The 5 Love Languages
Gary Chapman
Contributed by Roseanne Meinecke
Chapter 2
Summary

The author insists on the importance of love by quoting both religious texts and psychologists’ views towards the topic, as well as showing the lengths people go for the sake of love. Chapman quotes the Apostle Paul's choice of exalting love through the statement that most human achievements that do not draw their motivation from love end up empty. The author believes in joy and happiness in love adding that it is the most exceptional quality in life. 

The author argues that people attach most activities in their lives to the extent of their love when doing them. For instance, people declare their love of events and experiences and especially people in their lives, such as family and friends. Chapman states that people, generally, are in love with the concept of love. He also says that people use the very idea of love to validify certain acts; how people do things for the sake of love, people commit adultery in the name of love and parents can yield to all their children’s wishes, for love. From the above ideas and relations of what people consider to be love, Chapman tries to understand what this mysterious emotion is.

Chapman lets us know that he did not write the book with the aim of doing away with the chaos and confusion that surrounds love. The author states that his book focuses on the sort of love that is vital to people’s emotional health. Chapman introduces the idea of a ‘love tank’ which gets nurtured from childhood. He describes how children have a tank of emotional love that always needs filling. How the child turns out depends on how the child is brought up until their adulthood. The author writes about the analogy of a girl who was thirteen years old and suffering from a venereal disease. The young girl had a void in her emotional love tank that she struggled with, leading to premarital sex which in turn caused severe results. Chapman argues that it is important for both children and partners to fill the emotional love tank to avoid an inner struggle with love.

Analysis

Chapman understands the need for everyone to feel loved and how important it is to reciprocate those feelings love that’s why he comes up with the topic of keeping the love tank full. He describes the matter of keeping the love tank full as a different entity to the potential dwindling of loves flame after a wedding. The love tank is something that all people possess and is nurtured from infancy throughout one’s lifetime by the loved ones around them. If the love tank fails to get replenished continuously, severe repercussions occur as in Ashley’s case. The author notes that the dire need to feel loved by friends, family and spouse is the epitome of all love issues, especially in marriage. In chapter two, Chapman has produced a clear explanation of emotional fulfilment and love, and that without the loving attention of a spouse, the love goes dry. It is clear that it is the love tank that helps marriages see success and produces many years of happiness.

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