The Sociology of Love: Understanding Human Connection and Interaction

Sociology is a broad study of a relationship, and it’s involved in all aspects from crime, religion, love, race etc. this is to understand how human action and awareness becomes shaped by the environment and surrounding culture of the social stability and quick change of the society. Sociologist’s interpretation of love is reflected in different understanding within the community, because love can only get studied through talking with people, investigating different cultural representations and understanding the principle of love.

The study of sociology can be put in three perspectives, functionalism, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, these three perspectives identify the categories in which sociology is studied. The functionalist perspective emphasises on the different parts of society that connects people to one another, which expresses that when one part of society changes other aspects of it changes too, because of the connection and this functionalist perspective always see stability in everything and always believe everything will work out.

Conflict perspective focuses on the inequalities that are in the societies around the world and it’s mostly interested in the main status of the social position of characteristics in terms of race, gender, religion, ability or disability or socio-economic status. Moreover, it’s about the structure of wealth and power and how people of this status maintain social, economic and political power.

Interactionist perspective is about understanding how people interact with each other within society and families, holding bonds through family meals and holidays. It symbolises and analyses patterns of communication and interpretation between two individuals and according to the theory a person’s verbal and nonverbal response depends on how the person speaking will react to the conversation.

Love as we all know it to be is ‘showing affection for one another’, whether it is your family, friends or lover. But love goes much deeper than just showing affection, it’s about willing to sacrifice everything, endure anything and do anything for the one or people you love. It brings us together and be in unity with our selves. Although people may think love is sometimes hard due to the things that could happen along the line, whether it being disappointment or betrayer from the person you cherish, when the love is true you will forgive and move on, but most people are not able to endure such pain and it can lead to heartbreak.

According to the Gabb and Fink theory of the sociology of love (2011-2013), which comes in many forms such as long term relationships, parenthood, sexual intimacy etc. This shows the types of relationship that can conspire between individuals as life goes on; like in married couples, they have to endure a lot of things between each other staying in a long-term relationship knowing each other strength and weaknesses and being able to help each other out through whatever circumstance they may find themselves. But sometimes couples go through a lot of rough paths and could lead to divorce and major heartbreak.

Gabb and Fink (2015) recognise that ‘relationships compromise pragmatics and emotions, choices and lack of choice, contentment and disenchantment and all the spectrum of feelings and experiences in-between.’ This statement by Gabb and Fink (2015) implies that our everyday experiences and what we do determines the success of a long term relationship with the people around us.

Moreover love and relation is a sociology that has been passed on from traditions and generations and with the change in society, sociology changes in time, like for example in the past women are subjected to show affection and be a homemaker to the husband, while the husband earns the money to take care of the family, but now with the structure of modern equality between men and women, the sole breadwinner does not only imply to men, but women have acquired this role as well.

According to the Kutsch (2016) theory, he identifies that men acting as the breadwinners do face negative health effects. In other words with the way the world is changing women are acquiring higher classes of work and no longer need to depend on a man to be financially stable and with this change, women are able to terminate relationships and love connections eg. (divorce) if they are no longer working.

Romantic love and attraction of sexual intimacy between two individuals can be very overwhelming at first and can be very obsessive as well, but as time goes on in most occasions, relationship can be broken when feelings change and Gabb and Fink (2015) showed that a relationship can only be successful if the individuals come together because of their intimate couple knowledge, not materialistic things or external pressure. Studies have shown that women acquire a simple ‘Thank You’ or compliments from their partner to make them feel appreciated.

In conclusion, the sociology of love is a very wide aspect that covers a lot of areas and cannot be put in just one category and this love can mean sexual love, intimate love, friendship love, love of places, belongings etc. it just cannot be classified, but to be experienced lived at every point in life. And the Gabb and Fink theory has shown us that the study of love is very broad and without research and communication with people in any kind of relationship it won’t be understood properly.