Love and Romantic Relationships

Social Scripts

Social script: A commonly understood pattern of interaction that serves as a model of behavior in familiar situations.
Social scripts reassure people that their behavior is understandable and acceptable to others, without having to invent every situation from scratch.
The absence of scripts can be extremely disorientating and confusing.
Scripts still exist, but they are becoming less clear as starting and building relationships becomes more diverse.

The demise of the dating system as the dominant mode of relationship formation.
The increasing acceptance of living together as a common stage in relationships.
The incorporation of divorced and older singles (many with children) into the mix of those looking for new relationships.
The continual adaptation of communication technology to relationship dynamics, increasing the immediacy of interaction.

Humans probably evolved the capacity for love as a means of survival early in our development.
Love: A deep affection and concern for another, with whom one feels a strong emotional bond.
Romantic love: The passionate devotion and attraction one person feels for another.

According to sociologist Ann Swidler, the modern version of romantic love is a “mythical” ideal characterized by the following traits:
- Unambiguous and clear; unique; permanent
Individuals seek both to prove and to demonstrate their true character by overcoming obstacles in the quest for love.
The modern structure of marriage reinforces the ideal because adults, often at a young age, expect to make a single, fateful choice to marry the one person who will be their partner in loving harmony forever.
The expectation that spouses would actually love each other is a modern ideal.

The negotiation and communication in modern relationships may not be as romantic, it’s a new kind of love.
Utilitarian love: The practical, rational dedication of one person to another based on shared understanding and emotional commitment.
This kind of love drives people to consider the pros and cons of different partners and to look within themselves and to identify what they really want from a relationship.
It parallels the growth of rational science replacing irrational religion as a way of explaining the world and the spread of democracy replacing monarchy.

Romantic relationships: Mutually acknowledged, ongoing interactions featuring heightened affection and intensity.
Although romantic relationships need not be sexual, they usually include at least anticipated sexual interaction.
This definition can’t be any more precise because modern relationships often have no fixed beginning or end, and they may not even be called the same thing by their participants.

Mate selection: The process by which people choose each other for sexual or romantic relationships.
Understanding mate selection is critical for explaining the way families influence society through:
- Inequality
- Inclusion vs. exclusion
- Family dynamics

Dating was so accepted by the middle class that a 1956 survey showed women entering college went on an average of about 12 dates per month with an average of about five different men.
Dating came to be seen as the “traditional” and formal path to marriage.
Now: “date” is still a single event, and “dating” is a more stable romantic relationship, but the language is less formal than it was.

Sociologist Lisa Wade: U.S. students live in a “hookup culture”—a social environment that affects them whether they engage in hookups themselves or not.
Hooking up: a casual sexual or romantic encounter without explicit commitment or exclusivity
College students who participate in hookup culture are just as likely as those who don’t to imagine themselves in a committed relationship in the future.
Dating vs hooking difference is expectation of sexual contact at the first encounter.
Hookup participants often then work to establish that the interaction was “meaningless” and happened because of intoxication.

A beauty characteristic may be common, but that doesn’t mean the attraction to it has evolved biologically.
There are differences in what is considered attractive across time and place.
Many of the traits considered attractive in modern Western societies bear no connection to health or reproductive fitness.
In some cases, what is deemed attractive is so unhealthy that it seems implausible evolution would drive human attraction toward it.

Example: High-heeled shoes change a woman’s posture to accentuate the movement of her pelvis, hips, and abdomen, thus calling attention to her waist-to-hip ratio.
High heels also undermine the basic functions of the foot’s arch, causing all kinds of damage to the woman’s body.
Socialization: High heels help establish the difference between men and women in the minds of children and reinforce it at all ages.
Symbolic interaction: High heels help women “do gender”.
Feminism: High heels don’t just accentuate the hips; they make women less powerful physically, which many men find attractive.

Pandemic-related decline in injuries related to women wearing high-heeled shoes:
Analysis of U.S. data for 2016-2020 PN Cohen Social Determinants of Health, Vol. 8 (2022) https://doi.org/10.22037/sdh.v8i1.37227

Homophily: The principle by which similar people have more of a given kind of contact than dissimilar people.
- In patterns of casual contact, friendship, and worker collaboration as well as romantic relationships.

Endogamy: Marriage or reproduction within a distinct group (The opposite is exogamy)
Race and ethnicity is the most obvious case
But endogamy has been practiced in all societies along the most important dividing lines of the day.
The ideal of utilitarian love often reinforces endogamy.