Love has been the source of ceaseless fascination since antiquity. Artists have tried to capture its beauty and darkness in books, paintings, and songs. Behavioral scientists have explored love as a social ritual, psychologists have studied its pathological manifestations, and evolutionary biologists have sought to define it as a drive linked to the very survival of our species.
- By DENNIS NEALON
What are some of the most tantalizing insights that science has gleaned about a behavior that so intensely captivates our collective imagination but continues to defy understanding?
For starters, both romantic and nonromantic love appear to be essential to our overall well-being and, indeed, survival, according to Richard S. Schwartz, HMS associate professor of psychiatry, part-time, at McLean Hospital, and Jacqueline Olds, HMS associate professor of psychiatry, part-time, at Massachusetts General Hospital. Schwartz and Olds, who have been married to each other for nearly five decades, .
