The Crazy Thing Called Love Summary

The Crazy Thing Called Love In the article "The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love," Stephanie Coontz, a college level professor, makes the heavily-supported statement that only rarely in history has love been seen as the main reason for matrimony. In fact, she states that our widely known view on love did not develop until the 18th century. She gives examples of many varying culture's views from before that time, along with their stance on the relationship between love and marriage. Coontz heavily uses the cultures of Europe and the United States in her observations in order to prove her point that love was not always seen as marriage material. She recites the example of the Greeks, who thought that lovesickness was a sort of mental illness, an idea that was first adapted by medival Europe. She also gives states that during the Middle Ages the French belived that love was a mental illness that was only destined to be cured by having sex. The also brings this arguement close to home by using the example of the puritans, who believed that
Coontz goes back to ancient India, who saw love before marriage as more disruptive than productive. She later gives the more modern outlook of the Indian society, stating that Hinduism celebrates love within marriage, but they do not view it as a reason for getting married. She backs this statement up with a survey, created in 1975, reporting that only 18% of Indian college students truly believed in marriage based upon love. Coontz always look at the Chinese culture, who had the outlook of putting family first, due to the fact that you only have one family, but you can always find another spouse. Coontz went even farther on this idea, by stating that if the father-in-law of the bride were to sexually abuse her, the son would do nothing about it due to the fact that the connection between the husband and wife were less strong than that of the father and