Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Buy the book
Jared Diamond (1997) Why Is Sex Fun? Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.
It is now demonstrated that maternal care in infancy and early childhood is essential for mental health. This is a discovery of which the importance may be compared to that of the role of vitamins in physical health, and is of far-reaching significance for the prevention of mental ill-health.
J Bowlby (1953) Child Care And The Growth Of Love. Pelican Books, London.
Love brings us a good measure of pain. Artists struggling to
decide whether this commingling of pleasure and discomfort is
absolutely inescapable or merely comTmonplace might be surprised to
learn that some scientists ask the same question. To what extent
must an animal preparing to mate also prepare for the possibility of
pain? For many species, suchpain is not just psychological, but
can be quite physical as well. Pain and sex are big, important
topics and their confluence during mating is clearly more important
than a happenstance or the perverse confabulation ofartists. …..discussion of [these] issues should help any future scientists who might tackle why love hurts so good.
S M Breedlove (2003) Love and pain meet in the brain. Book review of 'Central states relating sex and pain' (R J Bodnar, K Commons, D W Pfaff). Nature Neuroscience vol 6 p 785
It is a basic feature of human experience to feel soothed in the presence of others and to feel distressed when left behind. Many languages reflect this experience in the assignment of physical pain words (“hurt feelings”) to describe experiences of social separation…..We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of social exclusion to determine whether the regions activated by social pain are similar to those found in studies of physical pain…..A pattern of activation very similar to those found in studies of physical pain emerged during social exclusion, providing evidence that the experience and regulation of social and physical pain share a common neuroanatomical basis.
N I Eisenberger, M D Lieberman, K D Williams (2003) Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science vol 302, pp 290-292.
Mrs Arbuthnot: Men don’t understand what mothers are. I am no different from other women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And yet, to bear you, I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless, wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked, I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night and day all that long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no care too lowly, for the thing we women love………..And you needed love, for you were weakly and only love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep anyone alive
Oscar Wilde A Woman Of No Importance ( edition of 1995) Oxford Drama Library. Clarendon Press Oxford
Love etc. The proposition is simple. The world divides into two categories: those who believe that the purpose, the function, the bass pedal and principal melody of life is love, and that everything else – everything else – is merely an etc.; and those, those unhappy many, who believe primarily in the etc of life, for whom love, however agreeable, is but a passing flurry of youth, the pattering prelude to nappy-duty, but not something as solid, steadfast and reliable as, say, home decoration. This is the only division between people that counts.
Julian Barnes (1991) Talking It Over. Jonathan Cape, London.
Love is not blind; that is the last thing it is. Love is bound; and the more bound the less it is blind.
A man’s friend likes him but leaves him as he is: his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else.
G K Chesterton (1958) The Flag Of The World In: Essays and poems ed. W Sheed. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.
Of course, the fervid passion of the first few weeks cannot last eternally; but to that love there sometimes succeeds another and a better love. When that has come about, husband and wife are twin souls who have everything in common. Not a secret is there between them, and if children should result of the union, even the most difficult moments of life will have a sweetness of their own.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1931) Letters From The Underground. Trans. By C J Hogarth J M Dent, London
Oh, my lovely love, thought Madeline, my own sweet husband whom I love with all my heart. How beautiful, how beautiful he looks in the dim lamplight, his dark brows, his grey eyes, his good jaw slightly bearded at the end of the day, his delicate light fingers that have brought me so much pleasure lying curled up and easy on the arm of his chair as if begging me to put my hand in them. And how good he is. No, it doesn’t matter how good he is; how good he tries to be, human good, not Sunday-school good. That’s what matters. My sweet, dear husband. My darling, show-offy, gentle husband. My love.
Stanley Kauffmann (1953) The Philanderer. Secker and Warburg, London