) that piercing love lodged in my deepest bones."^[6] At times, the passion could even precede the first glimpse, as in Paris' letter to Helen of Troy in the same work, where Paris says that his love for Helen came upon him before he had set eyes on her: "...you were my heart's desire before you were known to me. I beheld your features with my soul ere I saw them with my eyes; rumour, that told me of you, was the first to deal my wound."

Whether by "first sight" or by other routes, passionate love often had disastrous results according to the classical authors. In the event that the loved one was cruel or uninterested, this desire was shown to drive the lover into a state of depression, causing lamentation and illness. Occasionally, the loved one was depicted as an unwitting ensnarer of the lover, because of her sublime beauty—a "divine curse" which inspires men to kidnap her or try to rape her. Stories in which unwitting men catch sight of the naked body of Artemis the huntress (and sometimes Aphrodite) lead to similar ravages (as in the tale of Actaeon).

There are few written records of women's lives and loves in ancient Greece. Nevertheless, some historians have suggested that women may have been the objects of love more often than was previously believed and that men's love for women may have been an ideal, although not one realized much in fact. In ancient Athens the dominance of man in the marital relationship is expressed by figures such as the prominent Greek statesman and general Alcibiades. Another famous relationship between a man and a woman in ancient Athens was the romantic involvement of Aspasia with the statesman Pericles. In Sparta, the social status of women was stronger and the marital rituals were solemnized. There was an elaborate preparation for the first night after the marriage, while the man in a symbolic rite had to abduct his future wife before the official ceremony, while she had her hair cut short and dressed in boy's clothes. The ideal outcome of marital eros in Sparta was the birth of a healthy boy.

In The Symposium by Plato, Aristophanes relays a myth of the origin of both heterosexual and homosexual love. Eros paidikos, or pedagogic pederasty, was apparently known since 200 years before Plato. Originally, according to Aristophanes, each human being had two heads, four arms, and four legs, before Zeus decided to split every person in two. After everyone was split, each half searched for their other half, to make themselves whole again. Some people were originally half-male and half-female, and when Zeus split them they became men and women who sought opposite-sex partners. Some people were originally all-female, and they split into females who sought female partners. Some were all-male, and they split into males who sought other males.

Plato

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato developed an idealistic concept of eros which would prove to be very influential in modern times. In general, Plato did not consider physical attraction to be a necessary part of eros. According to Plato, eros could be diverted to philosophy (inclusive of mathematical, ethical and ascetical training), rather than dissipated in sexuality, for the purpose of using erotic energy as a vehicle for the transformation of consciousness, and union with the Divine. In Symposium, eros is described as a universal force that moves all things towards peace, perfection and divinity. Eros himself is a "daimon", namely a creature between divinity and mortality.

"Platonic love" in this original sense can be attained by the intellectual purification of eros from carnal into ideal form. Plato argues there that eros is initially felt for a person, but with contemplation it can become an appreciation for the beauty within that person, or even an appreciation for beauty itself in an ideal sense. As Plato expresses it, eros can help the soul to "remember" beauty in its pure form. It follows from this, for Plato, that eros can contribute to an understanding of truth.

Eros, understood in this sense, differed considerably from the common meaning of the word in the Greek language of Plato's time. It also differed from the meaning of the word in contemporary literature and poetry. For Plato, eros is neither purely human nor purely divine: it is something intermediate which he calls a daimon.

Its main characteristic is permanent aspiration and desire. Even when it seems to give, eros continues to be a "desire to possess", but nevertheless it is different from a purely sensual love in being the love that tends towards the sublime. According to Plato, the gods do not love, because they do not experience desires, inasmuch as their desires are all satisfied. They can thus only be an object, not a subject of love (Symposium 200-1). For this reason they do not have a direct relationship with man; it is only the mediation of eros that allows the connecting of a relationship (Symposium 203). Eros is thus the way that leads man to divinity, but not vice versa.

... Nevertheless, eros remains always, for Plato, an egocentric love: it tends toward conquering and possessing the object that represents a value for man. To love the good signifies to desire to possess it forever. Love is therefore always a desire for immortality.

Paradoxically, for Plato, the object of eros does not have to be physically beautiful. This is because the object of eros is beauty, and the greatest beauty is eternal, whereas physical beauty is in no way eternal. However, if the lover achieves possession of the beloved's inner (i.e., ideal) beauty, his need for happiness will be fulfilled, because happiness is the experience of knowing that you are participating in the ideal.

