| Description |
viii, 293 pages ; 24 cm |
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regular print |
| Contents |
1. Introduction : the misery of love -- 2. The great transformation of love or the emergence of marriage markets -- 3. Commitment phobia and the new architecture of romantic choice (with Mattan Shachak) -- 4. The demand for recognition : love and the vulnerability of the self -- 5. Love, reason, irony -- 6. From romantic fantasy to disappointment -- 7. Epilogue |
| Summary |
Few of us have been spared the agonies of intimate relationships. They come in many shapes: loving a man or a woman who will not commit to us, being heartbroken when we're abandoned by a lover, engaging in Sisyphean internet searches, coming back lonely from bars, parties, or blind dates, feeling bored in a relationship that is so much less than we had envisaged - these are only some of the ways in which the search for love is a difficult and often painful experience. Despite the widespread and almost collective character of these experiences, our culture insists they are the result of faulty or insufficiently mature psyches. For many, the Freudian idea that the family designs the pattern of an individual's erotic career has been the main explanation for why and how we fail to find or sustain love. Psychoanalysis and popular psychology have succeeded spectacularly in convincing us that individuals bear responsibility for the misery of their romantic and erotic lives. The purpose of this book is to change our way of thinking about what is wrong in modern relationships. The problem is not dysfunctional childhoods or insufficiently self-aware psyches, but rather the institutional forces shaping how we love |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-281) and index |
| Subject |
Interpersonal attraction.
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Interpersonal relations -- Psychological aspects.
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Love -- Psychological aspects.
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Love -- Social aspects.
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Love.
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Interpersonal relations.
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Man-woman relationships -- Psychological aspects.
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Mate selection -- Psychological aspects.
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Man-woman relationships.
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Social influence.
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| ISBN |
0745661521 (hbk.) |
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9780745661520 (hbk.) |
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