I’ve seen multiple stories about a new sociology course on love at a university in India. Here is one such story:

The battle of superiority between natural and social sciences is being played out at one of India‘s oldest universities and good old Love may just become a casualty.

Among general education courses to familiarise humanities and science students with each others’ disciplines, Kolkata’s Presidency University is offering unique optional papers like “Digital Humanities”, “The Physics of Everyday Life”, and “Love” – likely to be option number 1 for most undergraduate students!

The subject of Love, hitherto the premise of departments of English and Philosophy, will be addressed for the first time by a department of sociology in an Indian university. The only other known precedent is the Sociology of Love undergraduate course offered at the University of Massachusetts in the US…

Roy hopes to cover several elements of Love – from Love-as-romance to Love-as-industry. He is hoping to bank on Love theorists like Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman and Eric Fromm, who have enriched sociological discourses with “The Transformation of Intimacy; Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies” , “Liquid Love” and “The Art of Loving” respectively.

My first thought is a line that I have provided to Introduction to Sociology students: if humans are involved in any way, sociologists can and will study it. Considering there is not a shortage of writing and commentary about love, sociologists should study it.

But, several articles, including this one, seem to hint at a different sort of issue: by applying social science methods to love, do social scientists change what love is? If it is shown to be influenced by social forces and norms, does this demean love? This sounds a bit silly to me: we know there is a more individual component to love (emotions, though this individualistic idea ), we know there is a physical dimension (the response of the body), and we know there is a social dimension (what love is and how it is expressed differs). Sociologists often “pull back the curtain” on social behavior but this doesn’t necessarily mean it ruins the experience of love. On the contrary, it may just enlighten people about the social dimensions of love.

Another idea. A number of social scientists have been behind the creation of popular dating websites (great phrase: “algorithms of love”): a psychologist is behind eHarmony.com, a sociologist is behind perfectmatch.com, and an anthropologist developed the algorithm behind chemistry.com. These social scientists have helped develop the idea that love can be scientific, that there are patterns that can be applied in a waiting market where plenty of people want such “Scientific” matching.