Did men and women in the ancient ages love their spouses?

[Thiscantgoonlikethis]

I’m just struck by the central theme of the Odyssey being a man trying to make it back to his wife. Is this a modern emphasis?
I know Homer did feature Odysseus and Penelope as truly in love with eachother.
But for the every day man, or wolsn who was probably voiceless, did they feel love for eachother? As we understand it.

People haven’t changed that much to not feel love in the tiny timespans of 2500 years. Of course they felt the same emotions as we do.

Not sure if this post is real or not anyway. Yes, yes the did have emotions and feelings even in days gone by just like usbin 2026.

Yes of course. The same as now.

Did everyone? No. But that's also the same as now.

Love isn't a modern invention.

God's and ancient types aside, I think much shorter lifespans might have helped feelings endure the test of time!

King Odysseus of Ithaca slowly goes back because he knows if he doesn’t, he will be declared dead and competitors will declare his wife a widow and force marriage on her so they can take over his kingdom. They will then likely murder his children and his wife, meaning his bloodline would be erased, take a new young wife and supplant their family in the place of his as rulers of his kingdom.

The Odyssey is an epic that is a hero’s tale so the theme is more answering the PanHellenic call to sack Troy, getting shipwrecked, then having to limp home a beggar to arrive just in time to reclaim his kingdom.

However, yes the ancients felt love.
Read some of the love poems by Homer and other ancients.

Yes they fell in love as we do but id guess the majority of marriages were for political or practical reasons

Of course, absolutely. Cultural and societal norms were different, but feelings were the same. Why wouldn’t they have been?

People haven't changed. Circumstances, expectations and rules might have, but people are the same.

I am wondering if what you mean is, did people marry for love rather than did they feel it? To which I think the answer is it depended on class. Lower class could marry for love but upper class had to marry for security and to keep the lifestyle they are accustomed to.

Love isn't a modern invention, but marriage as anything other than a financial arrangement probably is.

Ancient humans rarely married for romantic reasons. Marriages in early and ancient civilisations were practical arrangements for survival, property, and children rather than individual choice.

I don't think that's true. Poor AF people have married poor AF people since marriage was invented.

There was no financial incentive. They were just poor together and had DC that were also poor.

I agree. People paired up within their own social and working class.

I believe that love was invented in the 1960s by someone at a music festival who'd smoked too much weed.

The notion of attraction/love has been around since life started.
Look at other species, some mate for life - is that not a marriage?! - some have many mates. Attraction plays a part in it.
Marriage for love I guess depended on family status. For some no choice it was about expanding land, family ties, heirs ect. Hopefully it was a smart match.
For others they were free to make a choice with family concent or an accidental pregnancy - assuming attraction/love is present in both cases.

In Greek society in the upper classes some men thought true love could only exist between men because the sex didn’t involve procreation, it was purely for enjoyment. Whereas sex between men and women in arranged marriages was one step removed from this as it had societal expectations. Some men also idealised sex between one older man and a much younger boy, hence lots of Greek statues having prepubescent genitalia
just as an aside
but yes Ancient Greeks could feel love in all its forms. I do think how they expresses it publicly was very different though, depending on context, eg I don’t think a man and wife would kiss on the street

Yes of course many couples really did love each other!
I think Love evolved to bind couples together so their children had the best chance of survival and getting to adulthood.

If no man ever stuck around to get food for the mothers nursing babies and children the Human Race would never had got going!

So Love is an absolute necessity for Humans as a species.

Agree. Of course they did. The fact that ‘love’ - epic or otherwise - is featured in literary texts of the last several millennia shows that people felt this way about each other.

Whether the cultural and social restrictions and expectations of past eras allowed people to marry for love is another issue - but probably still no different to recent times when political, social and economic factors influenced alliances and - in particular - women’s autonomy in choosing marital partners is obviously separate from the capacity to ‘love’.

I didn't mean (only) as a way of improving your lot, of social advancement up the economic ladder, but as transfer of, protection of assets, land and so on. This much is well-documented.

Ancient Greek as a language also has different definitions and words for love eg brotherly/familial love, friendship, sexual.
I think many people in their and all ancient societies had no choice over who they had to have sex with eg slaves/arranged marriages, so I’m not sure everyone equated love with sex as we define it nowadays (sexual/passionate and between two consentual partners).
ao in terms of the odessy he was getting home to stop the dishonour of loosing his wife, kingdom and kids, and could have loved her but equally would have done it for these social reasons alone

hopefully an actual classicist will come along and say it better

Does it really matter if it is or not? It's an interesting thought, along the lines of how did parents feel about their kids in past times?

People were people back then too. Some did, some didn't. Just like nowadays.

The majority of people weren't politically significant.

And even politically significant marriages could be founded on love - Henry VIII loved Catherine of Aragon before they were married. Richard III openly wept at his wife's funeral.

Even where marriages were land or wealth matches, you're still talking about a couple of young people who were part of the same small social circle.

And EVEN where marriages weren't founded on love, shared experiences could result in love - Elizabeth Tudor and Henry VII.

It's a very modern fallacy that women had no rights and societies were entirely regressive before 1960.

This has reminded me of the Apprentice quote, "Are the French very fond of their children?"

Also in the odessy text the love between Paris and Helen of Troy is quite belittled, seen as inferior/teenage like and fleeting, as opposed to the love linked to family and duty. Some ppl have seen this as showing our concept of romantic love was frowned upon as it didn’t keep your family or kingdom safe.
i think the men of that culture had free access to female slaves and whores and it was seen as normal for a man who was wealthy to have a sexual relationship outside of marriage without dishonouring his vows, as long as he didn’t flaunt it. So Paris and Helen was portrayed as an eye rolling “oh come on you didn’t need to do that just sleep together and move on” type of thing, almost like a cautionary tale, as a result of the gods messing about, not an epic love story