Love and Care are two very important aspects of any relationship. But we often find these two feelings confusing, as it is difficult to understand the difference between them. Are they one and the same? Or are they interdependent? Or are they autonomous? These are few of the questions that come to our minds when we think about love and care. In this article, we are going to discuss the difference between Love and care as an attempt to clear this confusion about these two concepts.
What is love
Love is a feeling of deep affection. It is used as a noun as well as a verb. Love is often associated with other positive feelings like caring, warmth, and happiness. Love is, generally, an emotion we feel towards a close person. When we analyze love in a morphological and syntactic sense, the word love is said to be derived from the Old English term ‘lufu.’ Lufu has Germanic origin from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit ‘tubhyati ‘ meaning desire.
Ancient Greeks identified four types of love. They are storge, phileo, eros and agape. Storge is the love that you feel towards family and relations. Phileo is the affectionate, warm, platonic love you feel towards a person. Eros is a passionate feeling that arouses romantic feelings; this is the kind of love that can be seen in lovers. Agape is unconditional love that sees beyond the outer surface and accepts the recipient for whom he/she is, regardless of their flaws, shortcomings or faults. This is the kind of love that we should have our fellow human beings.
As these Ancient Greeks’ classifications, the term love does not only refer to passionate or romantic love. It also refers to the love between parents and children, siblings, friends, etc. Care is an essential part of love. When we love someone, we also care about him or her.
What is care
Care is showing concern for somebody. However, you don’t have to have a close relationship with that person to show care or concern. You feel concern for strangers as well. For example, imagine that a little girl is crying alone in the middle of a street. You involuntarily move towards the girl to help her. This is because we care. Showing concern or interest in others is a part of human nature.
As discussed earlier, care is a part of love. When you love somebody, you automatically care about that person. But love is not necessary to show care. Caring about someone is not the same as loving that person.
Difference Between Love and Care
Definition
Love is a feeling of intense affection towards a person.
Care is feeling concern, interest towards someone.
Feelings
Love is associated with other feelings like warmth, affection, care and attraction, etc.
Care is associated with empathy, kindness, concern, etc.
Relationship
Love is something you feel towards people that are close to you.
Care can be felt towards strangers as well.
Interdependence
When you love someone, you automatically care about that person.
When you care about someone, you might or might not love him/her.
