“It's not all hearts and flowers. Romantic love, that feeling of euphoria we expect in the West, is a lower priority among some in places such as India and Taiwan.”
Happen to come across an article in Nat Geo Mag (Feb 06). It talks about the experiences of Photographer Jodi Cobb, who scoured the globe to document how people define love and how it fits into their lives. Her findings were interesting!
Love is divided into three segments - lust, romantic obsession and attachment. Lust: One of the main things that men like about women is their waist to hip ratio, desirable ratio being 6.7. Women are attracted to men with broad shoulders and rugged features. Romantic obsession: It involves many chemicals. It was found that after four years, the couple either separate or stay together in a long term relationship. Attachment: It is a different chemical in brain and causes people to feel very calm and sooth.
In India first comes marriage and then love. Centuries of experience says that romantic obsession dies out with time and hence they prefer arranged marriages. In china, grooms from Taiwan will come and does 10 minute interviews for a bunch of Chinese brides and finally selects one and marries her on the third day. The Taiwanese men prefer Chinese women since they find the Taiwanese women too aggressive and assertive since they have job and all. Japan is in a social crisis. They have the lowest birth rate, highest age of marriage and women increasingly hesitate to marry. Middle aged women dress up as Lolitas and refuse to accept the responsibilities of their age.
In west, people truly believe in love and romance. No body marries a stranger on the third day after seeing for the first time. But still they have more than 50% divorce rate. But again, looking from a different angle, perhaps the divorce rates are more because the women has the freedom to do so and the society still accepts them! Bottom line, it is not a smooth sail after all...
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