How The Heart Shape ♥ Came To Represent Love (Even Though It Looks Nothing Like The Ugly Organ That Inspired It)
Hint: This story involves lots of sex.
The heart symbol enlivens our text messages, decorates our love notes, adorns our bodies, and even encourages people to give blood. For centuries, the shape of love has been a heart symbol.
But if you look at a preserved human heart, you won’t want to cover it in chocolate or fill it with orange creme. It’s gelatinous, gray, and looks like a chewed-up rubber ball a golden retriever spit out.
And yet this unalluring organ caged behind our cleaner sternums was chosen as the seat of love.
How did the heart come to represent love?
Perhaps the heart won because it clamored for the job. While we might say our heads are “pounding” when we overthink, no one associates a pounding heart with overloving. The heart is a noisy child who runs roughshod over our thoughts.
The ancient Egyptians certainly cherished the heart more than the brain. After someone died, they carefully preserved their heart in canonical jars. And then they scooped out the brain with a long spoon and tossed it away. No need for those pesky thoughts in the afterlife.
