Love

Abstract

Love. It came up time and time again with participants. It was a prerequisite for marriage, a symbol of modernity, and the key to a happy and long-lasting marital relationship. But not all loves were the same. In India, study participants contrasted ‘pure true love’ a love nurtured, you could say arranged, between a couple suitably matched with ‘physical love’, a short-lived love, based on passion and desire. In the UK, participants fused emotional and physical aspects of love. For them, love was properly spontaneous, and their stories of relationships focussed on the ‘natural’ development of love and intimacy. Any sense of ‘arrangement’ called into question the veracity of love.