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Ethnological studies point to candidates for culturally universal and variable characteristics of romantic love models. However, only recently have these hypotheses begun to be tested through primary data collection intended for cross-cultural comparison. This study builds on two such efforts covering the United States, Russia, Lithuania, and China by adapting their methods to South Korea. We found support for the core features of romantic love identified in these studies (sexual attraction, altruism, intrusive thinking, emotional fulfillment, and idealization). We also explain peripheral meanings of love, including its association with sex, irrationality, and material considerations. In our discussion of East Asian models of romantic love, we argue that the apparently less altruistic attitudes of East Asian women toward their lovers are attributable to the deterioration of structural support for institutions that enforced the ideal of female sacrifice previously valorized in their family relations, and women’s backlash against these continued expectations.

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