The study investigated how modern romantic love emerged in Early Modern Europe. Analyzing 847 English plays written between 1500 and 1800 using natural language processing, the researchers measured two

dimensions of love: passion, reflecting physical attraction and desire, and tenderness, reflecting emotional commitment and long-term investment.

The analyses showed that improvements in living standards consistently preceded increases in tenderness relative to passion. This cultural shift also preceded higher marriage rates and fewer births per marriage, suggesting a transition toward more stable, companionate relationships and greater parental investment.

The findings provide new evidence that economic prosperity may have shaped not only how people lived, but also how they loved, helping explain the emergence of modern romantic culture.

The researchers are now extending this work to contemporary popular culture. Using state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs), they are analyzing the lyrics of the most popular songs and the scripts of the highest-grossing films from the past 50 years to investigate how expressions of romantic love and sexual attraction have evolved over time.

The article, "Reproductive Strategies and Romantic Love in Early Modern Europe", was published in 2024 in Archives of Sexual Behavior.

You can find the article here