Summary of “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love”

Summary of The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love In the probe The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love, Stephanie Coontz surveys the history of wedding ceremony throughout the world, disclosure its historical pur stays and the philosophies surrounding it. Coontz gives examples of how once people married for utility, necessity, and social advantages. She explains how everyplace time and through the changing ideas about grapple and the sexes that people straight marry for love, companionship, and personal happiness. Before modern time the idea of marrying for love was discouraged.Men and women participated in arranged marriages or married for reasons of practicality rather than affection. Some considered marital love a hindrance to more valued relationships between family and divinity whereas in modern time it is expected that you put your spouse sooner any other family member or obligation. Although some cultures believed that love would fall in after marriage, it was not a re quirement for a successful marriage as it is today the measurement of a successful marriage whence was financial prosperity and healthy children.Historically in some instances love was meant alone for a mistress or concubine, not a wife or husband. In some parts of the world there is no marital exclusivity that we see in modern Europe and America. In these places, men and women engender two-fold wives or husbands, or even extra marital intimate partners without the jealousy that would surely arise in modern relationships. In these places multiple partners are acceptable because they benefit the family in providing for children and in sharing responsibility.Coontz attributes the rouse in martial expectations from marrying for practicality to marrying for love, to the social enlightenments, political revisions, and financial changes that occurred from the 17th snow forward. She states that, basing marriage on love and companionship represented a control with thousands of years of tradition. These breaks in tradition lead to many crude fears about the future of marriage, the family, and how its new structure would affect society. Ultimately these changes would pose a serious threat to the stability of the new system of marriage.