“Love is blind” – English proverb

St. Valentine’s Day is approaching, for this reason, I decided to tell you about this proverb:

love is blind

 

I think this saying is common all around the world, but what is less known is that a research study was conducted to find out if the blindness of love was just a figurative matter. In 2004, a group of researchers of  UCL (University College London) found that feelings of love suppressed the activity of the areas of the brain that control critical thought. So guys … be careful with love be careful with love !

What’s the origin of this proverb?

This saying was first found approximatively in 1405, in Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale:

For loue is blynd alday and may nat see.

At that time, it didn’t become a popular expression. Only later on, Shakespeare decided to use it in several of his plays making it famous and popular all around the world.

Two Gentlemen of Verona:

SPEED: Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes;
or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to
have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered!
(2.1.67-69).