Social scientists long ignored love as a topic for empirical research, presuming love to be a European contribution to world culture. Therefore, some researchers were surprised of and resistant to mounting evidence that most societies had a long history concerning love. However, across peoples and histories, love has carried different meanings and been put to different ends. We provide an in-depth review of current ethnographic research on love in the context of romantic relationships. We find that the ethnographic literature on romantic love challenges essentialisms within western love ideals, including: the division of love and arranged marriage, love’s association with sexual exclusivity, the separation of love and material and sexual interest, and the belief that romantic love is a product of modernity. We conclude the chapter by identifying questions the growing ethnographic literature on love have left unanswered and point to the areas where further investigation is most needed.