European literature

The Old, Old Story, John William Godward, 1903

The classical conception of love's arrows was developed further by the troubadour poets of Provence during the medieval period, and became part of the European courtly love tradition. The role of a woman's eyes in eliciting erotic desire was particularly emphasized by the Provençal poets, as N. E. Griffin states:

According to this description, love originates upon the eyes of the lady when encountered by those of her future lover. The love thus generated is conveyed on bright beams of light from her eyes to his, through which it passes to take up its abode in his heart.

In some medieval texts, the gaze of a beautiful woman is compared to the sight of a basilisk—a legendary reptile said to have the power to cause death with a single glance.

These images continued to be circulated and elaborated upon in the literature and iconography of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Boccaccio for example, in his Il Filostrato, mixes the tradition of Cupid's arrow with the Provençal emphasis on the eyes as the birthplace of love: "Nor did he (Troilus) who was so wise shortly before... perceive that Love with his darts dwelt within the rays of those lovely eyes... nor notice the arrow that sped to his heart."

The rhetorical antithesis between the pleasure and pain from love's dart continued through the 17th century, as for example, in these classically inspired images from The Fairy-Queen:

If Love's a Sweet Passion, why does it torment?
If a Bitter, oh tell me whence comes my content?
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,
Or grieve at my Fate, when I know 'tis in vain?
Yet so pleasing the Pain is, so soft is the Dart,
That at once it both wounds me, and Tickles my Heart.

Roman Catholic teachings

See also: Catholic theology of sexuality

Ancient Jewish tradition, Augustine of Hippo, and Bonaventure all have influence on Roman Catholic marital teachings regarding eros. In his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI discusses three of the four greek relationship terms: eros, philia and agape, and contrasts between them. In agape, for Benedict, one gives of oneself to another; in eros, the self seeks to receive from another self; philia is the mutual love between friends. He explains that eros and agape are both inherently good, but that eros risks being downgraded to mere sex if it is not balanced by an element of spiritual Christianity. The encyclical argues that eros and agape are not distinct kinds of love, but are separate halves of complete love, unified as both a giving and receiving.

Modern psychologists

Freud

In Freudian psychology, eros, not to be confused with libido, is not exclusively the sex drive, but our life force, the will to live. It is the desire to create life, and favors productivity and construction. In early psychoanalytic writings, instincts from the eros were opposed by forces from the ego. But in later psychoanalytic theory, eros is opposed by the destructive death instinct of Thanatos (death instinct or death drive).

In his 1925 paper "The Resistances to Psycho-Analysis", Freud explains that the psychoanalytic concept of sexual energy is more in line with the Platonic view of eros, as expressed in the Symposium, than with the common use of the word "sex" as related primarily to genital activity. He also mentions the philosopher Schopenhauer as an influence. He then goes on to confront his adversaries for ignoring such great precursors and for tainting his whole theory of eros with a pansexual tendency. He finally writes that his theory naturally explains this collective misunderstanding as a predictable resistance to the acknowledgement of sexual activity in childhood.

However, F. M. Cornford finds the standpoints of Plato and of Sigmund Freud to be "diametrically opposed" with regard to eros. In Plato, eros is a spiritual energy initially, which then "falls" downward; whereas in Freud eros is a physical energy which is "sublimated" upward.

The philosopher and sociologist Herbert Marcuse appropriated the Freudian concept of eros for his highly influential 1955 work Eros and Civilization.

Jung

In Carl Jung's analytical psychology, the counterpart to eros is logos, a Greek term for the principle of rationality. Jung considers logos to be a masculine principle, while eros is a feminine principle. According to Jung:

Woman's psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest.

This gendering of eros and logos is a consequence of Jung's theory of the anima/animus syzygy of the human psyche. Syzygy refers to the split between male and female. According to Jung, this split is recapitulated in the unconscious mind by means of "contrasexual" (opposite-gendered) elements called the anima (in men) and the animus (in women). Thus men have an unconscious feminine principle, the "anima", which is characterized by feminine eros. The work of individuation for men involves becoming conscious of the anima and learning to accept it as one's own, which entails accepting eros. This is necessary in order to see beyond the projections that initially blind the conscious ego. "Taking back the projections" is a major task in the work of individuation, which involves owning and subjectivizing unconscious forces which are initially regarded as alien.

