Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation

Introduction

Illouz, a sociologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote the book in English; it appeared first in German translation in 2011 (Warum Liebe weh tut) and in English in 2012. She sets out to do for love what Marx did for commodities: to show that it is shaped by concrete social relations and circulates in a market of unequal actors. Comparing courtship in Jane Austen’s novels with present-day dating, interviews and self-help literature, she argues that the old rules of choosing a partner have given way to “sexual fields” in which people compete, that many men can postpone commitment more easily than women, and that because recognition and self-worth now depend on love, rejection wounds the self. Against the psychological habit of tracing romantic misery to childhood, she treats it as a feature of modern institutions of choice.

Connections

Builds on

• Distinction1979 · Pierre Bourdieu