ABSTRACT
This chapter describes sociobiological theories and sexual strategies approaches to mate selection and explains patterns of breakups in relationships and briefly outlines the research on dating violence. It discusses how love can be defined and the complexities of measuring such a concept and outlines the characteristics of Lee's typology of love. It describes other theories of love, including Sternberg's triangle theory, Ira Reiss's wheel of love, and Murstein's sequential state theory. It focuses on how several key sociological theories might explain love and discusses how society has 'feminized' love and how men and women have been socialized to view love differently.