In essence, Jung's concept of eros is not dissimilar to the Platonic one. Eros is ultimately the desire for wholeness, and although it may initially take the form of passionate love, it is more truly a desire for "psychic relatedness", a desire for interconnection and interaction with other sentient beings. However, Jung was inconsistent, and he did sometimes use the word "eros" as a shorthand to designate sexuality.

Crying

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crying 

A young child crying

Crying is the dropping of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, or pain. Emotions that can lead to crying include sadness, anger, and even happiness. The act of crying has been defined as "a complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus, without any irritation of the ocular structures", instead, giving a relief which protects from conjunctivitis. A related medical term is lacrimation, which also refers to non-emotional shedding of tears. Various forms of crying are known as sobbing, weeping, wailing, whimpering, bawling, and blubbering.

For crying to be described as sobbing, it usually has to be accompanied by a set of other symptoms, such as slow but erratic inhalation, occasional instances of breath holding and muscular tremor.

A neuronal connection between the lacrimal gland and the areas of the human brain involved with emotion has been established.

Tears produced during emotional crying have a chemical composition which differs from other types of tears. They contain significantly greater quantities of the hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and Leu-enkephalin, and the elements potassium and manganese.

Function

Two women weep at a funeral

The question of the function or origin of emotional tears remains open. Theories range from the simple, such as response to inflicted pain, to the more complex, including nonverbal communication in order to elicit altruistic helping behavior from others. Some have also claimed that crying can serve several biochemical purposes, such as relieving stress and clearance of the eyes. There is some empirical evidence that crying lowers stress levels, potentially due to the release of hormones such as oxytocin. Crying is believed to be an outlet or a result of a burst of intense emotional sensations, such as agony, surprise or joy. This theory could explain why people cry during cheerful events, as well as very painful events.

Individuals tend to remember the positive aspects of crying, and may create a link between other simultaneous positive events, such as resolving feelings of grief. Together, these features of memory reinforce the idea that crying helped the individual.

In Hippocratic and medieval medicine, tears were associated with the bodily humors, and crying was seen as purgation of excess humors from the brain. William James thought of emotions as reflexes prior to rational thought, believing that the physiological response, as if to stress or irritation, is a precondition to cognitively becoming aware of emotions such as fear or anger.

William H. Frey II, a biochemist at the University of Minnesota, proposed that people feel "better" after crying due to the elimination of hormones associated with stress, specifically adrenocorticotropic hormone. This, paired with increased mucosal secretion during crying, could lead to a theory that crying is a mechanism developed in humans to dispose of this stress hormone when levels grow too high. Tears have a limited ability to eliminate chemicals, reducing the likelihood of this theory.

Recent psychological theories of crying emphasize the relationship of crying to the experience of perceived helplessness. From this perspective, an underlying experience of helplessness can usually explain why people cry. For example, a person may cry after receiving surprisingly happy news, ostensibly because the person feels powerless or unable to influence what is happening.

Emotional tears have also been put into an evolutionary context. One study proposes that crying, by blurring vision, can handicap aggressive or defensive actions, and may function as a reliable signal of appeasement, need, or attachment. Oren Hasson, an evolutionary psychologist in the zoology department at Tel Aviv University believes that crying shows vulnerability and submission to an attacker, solicits sympathy and aid from bystanders, and signals shared emotional attachments.

Another theory that follows evolutionary psychology is given by Paul D. MacLean, who suggests that the vocal part of crying was used first as a "separation cry" to help reunite parents and offspring. The tears, he speculates, are a result of a link between the development of the cerebrum and the discovery of fire. MacLean theorizes that since early humans must have relied heavily on fire, their eyes were frequently producing reflexive tears in response to the smoke. As humans evolved the smoke possibly gained a strong association with the loss of life and, therefore, sorrow. In 2017, Carlo Bellieni analysed the weeping behavior, and concluded that most animals can cry but only humans have psychoemotional shedding of tears, also known as "weeping". Weeping is a behavior that induces empathy perhaps with the mediation of the mirror neurons network, and influences the mood through the release of hormones elicited by the massage effect made by the tears on the cheeks, or through the relief of the sobbing rhythm. Many ethologists would disagree.

