Romantic love is not a key element for romance

The argument

Many relationships undoubtedly begin with romantic gestures. The argument's first move is to deny that this tells us anything about love: gestures don't equate to love, and once the romance dies down and the members of the relationship have settled into a groove, the romance usually fades away. If what disappears is the gestures while the relationship continues, then the gestures were not what the relationship was made of. The distinction is then given two names. Companionate love is tied with the earlier stages of a relationship and slightly more so in long-term relationships; between partners it shows the presence of a calm, friendship-like bond successful in maintaining satisfaction beyond the first stages of a relationship. Passionate love, more often referred to as romantic love, only shows better satisfaction between couples during the early stages. The two therefore have different time signatures, and it is the calmer one that survives, which means satisfaction across the length of a relationship is not being produced by romance. Brain scans of spouses with a long-term relationship and a short-term one are offered as physical evidence of the same divide. They indicated that fear and anxiety was low between long-term spouses as they did not fear separation: the older spouses were comfortable in each other's company, while feelings of anxiety and fear were active in the newly smitten couple. On this reading the intensity associated with romantic love is not a heightened form of attachment at all but the signature of insecurity, and it subsides as security arrives. The conclusion follows from both strands. Romantic love is not real because many long-term relationships last without romance, as couples don't need romantic love in maintaining satisfaction and attraction towards each other.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Romantic love lasts past the earlier stages of a relationship. According to a study, romantic partners of 21 years show the same brain activity as partners who had just fallen in love. This study reveals that romance lasts in relationships and remains effective through the love of a long-term relationship.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Gestures fading is not the same as love fading, and the premise slides between them. A decline in the frequency of a behaviour tells us about the behaviour rather than about the state it was expressing. [Rejecting P2] The finding cited is about which kind of attachment best predicts satisfaction at different stages, which presupposes that passionate love is real and measurable. A study distinguishing two forms of love cannot support the conclusion that one of them does not exist. [Rejecting P3] Low anxiety in long-married couples is what secure attachment looks like, not evidence of absence. The premise treats the anxiety and fear of separation characteristic of a new relationship as constitutive of romantic love, which builds the conclusion into the definition. [Rejecting C] The counter-argument on record cites imaging work on couples married around two decades that found activity in the same reward regions seen in the newly in love — a direct contradiction of the premise. The conclusion is also far stronger than anything offered: at most the evidence would show that romantic love changes in character over time, which is not that it is unreal.