In the article “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love” the author, Stephanie Coontz, talks about how love has rarely been the motivating reason for marriage, and how in many cultures it still isn’t. She also informs readers of the reasons why people got married in ancient cultures, different types of motivations for marriage in modern cultures, how the union between spouses often isn’t the most important relationship in other countries, and how marriage is often not monogamous. The first topic that the author focused on was love and marriage in the ancient times. Ancient India viewed falling in love before getting married to be an antisocial act. Greeks believed that love was a symptom of insanity. During the Middle Ages, the French also thought that love was a symptom of insanity and believed that engaging in sexual intercourse could cure it. The …show more content…
During this time in France, a chaplain wrote a treatise stating that, “marriage is no real excuse for not loving.” When he said this he meant that it was no excuse to not commit adultery. Another Frenchman said that any man who was so deeply in love with this wife would be too boring for anyone else to love. Many ancient cultures thought that the public display of affection was unseemly between spouses. A Roman was even expelled from his senate seat because of it. Coontz goes on to talk about the different reasons for love in modern cultures. Many still disapprove of using love as an excuse for marriage. A tribe in Africa doesn’t see love as a legitimate emotion. They believe that the love between spouses will take away from the entire society’s dependence of each other. The Hindu religion doesn’t believe that sexual attraction and love are valid reasons for marriage, even though both are celebrated. People even disapproved of marrying for love in early modern
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
Is marriage really important? There is a lot of controversy over marriage and whether it is eminent. Some people believe it is and some people believe it is not. These opposing opinions cause this controversy. “On Not Saying ‘I do’” by Dorian Solot explains that marriage is not needed to sustain a relationship or a necessity to keep it healthy and happy. Solot believes that when a couple gets married things change. In “For Better, For Worse”, Stephanie Coontz expresses that marriage is not what is traditional in society because it has changed and is no longer considered as a dictator for people’s lives. The differences between these two essays are the author’s writing style and ideas.
Bill Cosby once said that, “For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.” J.J. Lewis (1995-2009) This famous comedian could not have been more correct when recognizing that every marriage will face a multiple number of challenges and is often difficult. Couples, once married, must find a way to end any struggles in order for the marriage to be successful. Marital traditions have changed greatly over the centuries and due to this, the opinion of what an ‘ideal marriage” consists of has changed as well. When reviewing the document “On Love and Marriage” the author (a Merchant of Paris) believes that marriage should not be an equal partnership, but one that pleases the husband to avoid conflict. This can be clearly seen through an examination of: the social, and political environment of the late fourteenth century, and the merchant’s opinions on the area of obedience to a husband, and how to avoid infidelity.
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love. The first chapter begins with an exploration of love and marriage in many ancient and current cultures.
Marriage in ancient civilizations and until the twentieth century was an arraignment made between two families to gain a political and social benefits. One reason divorce and infidelity were prohibited was to ensure families could not lose those benefits. Instead of developing a different system to join two people together, intimacy became another basis for marriage, but divorce and infidelity were still social taboos. Marriage was not structurally built to provide eternal intimacy and those who uses the escapes of divorce and infidelity were punished to be social outcasts. ...
Around the GCU campus, marriage and engagement is in the air. Men and women who have been together from a few months to a few years have made the decision to commit to each other for the rest of their life. In the Bible, there are four different Greek words that mean love: agape (Godly), eros (erotic), storge (family), and philia (friendship). In social psychology, there are three main types of love that combine to form different types of love. In Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, there are three main types of love: liking (intimacy alone), empty love (commitment alone), and infatuation (passion alone) (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2013). When intimacy, commitment, and passion are combined, an experience known as consummate
In the article, “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love” author Stephanie Coontz argues that love is not a good enough reason to get married. People shouldn’t marry just because they love one another, Coontz suggests that perhaps marriage should be based on how well a couple gets along and whether or not if the significant other is accepted by the family. One will notice in the article that Coontz makes it very clear that she is against marrying because of love. In the article is a bit of a history lesson of marriage and love within different cultures from all over the world. Coontz then states her thesis in the very end of the article which is that the European and American ways of marriage is the
Wharton’s “Roman Fever” at the very least points the way; it is a warning that love and pneumonia are inextricably linked, an idea that we’d do well to pay more attention to today when the ease of a high technology lifestyle fosters an arrogance that all the world’s problems have been solved.
Truly, a new approach is being introduced, the idea that social conventions dictate the nature of love as we see it, that it all depends on the perspective of a person or a group.
Love – a simple four letter word shrouded in mystery and many different meanings. Philosophers, poets, and writers have all tried to discern the significance or concept of love for many centuries. Plato, for example, was one such philosopher who in his work the Symposium (which means “Drinking Party”) wrote about “Eros” – the term for sexual love in Greek. The Symposium was written approximately around 384 and 379 B.C.E., and follows five elite Athenian men as they pronounce their admiration of Eros while lounging on couches listening to flute girls play in the distance. Each of the men has different backgrounds ranging from tragic poet, comedian, doctor, playboy, and even Socrates himself (Norton). All these characters bring diverse views on the subject of love, and each speaker seems to build on the last enhancing the story. Times have changed so much since Plato wrote The Symposium is it possible to compare Plato’s ornate description of love to love in the modern world? Love today is much like love in Plato’s time, and I believe people today are still searching for their “other half” – the missing piece, for it is a complete love which makes us better people.
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen shows examples of how most marriages were not always for love but more as a formal agreement arranged by the two families. Marriage was seen a holy matrimony for two people but living happil...
The study of human emotions began in the late 1970s and has flourished since; centring on the role it plays in the personal and social life of the individual, and how culture influences emotion (Lutz & White 1986: 405, 410). Love is considered to be one of the six, fundamental emotions surrounding human attachment (Lindholm 1982 in Lutz & White 1986: 411), and has been defined as the strong feeling of affection or attraction, which is more profound than fondness (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology 2009). Consequently, the notion of “Love” has long been a topic of interest, leading to an explosion of literature on love (Sarsby 1983: 20).
The Western Religious leaders and moralists believe only one spouse for life is the highest form of marriage. Some of the most "primitive" peoples are strictly monogamous in their ideals, while some "highly advanced" cultures have moved away from the stri...
Romantic love is a poor basis for marriage because love is simply a result of a stimulated limbic system, a stable relationship cannot rely solely upon affection, financial stability is more important than an emotion that can fade, a couple must have similar goals in life, and finally because a couple must share similar cultural and moral backgrounds.
Love can influence the lives of many people in various ways, but many people do not actually differentiate between love, lust, and marriage and the way in which they can reap benefits from the three things that seem to be perfectly similar, but are different altogether. People mostly end up in marriage without knowing whether it is love that is actually driving them or whether it is lust. In this essay, I chose the play; Rover by Aphra Behn, to show the various perceptions of people towards the three. Behn has managed to portray this through the characters in the play. These characters search for love to serve permanent connection or physical needs. This therefore begs for a question, is marriage therefore founded on the basis of love or on