Biological response

Child crying

 

Queen Maria II of Portugal crying and hugging a bust of her late father King Pedro IV (a.k.a. Emperor Pedro I of Brazil), 1836

It can be very difficult to observe biological effects of crying, especially considering many psychologists believe the environment in which a person cries can alter the experience of the crier. Laboratory studies have shown several physical effects of crying, such as increased heart rate, sweating, and slowed breathing. Although it appears that the type of effects an individual experiences depends largely on the individual, for many it seems that the calming effects of crying, such as slowed breathing, outlast the negative effects, which could explain why people remember crying as being helpful and beneficial.

Globus sensation

The most common side effect of crying is feeling a lump in the throat of the crier, otherwise known as a globus sensation. Although many things can cause a globus sensation, the one experienced in crying is a response to the stress experienced by the sympathetic nervous system. When an animal is threatened by some form of danger, the sympathetic nervous system triggers several processes to allow the animal to fight or flee. This includes shutting down unnecessary body functions, such as digestion, and increasing blood flow and oxygen to necessary muscles. When an individual experiences emotions such as sorrow, the sympathetic nervous system still responds in this way.

Another function increased by the sympathetic nervous system is breathing, which includes opening the throat in order to increase air flow. This is done by expanding the glottis, which allows more air to pass through. As an individual is undergoing this sympathetic response, eventually the parasympathetic nervous system attempts to undo the response by decreasing high stress activities and increasing recuperative processes, which includes running digestion. This involves swallowing, a process which requires closing the fully expanded glottis to prevent food from entering the larynx. The glottis attempts to remain open as an individual cries. This fight to close the glottis creates a sensation that feels like a lump in the individual's throat.

Other common side effects of crying are quivering lips, a runny nose, and an unsteady, cracking voice.

Frequency

According to the German Society of Ophthalmology, which has collated different scientific studies on crying, the average woman cries between 30 and 64 times a year, and the average man cries between 6 and 17 times a year.

Men tend to cry for between two and four minutes, and women cry for about six minutes. Crying turns into sobbing for women in 65% of cases, compared to just 6% for men. Before adolescence, no difference between the sexes was found.

The gap between how often men and women cry is larger in wealthier, more democratic, and feminine countries.

In infants

A newborn child crying

Infants can shed tears at approximately 4–8 weeks of age.

Crying is critical to when a baby is first born. Their ability to cry upon delivery signals they can breathe on their own and reflects they have successfully adapted to life outside the womb.

Although crying is an infant's mode of communication, it is not limited to a monotonous sound. There are three different types of cries apparent in infants. The first of these three is a basic cry, which is a systematic cry with a pattern of crying and silence. The basic cry starts with a cry coupled with a briefer silence, which is followed by a short high-pitched inspiratory whistle. Then, there is a brief silence followed by another cry. Hunger is a main stimulant of the basic cry. An anger cry is much like the basic cry; in this cry, more excess air is forced through the vocal cords, making it a louder, more abrupt cry. This type of cry is characterized by the same temporal sequence as the basic pattern but distinguished by differences in the length of the various phase components. The third cry is the pain cry, which, unlike the other two, has no preliminary moaning. The pain cry is one loud cry, followed by a period of breath holding.

Most adults can determine whether an infant's cries signify anger or pain. Most parents also have a better ability to distinguish their own infant's cries than those of a different child. A 2009 study found that babies mimic their parents' pitch contour. French infants wail on a rising note while German infants favor a falling melody. Carlo Bellieni found a correlation between the features of babies' crying and the level of pain, though he found no direct correlation between the cause of crying and its characteristics.

T. Berry Brazelton has suggested that overstimulation may be a contributing factor to infant crying and that periods of active crying might serve the purpose of discharging overstimulation and helping the baby's nervous system regain homeostasis.

Sheila Kitzinger found a correlation between the mother's prenatal stress level and later amount of crying by the infant. She also found a correlation between birth trauma and crying. Mothers who had experienced obstetrical interventions or who were made to feel powerless during birth had babies who cried more than other babies. Rather than try one remedy after another to stop this crying, she suggested that mothers hold their babies and allow the crying to run its course. Other studies have supported Kitzinger's findings. Babies who had experienced birth complications had longer crying spells at three months of age and awakened more frequently at night crying.

