There are times when people need to understand something. A simple touch on someone’s hand can make any pulse react. That it may just be the thrill of boy meets girl and opposites attract. Sometimes it can be physical, other times it can just be logical, but one needs to try to ignore that it can mean more than just that. A question that we, and the lovely Tina Turner, always asks ourselves about that moment, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it?” Coincidentally, Anjula Razdan also wrote an article called, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” where she has a discussion between arranged marriages and romantic marriages, and where love plays its role in it.

So here is the million-dollar question, what is love and is that necessary to have a healthy marriage or relationship? Based on Anjula’s discussion and like many other things, I think it depends on the situation of the person or the couple.

Humans are intelligent, so therefore they are able to think and make conscious decisions. Since people are able to process thought, they are most likely to add flavor to their thinking. In other words, people like to tie their thoughts with feelings and emotions. It is within human nature to be attracted to the opposite sex, so to add some flavor to it, people have this thought or idea called “love”.

            In terms of having arranged marriages, having goals is the main drive, and feelings and emotions are put aside. Typically these marriages are decided between families, so really the couple to be does not have a choice. Within the families, when deciding to arrange a marriage, they would share common ideas or goals. Lets take an obvious example; two families want to produce a really tall male. Family A has a tall girl and Family B had a tall boy, so both families fork up their tall kids to get married to spit out more tall kids.

In any case, love is typically irrelevant in arranged marriages, if love means liking a person. As a matter of fact, the couple doesn’t even need to know each other or even like each other in that matter; all they need to fulfill is what needs to be done to satisfy what the whole family wants. This toys with the idea of the greater good of the whole rather than the individual, love in this case is within the family and away from the couple.

            On the other hand, choice or free will is essential to liking or “loving” someone. It wouldn’t make sense to get married if you hated the person, right? A romantic marriage is what most people want because it makes them feel like they have someone to lean on, or to just feel something; it goes hand-in-hand with emotions and feelings. Whatever they do, whatever they feel, typically has something to do with their other half. If people like each other and form a connection, then love may be lingering around them.

            In contrary, Anjula mentions how about half of these romantic marriages fall down the drain, so does love play a roll there or was love never present? In my opinion, I don’t think we will know the answer, even the vice versa, of love playing a roll in successful marriages.

Having split parents, I have obviously asked something about what happened between them. I find it funny that their answers have stayed fairly consistent, that it was good at first then bad, maybe because they had a kid or my dad’s job. Whatever the reason, something happened in these romantic marriages.

Depending of the individual’s situation or the couples’ situation, things happen and they have consequences. Whether these things are good or bad, wanted or not wanted, people move on, and its possible, in a sense, that love can change its shape. Like when couples have kids, situations change drastically. Rather than caring for one person, they now need to care for another; hence the flavor of love can begin to taste different.

To recapitulate, what does love got to do with anything? Two people share common things or ideas, make each other laugh and feel better in each other’s presence, so does love got something to do with that? Two people get married only to make their family happy despite of how much the couple dislike or not know each other, does love got to do with that also? Love is an idea that is hard to understand. It makes people feel different, plays with their emotions, and makes people do certain things. Some people claim they found it, while others are still seeking it. Yes this is one of those rather mushy gushy topics, but just think, what’s love but a sweet old fashioned notion, what does love got to do with it?