The 5 Love Languages
Gary Chapman
Contributed by Roseanne Meinecke
Chapter 1
Summary

Chapman begins the chapter with a description of a man who had been experiencing problems in his marriage. The man in the analogy describes his experiences of three marriages that all end up in divorce. The man tells Chapman that the main problem is that love just seemed to evaporate immediately after marrying the ladies. The man seems distraught by the occurrences and seeks to know if that is the channel followed by most married men. The man also enquires whether the people who have lasting marriages do so in perseverance of the emptiness of marriages.

The author states that the problems faced by his friend, who had had three failed marriages, are the same issues most people in relationships experience. He argues that the need for romantic love when it comes to marriage is something felt by everyone. The point is that the entire world tries to understand the mystery of love by writing articles about it in almost every newspaper, magazine, blog and website. However, Chapman observes that most people are still not successful when it comes to matters of love.

Chapman was intrigued about the phenomena of why most couples read books and attend many seminars about love, and yet fail to implement what they learn in their personal love lives. The author suggests that people are unable to transfer the love lessons to their own lives since people have perennially overlooked the fundamental truth of communication. Chapman gives an example of the many languages and how each one of us identifies with our own personal native language. He compares the languages of love to the existence of many languages in the world.  The author adds that one’s emotional language is very different from their partner’s language; just like English is different to Spanish. For the sake of love, people should work hard to learn their partner's primary love-language so that there can be useful communication within their love-live.

Chapman introduces the five types of emotional love languages in this chapter with an argument that just as what happens in linguistics with numerous dialects, emotional love languages has its variations. He insists on how necessary it is for a partner to learn their spouse’s primary language since it is the primary way in that they can understand love. Chapman defends the importance of his book by stating that a man and his wife rarely have a similar emotional love language.

Analysis

The author provides an excellent introduction to his book by outlining a background of his theory concerning the emotional love language that affects every person. The author enlightens the reader by explaining the love language in marriages. Chapman insists that love languages are the most important aspect of love, without which no communication can take place. He also points out that people have continuously failed to grasp the concept of love due to their lack of understanding the ‘language’. The reader is told that spouses should be considerate of each other’s primary language for their relationship to continue burning even after their wedding.

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