Based on these various findings, Aletha Solter has proposed a general emotional release theory of infant crying. When infants cry for no obvious reason after all other causes (such as hunger or pain) are ruled out, she suggests that the crying may signify a beneficial stress-release mechanism. She recommends the "crying-in-arms" approach as a way to comfort these infants. Another way of comforting and calming the baby is to mimic the familiarity and coziness of mother's womb. Dr. Robert Hamilton developed a technique to parents where a baby may be calmed and stop crying in 5 seconds.

A study published in Current Biology has shown that some parents with experience of children are better at identifying types of cries than those who do not have experience of children.

Categorizing dimensions

A Frenchman sheds tears of patriotic grief (1940)

There have been many attempts to differentiate between the two distinct types of crying: positive and negative. Different perspectives have been broken down into three dimensions to examine the emotions being felt and also to grasp the contrast between the two types.

Spatial perspective explains sad crying as reaching out to be "there", such as at home or with a person who may have just died. In contrast, joyful crying is acknowledging being "here." It emphasized the intense awareness of one's location, such as at a relative's wedding.

Temporal perspective explains crying slightly differently. In temporal perspective, sorrowful crying is due to looking to the past with regret or to the future with dread. This illustrated crying as a result of losing someone and regretting not spending more time with them or being nervous about an upcoming event. Crying as a result of happiness would then be a response to a moment as if it is eternal; the person is frozen in a blissful, immortalized present.

The last dimension is known as the public-private perspective. This describes the two types of crying as ways to imply details about the self as known privately or one's public identity. For example, crying due to a loss is a message to the outside world that pleads for help with coping with internal sufferings. Or, as Arthur Schopenhauer suggested, sorrowful crying is a method of self-pity or self-regard, a way one comforts oneself. Joyful crying, in contrast, is in recognition of beauty, glory, or wonderfulness.

Religious views

Detail from Descent from the Cross, c. 1435 by Rogier van der Weyden, the tears of Mary of Clopas

The Shia Ithna Ashari (Muslims who believe in twelve Imams after Muhammad) consider crying to be an important responsibility towards their leaders who were martyred. They believe a true lover of Imam Hussain can feel the afflictions and oppressions Imam Hussain suffered; his feelings are so immense that they break out into tears and wail. The pain of the beloved is the pain of the lover. Crying on Imam Hussain is the sign or expression of true love. The Imams of Shias have encouraged crying especially on Imam Husaain and have been informed about rewards for this act. They support their view through a tradition (saying) from Muhammad who said: (On the Day of Judgment, a group would be seen in the most excellent and honourable of states. They would be asked if they were of the Angels or of the Prophets. In reply they would state): "We are neither Angels nor Prophets but of the indigent ones from the ummah of Muhammad". They would then be asked: "How then did you achieve this lofty and honourable status?" They would reply: "We did not perform very many good deeds nor did we pass all the days in a state of fasting or all the nights in a state of worship but yes, we used to offer our (daily) prayers (regularly) and whenever we used to hear the mention of Muhammad, tears would roll down our cheeks".(Mustadrak al‑Wasail, vol 10, pg. 318)

In Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, tears are considered to be a sign of genuine repentance, and a desirable thing in many cases. Tears of true contrition are thought to be sacramental, helpful in forgiving sins, in that they recall the Baptism of the penitent.

Types of tears

Main article: Tears

 

A diagram showing the lacrimal apparatus

There are three types of tears: basal tears, reflexive tears, and psychic tears. Basal tears are produced at a rate of about 1 to 2 microliters a minute, and are made in order to keep the eye lubricated and smooth out irregularities in the cornea. Reflexive tears are tears that are made in response to irritants to the eye, such as when chopping onions or getting poked in the eye. Psychic tears are produced by the lacrimal system and are the tears expelled during emotional states.^[

Related disorders

• Baby colic, where an infant's excessive crying has no obvious cause or underlying medical disorder.
• Bell's palsy, where faulty regeneration of the facial nerve can cause sufferers to shed tears while eating.
• Cri du chat syndrome, where the characteristic cry of affected infants, which is similar to that of a meowing kitten, is due to problems with the larynx and nervous system.
• Familial dysautonomia, where there can be a lack of overflow tears (alacrima), during emotional crying.
• Pseudobulbar affect, uncontrollable episodes of laughing and/or crying.