Pip Rasmussen

So fascinating that it is so different from how ancient Greek thought about romantic love.

where it was more kind of like mythical and I guess like tragic and big and devastating.

And here it's a bit more like logical, right?

It's like how to get the girl.

It's more about like marriage and about compliance, I think, which is so fascinating.

All right, well, let's head to China.

You did a lot of research around China and the early kind of poetry and cultural references of romantic love.

And I was like, oh, that is so beautiful, isn't it?

That is so cool.

And we will say like while we were investigating this, which is an important thing to note that like this was kind of a small part of society, right?

Like love, which we're going to unpack and get into soon, but love was romantic love in the way that we kind of think about it today was something that wasn't the norm.

And yes, there are all these kind of references and poetry and writings and

and, you know, symbolism, but that was the majority of love.

It wasn't really thought of in that sense.

Like marriage, the union between two people and sex wasn't actually linked to the romantic love that we know today.

Let's quickly head over to India because there were also –

A lot of historical references to romantic love that we might think about today.

So Indian traditions embraced a spiritual dimension to love, right?

There's karma, which is sexual pleasure, and tringara, which is passionate emotional intimacy.

They weren't viewed as shameful, but rather as something that was like joyous and sacred aspects of human existence that served as a pathway to higher spiritual consciousness.