Ancient & modern | 21 November 2009

A new Telegraph survey on ‘dating’ (the romantic rather than temporal kind), reveals that 91 per cent of women and 86 per cent of men would not marry someone ‘who had everything you looked for in a partner, but whom you were not in love with’. But what, an ancient would ask, has marriage to do with love?

Greek and Roman upper-class males — for they composed the literature, and it is their views of the matter that we have — did not regard love as a crucial component of marriage.