Why is the heart associated with love? - Big Questions - (Ep. 21)

Hi, I'm Craig. In many cultures, I'm associated with love, and this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Today, I'm going to answer Anish Sharma's big question. Why is the heart associated with love

Well, Anish, I'm not sure if you mean the human heart or the heart symbol. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about why both are associated with love

Anyway, it's becoming a pattern here on Big Question to say, we don't really know, but we know what's really old and it evolved

And yet again, it's true. Let's get started. I love you. The shape has been uncovered in pictograms drawn by early humans living in modern-day Europe

but we don't know what it meant to the people back then. Moving later in time, many different cultures started to view the human heart as the center of emotion and the soul

The ancient Egyptians associated the heart with your moral compass. The ancient Greeks thought it contained the human soul in addition to emitting actual body heat

The Teotihuacans from ancient Mexico believe the body contained various spiritual forces

and the one in the heart was the key to being alive. Throughout all this, what we now know as the heart shape persists

It can be found in ancient artwork but mostly used to represent things like fig leaves or ivy Then people started to draw connections between the human heart and love One of the earliest examples of it clearly representing love and art can be found in the 13th century French romance

manuscript known as Roman de la Poir. In the manuscript there's a picture of a man

holding what looks like a human heart and offering it to a woman. Romantic. The heart

is definitely acting as a symbol of love here but its shape is more realistic than the modern heart symbol. It evolved in art becoming less and less realistic

throughout the next few centuries and less icky. By 1400 the modern

heart shape had become a big part of Christian art. In 1530, the Luther seal, a symbol for

Lutheranism, was developed with a heart shape in the center. The symbol wasn't just associated with religion and love, though. During the medieval times, the heart shape started

popping up on things like playing cards and tapestries. Then, in 17th century England, Valentine's

Day, started to become a thing. People started just by sending notes, but eventually the

heart symbol became associated with Valentine's Day and it was definitely here to stay

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