Love and Marriage in the Ancient World

Love and marriage, according to Frank Sinatra, ‘go together like a horse and carriage’.

Actually, they’ve both been around much longer than domestic horses or carriages. Looking at history and ethnography, we can see that marriage is a very ancient institution that goes back to our early human ancestors, while love has a biological basis.

We’ll explore some of the variations on the theme that different societies have developed and perhaps try to draw some conclusions about human behaviour.