Different Meaning Of Love From Different Perspectives

Types Of Love

Do you that we have different names given to love? How well do you know these other names ascribed to love?

Now, lets look at what love is. The English dialect gives us just one word and meaning for love and can be used virtually for almost everything. For example, we can say,

 ‘ I love my wife’

‘ I love milk candies’

‘I love my sister’.

All these examples given above have the same word, ‘LOVE’ and it is only by the full context of the statement that we can verify the difference between them all.

Love has various meanings and is used for certain purposes. Like the Greeks, on the other hand, have four different words that is been used to describe what love is and that is what we shall be looking at. Each of these Greek words gives a different meaning and though that will help one to understand fully what is been spoken of by someone.

Below are the Four Greek words that helps define what love is in diverse meaning. I believe these will help you know when to use it and how to use it and understand what is meant when a speaker uses it in their statements.

1              Eros

2              Storge

3              Philia

4              Agape

EROS LOVE

This happens to be the first type of love we all are acquainted with. ‘Erotic’ the English word is gotten from this word EROS. This is the type of love that most merchandisers tend to use on the public persuading them purchase their products or good. They make themselves attractive in other to convince people around. They use this type of love to get more buyers to their products.

What am I saying here? Eros love is the one that tends to express romantic physical and sexual attractions and no wonder it got its name from the Greek Mythological god of sexual wants and arousal, physical attraction and love.

STORGE LOVE

This type of love is what we see and express among members of the family. This is the love between the mother, the father, the brothers and the sisters. Storge Love is very strong as it deals with blood and as we all know the saying that goes, “Blood is thicker than Water”. Here we see that even when a member of the family goes astray, the love from the other members to that person is still intact. This kind of love demands commitment as the mother is ready to do anything to make sure her home, her children are safe and sound.

Storge love is also known as Familial Love.

 PHILIA

This type of love is also known as ‘brotherly love’ or ‘love of fellow man’. This love does pertain to both friends and relatives. It talks about the non-sexual affection shared among friends. This type of love pushes you into giving a helping hand to someone out there in the neighborhood who needs a help but not in an erotic way. This type of love is good as it seeks to show concern but this type of love could also be selfish and having a self-centered goal. Why? Philia love only seeks to love those whom we are in good terms with but not those who are our enemies. Here, people only show love to friends whom they like and out of the benefit they may derive from such a person.

AGAPE LOVE

The fourth type of love forms the apex of all other types of love. This love is unconditional, sacrificial and not self-centered. It is better defined as ‘Self-Sacrificing love’.  This love is shown to people, no matter their shortcomings and imperfect character. This love is different from Philia love, in the sense that it loves everyone; both friends and foes; It is a love that does not seek for reward or gain; it is selfless and not selfish love.

Agape love demands self denial to meet up with the demands of other people. A good example of people who showed a type of Agape love is our Lord Jesus Christ, Mother Theresa, Cardinal Leger and a whole lot of others. This type of love is not quiet easy to live with as a human, It is special and divine. To attain to this level of love, you need to place the priority of other people first at heart and love people as you love yourself. That is the Golden Rule- Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.

So you now see what love means in different perspectives. Hope you enjoyed reading it. Kindly drop your thoughts about this article and don’t forget that sharing is caring.