preview

The Radical Idea Of Marrying For Love

Decent Essays

Love is rarely the motivating reason for marriage, and Stephanie Coontz’s article, “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love,” discusses this. Coontz brings forth a lot of information and many examples to inform the reader of how the western idea of marriage isn’t really as common as we believe that it is. She starts her article with a quote from George Bernard Shaw, who says that people who marry for love are, “under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions…” Many of the cultures that Coontz goes onto talk about later in the article share this viewpoint. The author writes about the history of marriage and touches on societies that have obscure views of it now. She does a great job of organizing the information into a timeline starting with marriage in the ancient times, love in African tribes, adultery throughout history, monogamy, and marriage now in Western society. Most of Western society bases getting married on the idea of “love until death.” Coontz argues that this Western invention is and has often been seen as radical. First of all, Coontz begins her article by focusing on Ancient societies such as Ancient Greek and France during the Middle Ages, and how they shared the belief that marrying for love was a symptom of insanity. Falling in love in ancient India was viewed as being disruptive. She goes on to talk about how adultery was idealized in Europe, often being seen as the highest form of affection

Get Access