In our ideal world, love is a part of the equation, and Coontz open our eyes to how it has not always been this way. Even when we think of courtly love, we must realize that literature has romanticized it to a saccharin-sweet point. To be married and have it be considered quite normal to look outside that marriage for love and intimacy seems backwards. Coontz also points out that too much love between spouses was frowned upon in Greek and Roman societies as well as some Catholic and Protestants. Spouses who loved each other too much were committing "idolatry" (xxx). However, most cultures frowned upon placing love at the "center of marriage" (xxx). Love was not necessary and in best-case scenarios, love would eventually develop between husband and wife. Coontz's ability to trace this attitude toward love and marriage through the centuries, the age of Enlightenment...
Especially in America, where freedom and the pursuit of happiness are at the top of the list for personal rights, marriage for anything other than love seems self-destructive in the long run. However, this is radical in comparison to how marriage has functioned and survived in the past.
I found Coontz's essay to be informative and compelling. It demonstrates how thought changes over the years. Her argument seems more valid than Pahl's because she uses facts from history. She is not actually stating an opinion as much as she is expressing her concerns about the development of historical events. She is also presenting us with the possibility that these new and radical ideas concerning love and marriage could easily fail and vanish within the next century or two.
