Where did the theory of the five love languages come from?
It all started in 1992, when it came out book “The Five Love Languages.” It was written by Baptist pastor Gary Chapman. He formulated his theory by helping to solve family problems with which parishioners of his church approached him. According to Chapman, married people fight because one partner expresses their love in ways that the other does not understand. It’s like they speak different languages.
Over time, the concept of the pastor expanded into a multiverse. Separate editions of the book have appeared for menFor children and teenagers, for lonely peopleeven for military. Eat podcasts featuring Gary Chapman, available on mobile application.
However, the basic premise remains the same: there are five love languages, the same for everyone. This is time, touch, gifts, help and words of encouragement. One of them becomes the main one, the other one becomes additional. You cannot have more than two languages, and ideally you and your partner should have at least one of them the same. To learn your language, you need to take the test at the end of the book.
For true believers in Chapman’s theory, love languages are the key to communication in a couple. Let’s say one of the partners feels loved when they hug him (touching), and someone considers cleaning the apartment (help) a sign of love. Each of them may feel like they are doing everything possible for the sake of the relationship, while the other ignores it. Chapman’s concept allows partners to talk about what they are missing without mutual accusations.
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What are the problems with the theory?
Chapman’s critics point to his conservative ideas about gender roles, which are especially noticeable in the early editions of the book, and the lack of scientific support for his theories. Moreover, the concept of the five love languages is too rigid to be practical. If someone decides that their primary language is gifts, they may subconsciously underestimate the importance of time spent together, physical contact, and so on. This narrows the understanding of what love is, reducing the richness and variety of emotional connection.
Scientific research on the five love languages is mixed
Chapman’s theory is based on three fundamental principles:
- There are only five love languages.
- Every person has exactly one primary love language.
- When partners’ love languages match, they are happier.
Specialists from Canada verified these principles with modern scientific research that focuses on relationships.
No empirical evidence could be found.
The review authors found few consistent findings across scientific articles about how people experience love. However, when participants in various studies were asked what made them feel loved, the reasons they gave were not necessarily related to ideas about words of encouragement or help.
For example, in one case respondents listed actions that corresponded to love-related categories such as sacrifice, intimacy, support, comfort, and communication. Participants in another study notedthat it is important for them that their partner tries to find a common language with their friends and talks about how best to deal with quarrels.
According to the authors of scientific works, attempts to fit love into pre-designated categories are doomed to failure. Understanding how people express their feelings requires a bottom-up approach. This means that a good researcher allows people to determine for themselves what love languages look like, rather than imposing their own idea on them.
When researchers work with Chapman’s categories, they typically find that people do not want to be limited to one primary love language. When asked to rate the importance of each on a scale of 1 to 5, they give each a 4 and a 5. If you design a survey so that only one option can be selected, the same person will end up with a different result depending on how the test is administered.
Finally, researchers consistently find that there is no connection between partners’ love language matches and higher levels of relationship satisfaction. It just doesn’t seem to matter.
But what matters is how willing partners are to learn each other’s love languages. Two different research have shown that when we believe our partner speaks our love language well, relationship satisfaction increases. And although the methodology of these works has also been criticized, they seem to lead to a simple conclusion: if you and your partner have thought about how to express affection for each other, and do it regularly, you are likely to be quite happy. When used correctly, Chapman’s Five Love Languages can help with this.
The views of the creator of the theory are at least controversial
Chapman never claimed that love languages had a scientific basis. These are just subjective observations from his experiences counseling couples as a Baptist pastor in the 1980s and 1990s. This is a special political and cultural context that determines the history of the theory’s development.
In the 1992 edition, Chapman is explicit about the demographic characteristics of the couples he worked with. They are white, heterosexual, conservative Christians. The book is based on the assumption that the wife stays at home and takes care of the children and housework, while the husband works and provides for her. The author does not take into account any other structure of relationships.
Authors of the revealing podcast If Books Could Kill turned Note that in most of the quarrels that Chapman used as examples, wives demanded that their husbands take on household responsibilities. A pastor explained to one such husband that while his best way to express love was sex (touching), his wife’s best way to express love was when he vacuumed (helping). Therefore, according to Chapman, if a husband helps with cleaning at least sometimes, a wife will feel loved in the same way that a husband feels loved during sex. The thought that a wife might be interested in sex, but could not concentrate on it due to endless household chores, did not occur to the pastor.
The saddest example from the book is the story of Anne, who turned to Chapman for advice on how to cope with her husband’s cruelty. She asked the pastor: “Can you love someone you hate?” In response, he quoted a passage from the Bible about loving one’s enemies and replied that her husband’s love language was most likely touch. To save the marriage, Chapman advised Anne to stop complaining about her husband and start having sex with him at least twice a week. But Anne says that it is difficult for her to do this due to detachment and that in moments of intimacy she feels more used than loved. Chapman reassures her that many women feel the same way and says her Christian faith will help get her through it. Ann follows the pastor’s advice and the marriage is saved.
Chapman later reconsidered this situation. In an interview with The Washington Post he saidthat physical violence is much more obvious and noticeable now than when he wrote the book. In the new edition, Chapman advises Anne to show her husband more affection on a physical level, such as ruffling his hair or kissing him on the cheek, and when the relationship has healed a little, consider initiating sex.
The pastor’s updated advice is not as overtly misogynistic as the advice in the first edition of the book. However, they both follow the same logic: if a wife is emotionally abused by her husband, she has a responsibility to nurse him and comfort him until he treats her better. But in real life, the only one who can control the behavior of an abuser is the abuser himself.
Some of this ideology has permeated the love languages model. Meanwhile, some research tie up high degree of relationship satisfaction with respect for each other’s independence and personal goals outside the couple. These principles do not appear in Chapman’s theory.
Love languages have an alternative
Even though the theory of the five love languages is most likely flawed, it resonates with many people. This is partly because people love personality tests, and Chapman offers one of them. But he also got the point and was able to express it with a simple, intuitive metaphor: partners can experience and express love in different ways. This is a valuable idea.
Chapman’s book has benefited many couples, not because they learned their love language, but because they were able to use it to identify unmet needs in the relationship and establish communication to improve the situation.
However, if you strictly adhere to Chapman’s model, it is unlikely to be useful in the long term – largely because human relationships work differently. We experience and show love in many ways, not just one. It is likely that in different situations we require different signs of attention. For example, when we don’t get a promotion, we may need our partner to listen to us and offer words of encouragement. At an anniversary dinner, on the other hand, we will want to be touched. And if we have a particularly busy day at work, all we need from our partner is for him to take over the household chores.
That is why the authors of modern studies advise replace the metaphor of love languages with the metaphor of a love diet and think of relationships as a balanced diet. According to this idea, choosing one primary love language is like going on a strict diet where you eat nothing but fruit, for example, even though your body needs a variety of sources of fat, protein and carbohydrates.
In a healthy relationship, there should be room for words of encouragement, gifts, touch, help, and time spent together. And also for any other manifestations of affection that are not included in Chapman’s model. If some of the needs of the partners in the relationship are not met, this needs to be discussed and a new “menu” drawn up.
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