So, let’s start at the very beginning – the definition of love. The word love has many meanings and is defined very broadly making it a difficult concept to pin down... it can mean the affection or friendship that you have towards another person, it could be the more intense desire or attraction you feel towards another or even refer to sexual passion.
The Ancient Greeks split love into three types of love, Eros, Philia and Agape perhaps allowing us to clarify what love is in more detail:
-Eros is used to refer to a passionate, intense desire for something often expressed as a sexual desire. In Greek mythology Eros was the God of Love and son of Aprodite.
-Phillia is a fondness or appreciation of the other. It's not necessarily just about friendship but can be loyalties towards family, a political cause, role you hold or your community.
-Agape is love that is spiritual and not sexual in nature. It refers to the love God might have for man or man for God and is extended to mean a brotherly love for all of humanity. In Ancient Greece it is referred to as a sense of affection or deeper sense of true love.
It feels important to split love into it's different elements in order to understand what we really mean by 'love'? What is it to be in 'love' and which elements of Eros, Phillia or Agape are really necessary for a lasting relationship?
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