Lifestyles and Modern Culture

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Lifestyles and Modern Culture Lecture 2 Romantic
love and Modern Societies
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What is love?
What does it involve?
sexual attraction emotional care exchange of
intellect interests commitment
Where does it come from?
love as a biological given hormone and innate
psychological need
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Natural born needs and sentiments
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love as cultural action (Hochschild) Whats
great? Tantalizing? Why worth sacrificing? How
to make sense of what you feel? what to do next?
Priority of the four components? definition of
feelings drawn from a cultural dictionary

• The making of the Romantic Love Complex (a new
  dictionary) (Giddens)
• passionate love as a universal sentiment
  everywhere regulated
• pre-modern Europe
• marriage economy (labour and alliance)
• sexual attraction X
• --------------------------------------------------
  ---
• peasants aristocrats free sex

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2. 18th century a new narrative of love
re-locating passionate love
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Legend of the Hungry wolf Passionate love
scent and skin
Love you more everyday love you as ordinary but
extraordinary thing Dull day then see you,
elated Other things all transient you help me
find the root No leaving love, love never
rots I am drunk, night and day, day by day,
love cumulates overtime, until it
overflows Happy thereafter, no fear of disaster
Your Name, My Surname Skys limit, seas
end Back home see you, When intestines churn,
ask for your name and my surname From now on, No
demand, just ordinary you will be enough
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re-ordering love sexual attraction emotional
care exchange of intellect interests Commitme
nt
A package
Romantic Love Complex as a double
projection Projection to an idealized other
(heterosexual) Projection for a controllable
ideal future (within a market society) Love as
the basis of modernity - build the necessary
character and individual life plans for the new
form of society
multiple discursive re-inforcements Valentine
and the novels
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The first twist Romantic love as feminized love
instability of the complex men at work no time
for true romance women not at work specialists
in emotion and care 3 trends creation of
home changing relations between parents and
children invention of motherhood
romantic love as a contradictory quest for women
the dual sphere
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The second twist Rise of the pure relationship
A. Women taking the quest seriously romantic
love digs its own grave 1. believe in romance -
escape, hope and hysteria 2. extending feminine
intimacy rise of female friendship, emotion
expert 3. extending active self-interrogation a
changeable future, an active self
a restructuring of intimacy
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b.Women as pioneers, men as bystanders mens
suppressed connection between love and
intimacy specialists in the techniques of
seduction and conquest unconscious dependence of
women men as cynical bystander of their own
life and modernity
Transformation of intimacy spearheaded by women
Un-conventional forms of family Multiple intimate
relationships lesbian, gay, ex-marital
relations, extra-marital relations, friendship,
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Reflected in popular culture
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• The transformation of intimacy?
• The evidence
• The dark side of modern love
• Couple relationship negotiation between equals?
• 2. pure relations triumph in the end?

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Langfords study of 15 ordinary women
counter-revolutions of the heart the experience
of love emotional aspects womens
disappointments after three months feel bitter
and ignored mens lack of spontaneity and
emotional participation deep acting vs real
happiness Unconscious mechanisms Stages 1
projection of the ideal self on to the object
Stage 2 Frustration resurfaced defences
re-erected a. male lose interest emotionally,
female hurt but feel powerful as everybodys
mummy, b. men re-erect the fear of the bad mummy
in his ego - lapse into silence
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Jamieson stability over change
Reviewed large no. of existing studies
Heterosexual couples little change she the
housewife, he the earner true for co-habiting
couples Talking up talking down eachs
contribution Same-sex coupless some signs of
change, but have own problems, and limited
evidence
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B. the two cultures of love Swidler
1. Romantic love myth mistrusted
Real love life seen as ambiguous, gradual,
uncertain Love grounded in small ups and downs
of daily life involves hard work rather than
sudden passion compatibility, sharing, common
interests Prosaic realism
2. Romantic love myth returns
Especially in deciding on entering or leaving
marriage
Love lasts forever? Vacillates real life
marriage fragile in - but asserts real love must
will last
two cultures of love drawn on in different
circumstances