“This is not a plea for homespun ‘family values’ and virtues. ‘Family values’ discourse may
actually contribute to our cultural apathy about marriage by obscuring the more radical, startling,
and unsettling characteristics of monogamous marriage.” Courtship today: the view from academia. Concerns about the emergence of ‘a new grammar of intimacy’ and the societal, and academic, lack of interest in the study of ‘pathways to marriage’.

The dynamics of initiating and developing close, sexually based relationships are a major
preoccupation of close-relationship theory. Articles and monographs cover a very wide range of
topics: “falling in love,” romantic love, attachment patterns, “love styles,” interracial and
interethnic dating, physical attractiveness (body shape, health status, hair length, height, voice
intonation), age preferences, jealousy, love triangles, dating infidelity, fatal attractions,
family-of-origin influences, socioeconomic status, self-disclosure processes, topic avoidance,
deceit, nonverbal signals, the use of humor, coping with peer and parental criticism, relationship
dissolution, and romance grieving processes.

This complex body of theories probing a baffling array of topics might appear to resist general
commentary and review, but certain common themes do emerge: Marriage is knocked off its
pedestal, and its purpose of child-rearing gets short shrift. And the transcendent ideal of love is
replaced by the “love styles” of individual selves seeking sexual satisfaction in episodic
relationships. Courtship, rather than leading to marriage, becomes just one damn relationship
after another. The Public Interest [via Guardian weblog]