Helen Fisher, PhD

The Drive to Love: The Neural Mechanism for Mate Selection

Fisher, H (2006)
The New Psychology of Love, 2nd Edition. RJ Sternberg and K Weis (Eds.) New Haven: Yale University Press

“Since the heaven and earth were created, you were made for me and I was made for you and I will not let you go,” declared Chang Po to his beloved Meilan (Yutang, 1954, p. 73). The Chinese still cry over this twelfth-century Chinese fable, “The Jade Goddess,” their version of Romeo and Julie. “My beloved, the delight of my eyes,” exclaimed Inanna of her beloved Dumuzi in a Sumerian poem recorded some four thousand years ago (Wolkenstein, 1991, p. 51). An anonymous Kwakiutl Indian of southern Alaska recited these words in 1896: “Fires run through my body—the pain of loving you” (Hamill, 1996).

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