The dictionaries and reference books provide the different explanations for the words “love” and “sympathy”.But still the most of women make these notions equal in practice. Many modern girls have the boyfriends who are weak and delicate, but they love them more than the courageous and powerful men. Women feel both love and compassion towards losers, nerds and unappreciated geniuses. Actually they really love these fragile men though it seems to contradict the law of evolution.
Some psychologists suppose that this compassionate love is the manifestation of the maternal instinct. The modern women tend to mix up their husbands and their children. In that way they coddle and treat their husbands as they were their children.