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understandable choice at the time. They just didn't accurately estimate
the future changes in their loves and in their needs for love. He found
the qualities that often increase in importance as a relationship
matures are: sharing values and religious beliefs, willingness to
change to accommodate the partner, and tolerance of the other's
faults. Qualities of lessening importance over time are: interesting
personality, attentiveness, and relationship with in-laws. Qualities of
varying importance over time are: sexual attractiveness, skills at
making love, ability to empathize, willingness to express feelings, and
similar intelligence. The problem is to predict what qualities will be
most important in your relationship in the distant future and how you
and your partner will measure up on those traits. This is a very difficult
task. But thinking in terms of these three dimensions may help you
assess where you are now and what your relationship will be like in the
future.
Brehm (1985) believes there are basically only two types of lovers-
-romantic (passionate) and best friend (companionate). Most love
relationships, she thinks, are a mixture of both types. Romantic love is
intense, sexual, and frantic (e.g. strong efforts to win and hold on to
the affection). In contrast, companionate love is calmer, involves more
relaxed love making and is based on respect, trust, and security as
friends. Romantic love is what is measured on Rubin's (1973) Loving
Scale and best friend love is measured on his Liking Scale. Using these
two scales and measures of romanticism, it has been possible to study
the differences between males and females.
Do men and women love differently?
Brehm (1985) has a good summary of the research. On Rubin's
(1973) Liking Scale, females tend to like their partners better than
males do. Moreover, women fall in love more often, report more
intense feelings (feeling euphoric and wanting to scream), are ready to
marry earlier, love more often when it isn't returned, think love is
more rewarding, and idealize the partner more than males do. In spite
of the fact that women have more loves and more intense romantic
experiences (their perceptions and behaviors are more affected by
their affection), males score higher on the Romanticism Scales than
females and they fall in love earlier in a relationship. Almost 25% of
males are "in love" before the fourth date, only 15% of females are. In
fact, 50% of women take over 20 dates to decide they are in love.
There is also some evidence that males hurt more than females during
a break up, but individuals vary greatly.
Both males and females score about the same on the Love Scale
and they experience love at first sight about equally often (54% of
women and 63% of men believe in love at first sight). It would seem
that men and women love each other about the same amount but
perhaps in different ways. Men may be more naive (lacking
experience?) and believe more of the nonsense on the Romanticism
