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Has Marriage for Love Failed?

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( 156 ratings, 10 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
In Has Marriage for Love Failed?, Pascal Bruckner explores the profound transformation of marriage from a social institution to a union primarily based on love. He examines how the traditional sacredness of marriage has inverted, with love now taking precedence but simultaneously undermining the institution. The book delves into the decline of weddings, rising divorce rates, and the increase of unmarried relationships, arguing that love's liberating power is both startling and destabilising. Bruckner provocatively suggests that love is not a binding glue for marriage but a powerful force with the potential to disrupt it entirely.
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Format: Hardback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for readers interested in parenting, family studies, sociology, and the cultural history of marriage. It will appeal to those curious about the shifting meanings of love and commitment in modern society and anyone seeking a philosophical perspective on contemporary relationships.

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In this brilliant and provocative book Pascal Bruckner argues that the old tension between love and marriage has not been resolved in favour of love, it has simply been displaced onto other levels. In the past, marriage was sacred, and love, if it existed at all, was a consequence of marriage; today, love is sacred and marriage is secondary.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Today, we like to think that marriage is a free choice based on love: that we freely choose whom to marry and that we do so, not so much for survival or social advantage, but for love. The invention of marriage for love inverted the old relationship between love and marriage. In the past, marriage was sacred, and love, if it existed at all, was a consequence of marriage; today, love is sacred and marriage is secondary.

But now marriage appears to be becoming increasingly superfluous. For the past forty years or so, the number of weddings has been declining, the number of divorces exploding and the number of unmarried individuals and couples growing, while single-parent families are becoming more numerous. Love has triumphed over marriage but now it is destroying it from inside. So has the ideal of marriage for love failed, and has love finally been liberated from the shackles of marriage?

In this brilliant and provocative book, Pascal Bruckner argues that the old tension between love and marriage has not been resolved in favour of love; it has simply been displaced onto other levels. Even if it seems more straightforward, the contemporary landscape of love is far from euphoric: as in the past, infidelity, loss, and betrayal are central to the plots of modern love, and the disenchantment is all the greater because marriages are voluntary and not imposed.

But the collapse of the ideal of marriage for love is not necessarily a cause for remorse, because it demonstrates that love retains its subversive power. Love is not a glue to be put in the service of the institution of marriage: it is an explosive that blows up in our faces, dynamite pure and simple.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Praised for its eloquence and thought-provoking insights, Has Marriage for Love Failed? has been acclaimed as a wise and paradox-rich meditation on the contemporary crisis of marriage. Reviewers highlight Bruckner's skillful analysis of the cultural history and challenges facing modern marriages, noting the book as a must-read for those interested in the evolving dynamics of love and partnership.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780745669786

Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 13 September 2013

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Polity Press

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 15.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 204g

Pages: 96

About the Author

Pascal Bruckner is the best-selling author of many books including The Tyranny of Guilt, Perpetual Euphoria and The Paradox of Love. He writes regularly for Le Nouvel Observateur.

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