Many facets of Love

In Plato's "Symposium", after listening to many viewpoints, Socrates recounts "The Ladder of Love" of Diotima, a priestess, which grades them in ascending order of merit.

1. Love of a specific beautiful body 

2. Love of all beautiful bodies

3. Love of beautiful souls

4. Love of beautiful laws & institutions

5. Love of beautiful knowledge

6. Love of beauty itself

Here the first may be romantic love, the second may be the attraction between genders, the third "Platonic Love", the fifth "Jnana Yoga" & the sixth "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram."

The West, probably because of Sigmund  Freud, is obsessed with the first & second types, so much that (may be) a stronger attraction due to blood relationship is also ascribed to these two. For example male kinship to his mother, sister or daughter due to shared DNA, may also be erroneously classified as Oedipus or Electra Complex.

It is curious that Greek dramatists' plays are dragged out for these but no mention is made of an "Antigone Complex." In Sophocles' "Antigone", she gives up her life to perform the last rites of her brother. She states her reason in these immortal lines:

"One husband gone, I might have found another,

Or a new child from a new man in first child's place,

But with my parents hid away in death.

No brother, ever, could spring up for me."

Here she rates brother's love as higher than husband's love or maternal love.

The use of the term "Oedipus Complex" is also semantically erroneous as he married his mother in ignorance, bowing to custom, & definitely not because he was physically attracted to her. So pervading has this myth become that even Kannada films, Puttanna's "Ranganayaki" (Oedipus) & Sheshadri's "Vimukthi" (Electra) have been made on this.

In contrast to the western preoccupation of the first two types of love, Rowling's Harry Potter though very close to Hermione Granger, feels nothing but a brotherly affection for her. Even the actor playing Ron Weasley, who actually marries her at the end, states that he was highly embarrased to kiss her onscreen, as he always felt about her as a sister during shooting the film.

All love as essentially divine is emphasised in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, where Yagnavalkya tells Maitreyi that even conjugal love is because of love between souls. Recently a Governor of an Indian State recounted the story of a beautiful relation of the Prophet going with her face uncovered, because people should be reminded of Allah, who created such beauty. Of course Hindu boys are traditionally brought up to love all women as blood relatives, i.e., mother, sister or daughter.