Espinoza 1

Eduardo Espinoza D.
Professor Neil McGregor
English 401
28 July 2014
To What Extent Are Relationships Wholesome?
What is it to love? Shakespeare wondered before writing Romeo and Juliet, not
knowing the impact it would have on future relationships. Around the world, people love.
They write love songs, they dance for love, and they compose poems and stories about love.
They tell myths and legends about love. They languish for love, they live for love, they kill
for love, and they die for love. But love isn't always a happy experience. In accordance with
the theory of differential socialization, people in their initiation process into social and
cultural life, and from the influence of socializing agents, acquire distinct identities that entail
cognitive, attitudinal, behavioral and moral styles governed by gender. This differentiation
implies that there will be a distinction between boys and girls, who are called to play different
roles in their adult lives. Thus, men and women educated differently in the context of
patriarchal society understand love and passion as similar things. This differentiation is the
trigger for relationships that look perfect imperceptibly reach collapse (Douglas). In view of
this precedent, it may be said that romantic love facilitates gender violence because it
encourages inequality providing a different role to each partner, it is based on self-denial, and
it relies on the idealization of cultural models, glossing over violent behavior in couples.

There is a cultural link between masculinity, violence, aggression and domination,

believing that this behavior represents virility; in contrast, it is believed that submission,

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passivity or dependence lead to violent behavior, precisely due to condition of female genre.
With regard to this process, Block argues that differences in the socialization environments
experienced by the two sexes can be seen as related to gender differences in personality
characteristics. Also, she says that this begins with patriarchal homeschooling and becomes a
vicious circle. As can be seen, the way people behave is governed by socializing agents,
although neither the role assigned to men nor women is completely conclusive role. Gender
violence occurs at this stage that the woman does not have equal rights and the man takes
advantage of this.
In the words of Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex):
Men profit in many more subtle ways from the otherness, the alterity of woman. Here
is a miraculous balm for those afflicted with an inferiority complex, and indeed no one
is more arrogant towards women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is
anxious about his virility.
With this background, we can say that society encourages us to have a predefined idea
of romantic love. The origin of the idealized model may have been developed in order to
prioritize a particular model of monogamous, heterosexual and eternal relationship in each
particular historical moment (Kelly). For girls, romantic love tries about devotion, merger
with another person, anxiety, and engagement. In boys, love implies some gain but does not
compromise aspects in building a future since is more about seduction. In short, violence
explodes due to the wrong image people have of relationships, both individual and collective.
Thus we have violence from men who insult, humiliate and abuse in eagerness to fulfill their
role as dominator, whereas women remain under the pretext that historically must fight for
love and to maintain a perfect relationship.

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Some authors suggest that gender violence comes from self-denial, since this model
might in some way legitimize emotional dependency (arton). It is suggested that, due to the
high extent that love has been idealized, it has come to present disorders related to emotional
dependence, where the objective is to fill a void endured by the partner. In emotional
dependency, the individual is controlled by the need of the other person and an intense fear of
loss and loneliness damages the link. Nowadays, the cultural concept of romantic love is quite
outdated. This gap is not derived from evolution of the love concept, but rather because
enormous differences between the socio-cultural environments in which it appeared: Western
culture, globalization, and modern times. Bauman points out the following in the preface to
his book:
The distinction between yours and mine disappears in self-renouncing love. In this
act the individual gives up all that is his, such that he has nothing that he can say is
mine. But because yours and mine exist in duality or polarity, the self-sacrificing
one who gives up what is mine sees that you give up what is yours. Because there
is no mine there is no yours, such that everything becomes that of the selfrenouncing one of true love. All things are mine I, who have no mine at all Thus,
because yours only exists in opposition with mine, if there is no mine then there is
no yours, and everything becomes mine (II).
Loss of identity and autonomy following falling in love, and attempts to preserve the
romantic relationship, generates a decrease of self-esteem in partners who see the picture of
the relationship as eternal and unalterable (Ferree). That said, it is easy to foresee that
violence begins with self-denial, gradually degenerating self-love, and finally causing troubles
for the couple.

