Sociologist John Lee has a list. Here it is.

  • Eros = Love of beauty. Visual, sensual and tactile
  • Mania = Obsessive love. I'm crazy over you! Too much of this makes a crush.
  • Lunis = Playful love. Carefree and non-serious.
  • Storge = Companionate love. Friendship-love.
  • Agape = Altruistic love. Patient and undying, abstract love. Traditional Christian love.
  • Pragma = Practical love. Love that thinks before acting. (Marry for money).

    Most couples have a combination of many types. (not neccisarily the same mixture for both sides)

    These are the extreme poles of love. A six cornered plane, somewhere onto which your love (in theory) falls.
    This is one of the more famous attempts to classify love. It is not the only one, and it will probaly not be the last.


    Jes5199--They are all true.

  • Robert Sternberg (a psychologist) has developed a theory of how intimacy, passion, and commitment may combine to produce liking and several different forms of love:

    1. Passionate Love (romantic love)
    Defined as an emotional, intense desire for sexual union with another person. It entails both intimacy and passion but no commitment.

    2. Companionate Love
    Defined as love that is characterized by a deep enduring affection and caring for another person, accompanied by a strong desire to maintain the relationship. It entails both intimacy and commitment but no passion.

    3. Fatuous Love (a kind of love marked by complacency in the relaitonship)
    Entails both passion and commitment but no intimacy.

    4. Consummate Love
    The highest form of love containing all three elements.

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