Age-Dissimilar Couples and Romantic Relationships
Subtitle: Ageless Love?
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: May 15, 2015
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 218
ISBN-13: 9781137446763
Description: In recent years, there has been a widespread fascination with age-dissimilar, heterosexual romantic relationships. This interest is not new - these types of couples have been featured in Western media for decades, even centuries - yet qualitative research into such relationships has been limited. This book examines how the romantic relationships of age-dissimilar couples are understood. Based on a range of interviews, McKenzie argues that historical shifts toward greater personal autonomy in partner selection, within relationships, and in marriage and relationship dissolution have been greatly overstated. Through her focus on age-dissimilar couples, whose increasing prevalence have often been seen to be part of this shift, she suggests that these relationships are an avenue through which shared cultural understandings of relatedness, as well as individualism, might be further analysed. McKenzie argues for an approach that emphasises cultural continuity, and which accounts for complexity and contradiction in how age-dissimilar relationships and romantic love are understood. Examining key issues of kinship, ageing and emotion, Age-Dissimilar Couples and Romantic Relationships will appeal to scholars of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Family Studies and Sociology.
Notes: Source title: Age-Dissimilar Couples and Romantic Relationships: Ageless Love? (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)