Modern Couples?

Continuity and Change in Heterosexual Relationships

Jenny van Hooff

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English

Routledge
08 January 2013

Society & culture: general

Have heterosexual relationships become more intimate and equal over the past forty years?

Simply put, this is the central question underpinning this book. Within the context of late modern social processes, including most notably individualization and detraditionalization, authors such as Giddens, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, and Bauman have come to focus on a posited transformation of personal relationships. This has culminated in a sociological debate over the nature of contemporary relationships, with proponents of change celebrating the emergence of an intimacy based on personal satisfaction rather than traditional obligations. Detractors reject this interpretation and instead lament what they consider to be the destruction of commitment and the demoralisation of personal relationships by the rise of individualism and consumerism. While these two entrenched positions have dominated the debate, a third, marginalised perspective has emerged, which questions the extent to which contemporary relationships have become detraditionalized, and emphasises evidence of continuing gender inequalities.

This book is essentially a qualitative empirical investigation of the changes and continuities posited within the debate, which evaluates existing work and details the findings of van Hooff's research into the relationships of two generations of heterosexual couples. It provides the reader with a grounded interpretation of the evidence, questioning to what extent lived reality has matched the rhetoric within contemporary relationships.

By: Jenny van Hooff
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781409439134
ISBN 10: 1409439135
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 08 January 2013
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Primary , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Contents: Locating the couple in sociological theory; Being committed: making the decision to embark on a long-term relationship; Money matters: work and finances; Justifying inequality: explaining the division of housework; Freed from the phallus? Sex in relationships; What’s love got to do with it? Doing intimacy; Buying into it: leisure, lifestyle and consumption; Conclusion; References; Index.

Jenny van Hooff is Lecturer in Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

Reviews for Modern Couples?: Continuity and Change in Heterosexual Relationships

'Modern Couples? provides a comprehensive and critical overview of theory in the field of heterosexual relationships which disrupts assumptions of the de-traditionalization and democratization of intimacy. The nuanced and fascinating research refuses to provide easy answers to how and why such relationships are simultaneously both continuing and changing and the interpretation of current debates is both timely and necessary.' Victoria Robinson, Sheffield University, UK