The Radical Idea Of Marrying For Love Analysis

In the article” The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love “the author gives a global interpretation of what marrying for love means to different cultures. While Americans strive to focus on the love connection before marriage, the writer of the article Stephanie Coontz points out that other countries practice the total opposite. Although marriage is an institution that brings two people together, Coontz describes this as being “under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions” and are required to feel excited about each other every day for the rest of their lives until death do them apart. Coontz made sure to point out how other cultures viewed love and marriage and how they differ from one another. In societies like India and Kenya, arranged marriages are very common in their culture; it is good to develop love after marriage (Coontz). Love was being treated as a mind bending mental disease back in ancient times, and the cure for it was sex with a loved one or just a partner of choice, a quick way to rid the thoughts of bowing to love while moving on to more important things (Coontz). Coontz also explains that people choosing mates was inconceivable on the basis of something as fragile and irrational as love and then focus their
Coontz also explains that she didn’t believe that the people of the past had more control over their hearts than we do today or that they were incapable of deep love that so many people hope to achieve in a marriage