| Abstract
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Romantic love is a topic largely absent from the social scientific inquiry in the Arab world. Although it has deep historical, literary, and artistic roots in the region, many scholars have traditionally reduced romantic relationship formation down to family-facilitated arrangements. However, increasing amounts of new, globalized discourses saturate the region, providing alternatives to the socially prescribed and sanctioned avenues of romantic love and relationships. This has the ability to challenge the pre-existing romantic discourses, particularly those held by young Arabs. The purpose of this study was to explore how a sample of unmarried Arab youth form and maintain romantic relationships, specifically focusing on how they define, experience, and identity romantic love, the value they ascribe to it, and what influences their perception of love. To fulfill this purpose, I took an inductive approach, grounding the conceptual framework in the results. The theoretical framework is rooted in symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969), social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), and social constructionism theory (e.g., Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Beall and Sternberg, 1995) to not assume an a priori conceptualization of romantic love, and to illustrate the subjective nature of how meaning of romantic love is made. Moreover, using Foucault's (e.g., 1972, 1980) concept of discourse, I sought to explore how existing discourses reflect the power structures that govern social relationships and reinforce Bourdieu's (1977) concept of habitus. Lastly, I looked to globalization theory (e.g., Giddens 1991, 1992) and detraditionalization theory (e.g., Beck, Giddens, and Lash, 1994; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995) to analyze how alternate, external romantic narratives and discourses affected the participant's conceptualization of romantic love and relationships. To test this, I utilized a mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology through a concurrent triangulation research strategy. Employing a self-selected, non-random sample of students at the American University of Beirut (AUB), I conducted interviews with 22 students, and distributed questionnaires to 193 students. Findings included a personal, highly subjective nature to the individual's definitions and perceptions of love, and that love is important to life and the participants ascribed a high value to love. The majority also considers being in love with someone a requirement for a successful relationship, and they rank being in love as an important factor in choosing a romantic partner. These definitions are intrinsically connected to their experiences with romantic love and relationships. The participants want more freedom when choosing a romantic partner, particularly from their family. They also often disagreed with their parents regarding what they consider to be important in a potential romantic partner. Moreover, they also would actively pursue a relationship with someone from outside of their religious sect. Also, culture, family, peers, experiences, and the mass media were all indicated as having a particular influence on the way they perceive love, reinforcing the notion that love is culturally defined and socially governed. Lastly, evidence was given to reinforce the existence of a generational gap and the declining influence of the extended family. As this was an exploratory study, further research can be conducted on a wider sample of Arab youth encompassing wider demographics such as geographic location and educational level.
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