Storge

Storge

When it comes to love, words lag behind.

In Ancient Greece, love was a concept pondered over by some of history’s most famous philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle. Greek philosophers attempted to explain love rationally and often categorized the different kinds of love people could feel.

Thus, love was defined with four different terms: Eros, phileo, agape, and storge. Phileo love is brotherly love, while eros love is sexual love. Agape love is self-sacrificial, the greatest example being when Christ died for us. Storge love is the purest form of love.

Storge is natural, unforced, and familial love; the kind of love that a parent has for a child.

Of all of the types of love, storge might be the easiest to understand. It is the type of love that family members feel between them.

Storge is a wide-ranging force which can apply between family members, friends, pets and their owners, companions or colleagues; it can also blend with and help underpin other types of ties such as passionate love or friendship.

Another interpretation for storge is to be used to describe a sexual relationship between two people that gradually grew out of a friendship. Storgic lovers are friends first; the friendship and the storge can endure even beyond the breakup of the sexual relationship.

Storge, in essence is commitment, devotion and instinctual accountability.