TY - CHAP
T1 - Making up and breaking up
T2 - the changing commitments of age-dissimilar couples
AU - McKenzie, Lara
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Recently, social scientists’ investigations of couples have emphasised historical changes like the growing idealisation of romantic love, greater personal autonomy in relationships, and the rising significance of distance and divorce. Much of this discussion—particularly Eva Illouz’s theorisation of ‘cold intimacies’—centres on the idea that obligation and commitment are losing out to individualised relationships and short-term pleasure. The growing prevalence of age-dissimilar couples is seen as reflecting this shift. In interviews with age-dissimilar couples in Australia, however, I found that, alongside fulfilment and free choice, commitment and obligation are enduring themes in people’s accounts of their personal lives. Here I explore how these couples’ talk about the beginnings and ends of their relationships reflects a dual logic: that love should be lasting and fulfilling.
AB - Recently, social scientists’ investigations of couples have emphasised historical changes like the growing idealisation of romantic love, greater personal autonomy in relationships, and the rising significance of distance and divorce. Much of this discussion—particularly Eva Illouz’s theorisation of ‘cold intimacies’—centres on the idea that obligation and commitment are losing out to individualised relationships and short-term pleasure. The growing prevalence of age-dissimilar couples is seen as reflecting this shift. In interviews with age-dissimilar couples in Australia, however, I found that, alongside fulfilment and free choice, commitment and obligation are enduring themes in people’s accounts of their personal lives. Here I explore how these couples’ talk about the beginnings and ends of their relationships reflects a dual logic: that love should be lasting and fulfilling.
UR - https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/publications/8d6f992e-1689-4121-9d23-73554353c10d
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85145216603&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-29256-0_3
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-29256-0_3
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9783030292553
T3 - Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life
SP - 37
EP - 56
BT - Romantic relationships in a time of 'cold intimacies'
A2 - Carter, Julia
A2 - Arocha, Lorena
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
CY - Cham, Switzerland
ER -