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In addition, romantic love usually relies on the idealization of cultural models,

glossing over violent behavior in couples. Our societies are based in the model of young,
heterosexual couples with children. The laws and the institutions only accept this way of love,
and therefore this is the way we organize our homes and communities. We usually do the
same as our grandmothers and our mothers: We are born, we grow, we study, we fall in love,
we get married, we find a job, we have babies, we have grandsons and granddaughters, and
we die. The way in which we learn to love or to be a man or a woman is through culture:
Songs, tales, films, novels, TV movies and series, magazines, etc. All these narratives offer us
a map of how to build our identity and feelings. These myths give us models that we can
imitate, stories that show us the conflicts we are going to face in our adult lives, and the way
we can overcome them (Goldner).
Our loving culture is based on patriarchal and capitalist ideology. That is why our
society allows marriage to be between only two people. In some countries, you can only get
married with a person from the opposite sex, and the way we stay together is in a
monogamous system. We have a strict model of love (Lytton et al). It is the couple formed by
two adults of the same age that want to build a traditional family. All the people that love in
ways other than the previously mentioned suffer a lot because they are not free to love, and
they have to hide their feelings and their sexual orientation. In some countries you can be
killed if you love a person of your same gender, so there are a lot of people that have to
renounce their love story if they want to be accepted in their community (Walker et al).
Standards, pop clichs always blame the victim, who must accept a definition of
herself/himself as masochistic, terribly weak, or just plain crazy. Generating a different
explanation, which offers a more positive description of her participation in the relationship,
leaves her with a sense of dignity, which may make it possible for her to choose, eventually,
to leave, or to stay on very different terms. Making the hidden bond our point of entry into the

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therapy creates a fresh space for discovery, and frees the process from the stereotypical
discourse that the couple knows so well and has come to expect from outsiders. (Goldner et
al). In conclusion, we need to add that gender violence is not only presented to the woman.
Nowadays, it is very common that, mostly due to feminist causes of sexual freedom, women
access to cheat partner or act in a theatrical way, where masculine insecurities portray through
the heartbreak. Finally, as shown in this section, build a relationship on a popular idea can
cause much damage to the couple, but mostly deeper insecurities instead of overcoming them,
which is one of the purposes of a functional couple.
There are many skeptical people about the psychosocial and cultural analysis that can
be given to love. Usually, they say that romantic love does not facilitate gender violence
because we are free to choose what we want and love becomes wonderful, precisely because
of the idealization that can be given to it.

It has been known for groups advocating

idealization to argue that it is rather exaggerated rhetoric, also they think that gender violence
is linked only to people who previously have had failed relationships, whether in the family or
with previous partners. However, from what is presented above, we can see that the problem
does not come from only such a small group as the family, but is a problem rooted in society.
That is unlikely to change if it does not take into consideration all factors that interfere in the
process. Walker argues that despite all the studies that have been done to demystify love as a
divine entity, people still believe in it, especially in Western societies, and that is what gives
meaning to the subject. To a further analogy: we can know every single ingredient in a piece
of chocolate cake and the damage it can cause; however, we could never stop eating it
because we love it and try to forget its consequences.
In conclusion, it is clear that romantic love contributes to gender violence through
providing different roles to relationship members, encouraging self-denial, and glossing over
violent behavior in couples caused by idealized cultural models. This study has analyzed the

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aspects relating to violence caused by romantic love and has tried to elucidate the weaknesses
of potential solutions. As in most social problems, it is necessary to seek a solution by means
of education, so that people understand that love is not only an illusion, but rather is an
beautiful experience which has to be built daily.

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Works Cited
Bauman, Zygmunt. "Foreword." Liquid love: on the frailty of human bonds. Cambridge, UK:
Polity Press ;, 2003. III. Print.
Beauvoir, Simone de, Constance Borde, and Sheila Chevallier. "Volume Two: Lived
Experience." The second sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 59. Print.
Block, Jeanne H.. "Differential Premises Arising From Differential Socialization Of The
Sexes: Some Conjectures." Child Development 54.6 (1983): 1335. Print.
Douglas, Emily M.. "Familial Violence Socialization In Childhood And Later Life Approval
Of Corporal Punishment: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.." American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry 76.1 (2006): 23-30. Print.
Ferree, M. M.. "Sex Role Socialization." Psychology of Women Quarterly 8.1 (1984): 109110. Print.
Goldner, Virginia, Peggy Penn, Marcia Sheinberg, and Gillian Walker. "Love and Violence:
Gender Paradoxes in Volatile Attachments." Family Process 29.4 (1990): 343-364.
Print.
Kelly, M.. "The Origins of Love and Hate.." Archives of Internal Medicine 113.6 (1964): 917918. Google Books. Web. 21 July 2014.
Lytton, Hugh, and David M. Romney. "Parents' Differential Socialization Of Boys And Girls:
A Meta-analysis.." Psychological Bulletin 109.2 (1991): 267-296. Print.
Walker, Stephen, and Len Barton. Gender, class & education. Barcombe, Lewes, Sussex:
Falmer, 1983. Print.