The Nature of Relationships in the Modern World

Introduction Intimate relationships have changed in contemporary Britain for a variety of social and economic reasons. In the past, marriage made economic sense for both men and women.

Today, however, with a combination of social factors from the sexual revolution of the 1960s to the Women’s Movement of the 1970s (which helped women to establish themselves independently of men) to the advent of contraception (liberating sex from procreation) to the proliferation of pornography (thanks to liberal ideals and technological advancements like the Internet), the idea of matrimony as an expression of economic dependence has diminished while the concepts of monogamy, virginity having value, and sex being linked to marriage, family and community have by and large given way to more liberalized concepts in which intimacy is linked with pleasure and self-satisfaction without social, economic or personal responsibilities necessarily being part of that equation.

The rise of the idea of romantic love in modern society has led to the pursuit of intimacy in relationships outside of marriage and in different forms than what has typically been traditionally accepted in society. As the rate of marriage has declined over the past century and the rate of divorce has risen, it can be surmised that the nature of society and its attitudes towards intimate relationships have substantially changed to effect this long-term trend.

There is now more diversity and variation in intimate relationships than in centuries past. This paper will analyze the theories and concepts of Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim, Zygmunt Bauman and Eva Illouz to provide some ideas on why intimate relationships have changed and explain which theories are most useful and why. Anthony Giddens Giddens’ (1992) view on intimacy is that the impact of modernity on the self and one’s sense of identity has led to a transformation in how intimate relationships are formed.

Depending on how an individual constructs his or her identity, sex, relationships, marriage, children, self-fulfillment, and society will all have a value, which is informed by the effects of modernity on the individual’s sense of identity. Giddens notes that in post-traditional societies, the self is more than social interactions: the self represents a psychological construct develop to produce psychological security for the individual in the face of declining traditional social structures.

In a risk society, the old world customs and institutions (such as the family and marriage) have been deconstructed and the idea of the autonomous, independent, self-serving self has been elevated. In this sense, self-identity is reflexive and is constantly monitoring the highly fluid and dynamic society in which it finds itself.

The self realizes that the current trends in social practice will determine future life outcomes; the self sees that with divorce rates rising and marriage rates falling, the expectation of the self to marry another is reduced: there is less social pressure to do so.

As a result of this constant self-monitoring of relationships, the aspirations of the self with respect to intimacy alter and transform: the self indulges in self-help literature to try to understand the point or aim of intimacy, seeking answers to questions, such as, “Is intimacy supposed to satisfy a desire within me?” or, “Is there another purpose to intimacy than what I am gleaning from my self-monitoring of society and shifting cultural values?” Giddens (1992) provides the example of the “rule book, drawn up in a self-help manual aimed at helping women to develop more satisfying heterosexual relationships” as an indicator of the problematic approaches to intimacy that the safe faces in the modern era (p.

192). Through this process of self-monitoring, a variety of relationship forms are constructed, each of them representing a variation of self-actualization—i.e., identity construction that is self-made. The first form that Giddens examines the so-called “pure relationship” which is based on the concept of sexual and emotional equality within the relationship; intimacy provides mutual satisfaction for both partners and the union exists purely and simply for its own sake—i.e., there are no commitments, expectations, vows, matrimonial bans, etc.

Either person is free to end the relationship at any moment should it cease to be satisfying.

The “pure relationship” thus stands in direct contrast to the traditional concept of marriage and the expectation of “till death do us part.” Giddens also examines the “plastic sexuality” form of relationships, in which sexual liberation is increased, sex is linked solely to pleasure and has no connection to reproduction (an outcome of the sexual revolution), and represents the self that is completely centered on the self (self-satisfaction).

Then there is the “confluent love” relationship, which is active and, while contingent, distinct from the ideal of romantic love; it is inherently unstable because of a tension within the relationship between a desire for commitment and a desire for autonomy; and the main outcome is typically divorce. Giddens finally examines the democratization of intimacy, which has resulted in the sexually autonomous female (the result of a severed connection between sex and reproduction) and the flourishing of homosexuality among both men and women.

These four forms of relationships coupled with Giddens’ sense of the self as arbiter of what intimacy means and what it should produce suggest that while there is variance among intimate relationships as an effect of modernity, overall modern relationships are remarkably similar in that they are generally disconnected from the notion of sexual love being primarily a conduit for procreation/reproduction, and intimacy between a man and a woman being a foundation for family, which in turn acts as the building block of community and society.

Instead, the self in the modern culture seeks self-fulfillment through intimacy and neglects or dismisses any sense of duty or obligation to society to commit to a single stable relationship, reproduce with a partner, and raise families so that society may continue on into the future.

In other words, the self-serving nature of intimacy in the modern era may actually undermine society’s long-term health and ability to survive in the coming generations Ulrich Beck and Elizatbeth Beck-Gernsheim The theory of Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995) is that a zeitgeist of individualism has turned the once relatively stable concept of intimacy into a chaotic one where there is endless choice when seeking to develop intimate relations—yet no guarantee of longevity, as every option is accompanied by its own set of insecurities in a risk society where “love” is “subject to recall” at any time.

While Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995) state that “a kind of universal Zeitgeist has seized hold of people, urging them to do their own thing, and its influence goes just as far as their ability to move heaven and earth, to blend their hopes with the reality around them” (p. 3), they also recognize that the Zeitgeist itself is but a response to a previous movement within society that compelled men and women to divorce—and the word they use to describe this movement is “individualization” (p. 4).

Individualization stems from multiple sources: it is the result of changing values emanating from women’s employment, the rise in divorce rates, the decline of marriage rates, the new and accepted ways of living together (cohabitation) which used to be looked down upon by society, and the instability associated with intimate relationships today—the idea that relationships are personal rather than social, whereas traditionally marriage was viewed as a social institution: two people made a promise before their community that they would commit to one another and thus ensure that their community last into the future through the begetting of children.

Beck and Beck-Gernsheim describe a paradoxical state: today’s risk society—where individuals seek relationships in order to feel less isolated and insecure though, at the same time, the relationships they seek are unstable and conflicted because of the inherent tension between being free to leave (as divorce is accepted) and being compelled to commit (as a promise was made or is, perhaps, desired at some point). This paradoxical state leads to frustration and sterility within the modern relationship.

Had divorce never become an accepted norm (prior to Henry VIII’s example, pre-Reformation Europe had never sanctioned divorce and had only rarely granted annulments), it is very likely that the concept of individualization would not have become such a major force in the modern era.

As marriage promotes the concept of otherness and divorce promotes the concept of individualization, it is not surprising that the sanctioning of divorce by the post-Reformation modern world has resulted in the rise of individualization and the paradoxical, schizophrenic nature of intimate relationships today. With this in mind, the theory of Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995) is very helpful in understanding relationships as they exist in today’s risk society.

Zygmunt Bauman Bauman’s (2003) view on intimacy is similar to that of Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s (1995) in that it identifies individualization as a concept that makes relationships problematic.

Bauman (2003) also adds to the theory by incorporating a consumerist lens into it and showing that postmodern society is a consumer society wherein relationships resemble shopping: love and sex are like commodities that are there to be purchased and consumed for a time until, just as one purchases a new car when the old breaks down, a new relationship is taken up to replace the old. Other people are viewed as items to be possessed or consumed—as though they were goods providing a service and nothing more.

This approach to intimacy is based on the combination of desire and fantasy; in it, commitment is out of fashion (no one wears that style of intimacy anymore) and relationships are disposable. Bauman (2003) focuses on the frailty of human bonds and states that “if found faulty or not ‘fully satisfied’, goods may be exchanged for other, hopefully more satisfying commodities…” (p. 13). The end result of this type of approach to intimacy is that love between people becomes depersonalized, dehumanized, and disconnected.

The ultimate outcome is one wherein communities completely break down because the most basic bond between two people—the bond that allows them to become a mother and father, husband and wife, “two in one flesh”—is reduced to nothing. In other words, a culture that is completely materialistic and narcissistic will reject matrimony and monogamy as the only authentic form of intimacy—and the end result will be the decay of civilization.

Bauman’s (2003) is very useful in showing why modern relationships tend to be stagnant: they are engendered by individuals who are materialistic and self-seeking. Eva Illouz The theory of Illouz (1997, 2007, 2012) is that intimate relationships in the modern era are the result of the sentimentalizing of the emotional life. Instead of relying on feelings traditionally required to idealize another person, moderns form their knowledge of one another based on attributes—superficial readings that are quantitative rather than qualitative.

People thus approach one another like calculating machines, computing the price-cost ratios and compatibility likeliness of developing intimate relationships with others. Though the romantic ideal has also led to individualization, this was not a necessity and one positive aspect of romantic love was the idea that the lover could idealize the partner and use the imagination to see the other in higher terms than what may have been presented on the surface.

Illouz’s theory is that the so-called Internet Imagination has destroyed the ability of people in the modern era to idealize another, which makes an emotionally satisfying relationship impossible. Moreover, the social and economic changes of modern society “helped transform the meanings of love, as it became progressively incorporated within the emerging mass-market and mass-media culture” (Illouz, 1997, p. 28).

Illouz (2012) also notes that Freudian culture is responsible for giving modern society the impression that romantic love is ultimately self-defeating and always ends in misery—a notion that reinforces the dejected trajectory of intimacy in the modern era (if marriage rates and divorce rates are to be a gauge). The solution of the modern—or, rather, the antidote to this misery—is the application of sentimentality to intimacy: sentimental love replaces romantic love and thus makes the commoditization of love more palatable (Illouz, 2007).

This theory is extremely helpful in showing why sentimentality is so prolifically expressed in popular media: it represents the new zeitgeist of culture with.