KEY POINTS
Psychological principles are represented symbolically in myth and art.
Jungian psychology addresses the psychology of storytelling.
Evolutionary psychology addresses the psychology of the instincts.
I always take students to the National Gallery in Trafalgar for an afternoon when I teach in London. Some of the paintings I first saw many years ago are instructive in piecing together the working parts of human courtship, most notably the Wtewael masterpiece The Judgment of Paris.
The Greek myth depicted in this painting may reveal the first three steps of human courtship for us.
It begins with the tale of Zeus’ solution to a great conflict started at an Olympian feast by Eris, the goddess of discord, the only deity not invited. Her devious, jealous plan for revenge was to roll a golden apple into the festival, inscribed with the word Kallisti—or “for the fairest.”
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