I just passed my four-year wedding anniversary. It was on a Thursday. I made coffee in the morning, my husband poured a to-go cup, gave me quick kiss and left for work. No angels sang, no light from heaven came down, no party streamers dropped from the ceiling. It was just another day. It was just another day of being in love.
I sat with my coffee and journal in the quiet midmorning lull and thought about the expectations that our culture places on love. Boy, we just love to love love. Or rather, we love to love Eros love, Ludus love, Philautia love.
The Greeks believed there were six types of love: Eros, Philia, Ludus, Agape, Pragma, and Philautia. Unfortunately, the English language has diminished these distinct and separate entities into a single, terribly vague concept named only as “love”.
I would argue that in the act of combining these six terms into a single word we have sacrificed the fullness of some loves for the sake of other, easier loves.
Naturally, the most prominent loves in our culture are the instant ones. Like fast food, movies on demand, dry shampoo, powdered coffee and a million other, more expedient short cuts, America has found the quickest versions of love and claimed them as the best.
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Eros, or sexual passion, is far and away our culture’s most prized love variety and easily makes up over 50% of the instances where someone uses the word “love”. Our movies, our television shows, our books, our music... they all prize this type of “madly falling in love”. We champion the phrase, “love at first sight”; we claim that we have fallen out of love because there is no longer a “spark” or because our sex life has become stale; we complain when our marriages end in divorces because we just “aren’t in love” anymore. But dear heart, even if your marriage begins with Eros, is enriched by it, it cannot consist solely of this type of love.
Eros frequently goes hand-in-hand with its brother, Ludus. Ludus, or playful love, is what often precedes Eros; flirting, banter, a wink. Ludus, although less passionate, is just as easy, likeable and non-committal as Eros. Just go to any high school, college, or popular bar and you will see Ludus carried out with sportsman like expertise. Yet even in long standing marriages there should be a healthy desire for Ludus; heck I delight in teasing my husband and I still get butterflies when he flirts with me. But dear heart, even if your marriage has Ludus, it cannot consist solely of this type of love.
Rounding out our trio of instant love is Philautia, or love of self. I once read that one of the largest reasons for divorce in the United States is because we treat marriage as consumerists. We ask ourselves, “What am I getting out of this relationship?” instead of saying, “What can I give to this relationship?” Don’t get me wrong, there are a million good, important ways invest in Philautia but your marriage cannot consist solely of this type of love.
A much less popular form of love, though I would argue more critical, is Pragma, or longstanding love. Pragma represents understanding that can only be cultivated through years of relationship, years of compromise. If Pragma had a catchphrase it would probably be the one my husband wrote in a card to me on our anniversary: “Love is not about the falling but about the staying”. Pragma is patience, is sacrifice, is about choosing to stay in love even when the Eros + Ludus are gone; even when all you want is a little Philautia. Pragma is essential to any marriage, is hard to come by and takes time. But dear heart, your marriage will be lackluster if it is made only of compromise and patience, it cannot consist solely of this type of love.
Another critical aspect of love, though often neglected regarding romance, is Philia, or deep friendship. In the military there is this phrase, “I’ve got your six”. It means that although there may be enemies on all sides, someone has your back. This is Philia. And I can testify that the best marriages are built on comradely, on the belief that we are in this together, come what may. Yet similar to Pragma, a marriage of solely Philia will lack passion and life, it simply cannot consist solely of this type of love.
The last type of love is undeniably the greatest: Agape, or selfless love for all. Agape is distinct from the other five types of love in that it is typically used to describe God’s perfect love for us. Agape is unlimited empathy and compassion; it extends to all people regardless of action or distance. This type of love is the very root of Christianity- this is Jesus Christ. I would argue that apart from the Gospel there could be no Agape. I would also argue that apart from Agape, your marriage will be incomplete, lacking. My dad often said, “when you receive perfect agape vertically, you can give better agape horizontally”. In short, when your receive God’s perfectly selfless love you are able to pour out selfless love.
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Dear heart, marriage is a house built of Pragma + Philia, laid on the foundation of Agape, and filled with the beauty, laughter and passion of Eros, Ludus, and Philautia.
Separate, each of these loves is incomplete. If you pick and choose your loves, as our culture is wont to do, you will find yourself only in partial love with your spouse. Take the time today and list out the six types of love: which do you find your marriage succeeding in, which have been neglected? It is time that we learned to find balance in our love, to find wholeness in our marriages.