The Detraditionalization of Intimacy Reconsidered

Abstract

This essay challenges those strains of contemporary social theory that regard romantic/ sexual intimacy as a premier site of detraditionalization in the late modern era. Striking changes have occurred in intimacy and family life over the last half-century, but the notion of detraditionalization as currently formulated does not capture them very well. With the goal of achieving a more refined understanding, the article proposes a distinction between “regulative” and “meaning-constitutive” traditions. The former involve threats of exclusion from various moral communities; the latter involve linguistic and cultural frameworks within which sense is made of the world. Focusing on the U.S. case and marshaling various kinds of empirical evidence, the article argues that while the regulative tradition of what it terms lifelong, internally stratified marriage has declined in strength in recent years, the image of the form of couplehood inscribed in this regulative tradition continues to function as a hegemonic ideal in many American intimate relationships. Intimacy in the United States also remains beholden to the tradition of romantic love. That these meaning-constitutive traditions continue to play a central role in structuring contemporary intimacy suggests that detraditionalization involves the relative decline only of certain regulative traditions, a point that calls into question some of the normative assessments that often accompany the detraditionalization thesis.

Living together in a sexually exclusive relationship: an enduring, pervasive ideal?

“…Individuals not subscribing to the traditional ideal constitute a heterogeneous minority, with diverse ideas about sexual behaviour and relationships that may in different instances resonate with feminist, queer theoretical, Giddensian, libertarian, or (some) 'traditional masculine' perspectives. However, while this minority mirrors contemporary lifestyle diversity, highlighting the decline of sexually exclusive co-residence as a regulative tradition (Gross, 2005), it is not apparently growing substantially, perhaps restricted by the resilience of certain normative ideas, e.g. regarding fidelity and parenting.…”

“…Gross (2005) suggests that the detraditionalisation of intimacy in the US has involved a greater decline in the power of 'regulative traditions' than in the role of 'meaning-constitutive traditions'. Similarly, neither changes in behaviour nor changes in the forms of behaviour perceived as legitimate necessarily indicate a radical change in the ideals shaping (most) British people's behaviour.…”

“…While subscription to this 'traditional' ideal varies substantially with age and other salient factors, it nevertheless remains prevalent virtually throughout the 'single' population. Furthermore, there was no marked change across the 1990s in this ideal's popular appeal, highlighting its continuing influence as a 'meaning-constitutive tradition ' (Gross, 2005). Relationship practices and ideals thus appear to have diverged, with the former changing more.…”

Entre la abnegación y la autonomía. Disposiciones de género en tensión en la experiencia de los vínculos amorosos heterosexuales

“…En este sentido, ya el mismo Max Weber (1972), al hilo de su teoría sobre el avance de la racionalización de las sociedades modernas, apuntó al amor erotizado como una de las "esferas de valores" que entran en competencia con la religión como fuente de sentido de la experiencia en un mundo crecientemente desencantado. Este argumento es recogido por otros autores que han analizado el amor en las sociedades contemporá-neas y que identifican en la vivencia subjetiva del mismo el acercamiento a lo sagrado que otros ám-bitos de las sociedades modernas secularizadas no pueden proporcionar (Beck y Beck-Gernsheim, 1998;Gross, 2005;Illouz, 2009) 6 . Esta construcción del sentido vital a través de la experiencia de los afectos amorosos y de las expectativas e ilusiones depositadas en él se hace más patente en la posición femenina, en la medida en que los modelos que enmarcan tal posición se construyen desde la primacía de los vínculos, por contraste con la autonomía que define el patrón hegemónico de masculinidad (García Selgas y Casado Aparicio, 2010: 122;Hernando, 2012).…”

The social context of ageing and intergenerational relationships in Chinese families

“…This is perhaps most obvious in Zhang's paper where she argues for bringing western sociological concepts such as practices of intimacy and displaying family into dialogue with Chinese concepts of xiao and mianzi, thus following in the footsteps of others who have suggested that Chinese concepts may have broader sociological purchase (e.g., Qi 2014). All the papers, however, address the larger debates on processes of individualization and detraditionalization and their contested consequences for intimate relationships, which have been the subject of much debate in both western and Asian contexts in recent decades (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002;Gross 2005;Heaphy 2007;Yan 2009;Chang and Song 2010;Jamieson 2011). All the papers indicate that it is unwise to think of these processes as either linear or universal.…”