linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:summarization
Historical usage

The word "romance" comes from the French vernacular where initially it indicated a verse narrative. The word was originally an adverb of Latin origin, "romanicus", meaning "of the Roman style". European medieval vernacular tales, epics, and ballads generally dealt with chivalric adventure, not bringing in the concept of love until late into the seventeenth century. The word romance developed other meanings, such as the early nineteenth century Spanish and Italian definitions of "adventurous" and "passionate", which could intimate both "love affair" and "idealistic quality".

Anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss show that there were complex forms of courtship in ancient as well as contemporary primitive societies. There may not be evidence, however, that members of such societies formed loving relationships distinct from their established customs in a way that would parallel modern romance. Marriages were often arranged, but the wishes of those to be wed were considered, as affection was important to primitive tribes.

In the majority of primitive societies studied by the anthropologists, the extramarital and premarital relations between men and women were completely free. The members of the temporary couples were sexually attracted to each other more than to anyone else, but in all other respects their relationships had not demonstrated the characteristics of romantic love. In the book of Boris Shipov Theory of Romantic Love the corresponding evidences of anthropologists have been collected. Lewis H. Morgan: "the passion of love was unknown among the barbarians. They are below the sentiment, which is the offspring of civilization and super added refinement of love was unknown among the barbarians." Margaret Mead: "Romantic love as it occurs in our civilisation, inextricably bound up with ideas of monogamy, exclusiveness, jealousy and undeviating fidelity does not occur in Samoa." Bronislaw Malinowski: "Though the social code does not favour romance, romantic elements and imaginative personal attachments are not altogether absent in Trobriand courtship and marriage."

The phenomenon which B. Malinowski calls love, actually has very little in common with the European love: "Thus there is nothing roundabout in a Trobriand wooing; nor do they seek full personal relations, with sexual possession only as a consequence. Simply and directly a meeting is asked for with the avowed intention of sexual gratification. If the invitation is accepted, the satisfaction of the boy's desire eliminates the romantic frame of mind, the craving for the unattainable and mysterious." "an important point is that the pair's community of interest is limited to the sexual relation only. The couple share a bed and nothing else.... there are no services to be mutually rendered, they have no obligation to help each other in any way..."

The aborigines of Mangaia island of Polynesia, who mastered the English language, used the word "love" with a completely different meaning as compared to that which is usual for the person brought up in the European culture. Donald S. Marshall: "Mangaian informants and co-workers were quite interested in the European concept of "love". English-speaking Mangaians had previously used the term only in a physical sense of sexual desire; to say, "I love you" in English to another person was tantamount to saying, "I want to copulate with you." The components of affection and companionship, which may characterize the European use of the term, puzzled the Mangaians when we discussed the term." "The principal findings that one can draw from an analysis of emotional components of sexual relationship feelings on Mangaia are:

Nathaniel Branden claims that by virtue of "the tribal mentality," "in primitive cultures the idea of romantic love did not exist at all. Passionate individual attachments are evidently seen as threatening to tribal values and tribal authority." Dr. Audrey Richards, an anthropologist who lived among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia in the 1930s, once related to a group of them an English folk-fable about a young prince who climbed glass mountains, crossed chasms, and fought dragons, all to obtain the hand of a maiden he loved. The Bemba were plainly bewildered, but remained silent. Finally an old chief spoke up, voicing the feelings of all present in the simplest of questions: "Why not take another girl?" he asked.

The earliest recorded marriages in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and among Hebrews were used to secure alliances and produce offspring. It was not until the Middle Ages that love began to be a real part of marriage. The marriages that did arise outside of arranged marriage were most often spontaneous relationships. In Ladies of the Leisure Class, Rutgers University professor Bonnie G. Smith depicts courtship and marriage rituals that may be viewed as oppressive to modern people. She writes, "When the young women of the Nord married, they did so without illusions of love and romance. They acted within a framework of concern for the reproduction of bloodlines according to financial, professional, and sometimes political interests."

Anthony Giddens, in The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Society, states that romantic love introduced the idea of a narrative to an individual's life, and telling a story is a root meaning of the term romance. According to Giddens, the rise of romantic love more or less coincided with the emergence of the novel. It was then that romantic love, associated with freedom and therefore the ideals of romantic love, created the ties between freedom and self-realization.

David R. Shumway states that "the discourse of intimacy" emerged in the last third of the 20th century, intended to explain how marriage and other relationships worked, and making the specific case that emotional closeness is much more important than passion, with intimacy and romance coexisting.

One example of the changes experienced in relationships in the early 21st century was explored by Giddens regarding homosexual relationships. According to Giddens, since homosexuals were not able to marry, they were forced to pioneer more open and negotiated relationships. These kinds of relationships then permeated the heterosexual population.