The author applies psychoanalytic theory to human love, treating it as an involuntary biological craving shaped and complicated by civilization and repression. He traces mate choice and standards of beauty to early family habits and childhood memory, examines fetishes and sexual perversions as arising from faulty upbringing, organic predispositions, or safety needs, and distinguishes ego and safety cravings from purely sexual drives in phenomena such as jealousy. He offers practical suggestions for improving marital adjustment by promoting more democratic relations within the home.