The Five Love Languages [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

The main point of the book is that "real" love is a choice, and when exercising that choice, it needs to be done wisely, by loving someone in the manner ("love language") that communicates love best to that person. And then the feelings will follow, Chapman says, since "feelings follow choice." In contrast, he says, "falling in love" is spontaneous and often irrational. So the only real romantic love proceeds from choices grounded in duty.

I call this book unromantic, and do not mean that completely as criticism. Relationships have significant components of work and sacrifice that are not always romantic.

But perhaps Chapman has gone too far.

He has de-emphasized the romantic aspects of love so much that he has in effect denied what romantic literature for centuries has taught us, and in fact, what the only Biblical book about romantic love teaches us, too: that falling in love is not an irrational response, but a choice and response based on the qualities perceived in the beloved; that it need not be temporary, but can last, in various forms, through a lifetime; and that it is a reflection of the nature of God and also his relationship to us.

The Biblical book to which I refer, of course, is the Song of Solomon. The lovers fall in love because of the qualities they perceive in each other, and the completeness they feel together. That is why the Song is filled with so much mutual praise. It is also filled with feelings of wonder and delight. When the lovers of the Song display such delight on their wedding night, the Creator Himself endorses their feelings, encouraging them to celebrate this love and enjoy it. What Chapman disdains, the Creator embraces.

Chapman says that falling in love is illusory, unreal because it is spontaneous, not arising from duty. The Song of Solomon shows quite the opposite: that romantic love is a wonderful reality; that spontaneity is part of its beauty; and that devotion arises from love, rather than love from duty. Love gives birth to acts of love like "grace" gives birth to "works" from love. And neither the acts nor works are diminished because they arise spontaneously and joyfully, with all the feelings lovers have always described.

Chapman also says that the beginning of romantic love is mostly self-centered, evidenced in part by no concern for the personal growth of the other. But nothing could be further from the truth. "In one high bound," C.S. Lewis writes, "it has overleaped the massive wall of our selfhood. It has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality, and planted the interests of another in the center of our being."

Imagine two people with no possibility of a natural attraction between themselves reading Chapman's book. Are they to believe that by following his instructions they can create romantic love for each other --not the love God asks us to show towards all, but the romantic love shared only by two? Will romantic love follow their romantic choices?

I like some of Chapman's book, but I like the Song of Solomon better. In the final analysis, it is simply more realistic. It doesn't ask me to believe that any two people, unsuitable or not, have the power to create romantic love for each other, if they so choose. On the contrary, the Song encourages us to patiently wait for its arrival, and the special person with whom we will best experience it. And it suggests that behind my joyful choice of a partner is the Songwriter's choice of a gift; that love finds me as much as I find it.

For the distinction between Christian love for all and romantic love shared by two, The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis is helpful. For the romantic aspects of love, Solomon's Song of Love by Glickman is quite refreshing.