(Bloomberg) — PBS promises to “put love on the public agenda” with “The Mystery of Love,” a two-hour documentary airing tonight at 9 p.m. New York time.A bit of PR pillow talk, no doubt, though the special, hosted by playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith, is well intentioned: In a violent world teetering on catastrophe, Smith intones, “we need to explore the forces that hold things together.”

Viewers hoping for a few hours of bodice-busting will be sorely disappointed. “Sexual romance” may dominate the culture, Smith says, but this special takes up love in its less heated forms — between siblings, parents and children, pianists and singers, husbands and wives, and lower primates. We even learn about the love of war.

Joan Konner, who also produced “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” opens with a story about Minnesota hog farmer Gary Overgaard and opera singer Emily Lodine, who met on a Denmark-bound plane. Overgaard was dismayed to learn of Lodine’s profession, fearing that in-flight conversation might be scant.

Yet Emily found the hulking Gary to be cute, and much to their mutual surprise they hit it off and later married, reminding us that opposites still attract.

A more amusing love story involves two musicians, Mark and Monica, who met over the Internet. Monica had a history of serial heartbreak, while Mark was twice divorced and a father when they had their cyberspace rendezvous.

Mark tells us his credo had been to stay married “so long as you both shall love,” yet he comes to understand that viewing marriage as a lifelong commitment may help in choosing a mate more wisely. Thus enlightened, he decides Monica is the one.

In the film’s most amusing scene, the bride-to-be swigs wine with a few girlfriends while wearing a veil bedecked with what appear to be plastic replicas of male sex organs.

Note to Mark: You have chosen wisely.

There are several poignant stories, including that of a father who forgives his son’s murderer. There’s also a look at an elderly musical couple: Camilla Williams, a pioneering black opera singer, and her housemate-accompanist Boris Bazala, who at 95 is 10 years her senior. Both lost their spouses and now share a home in Bloomington, Indiana.

A look at love among lower primates tells us that apes focus their affection on members of their small group. They are quite content to kill members of other groups when the outsiders’ assets are desired, says Frans de Waal, a director at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta.

That leads to perhaps the most interesting segment, which focuses on the love of war.

We begin with the famous opening scene from “Patton” in which George C. Scott reminds his men that the successful warrior doesn’t die for his country but makes sure the “other poor dumb bastard dies for his.” Cut to a scene where the old tank commander says he loves war more than life itself.

Jungian analyst and author James Hillman tells us that men love war because they are attracted to its “sublime terror.” Hillman, author of “A Terrible Love of War,” says military parades, uniforms and formations serve as “extraordinary rituals of beauty” that produce a state of euphoria as men march off to battle.

He says that feeling turns to “ecstasy” in combat, which many soldiers say is the “highest moment ever experienced” and every bit as powerful as sexual or divine love.

Maybe this programme will inspire a new recruiting slogan: Iraq Is for Lovers.

For more information on the programme, see http://www.pbs.org.(Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)