Has Marriage for Love Failed?

by Pascal Bruckner

Today we like to think that marriage is a free choice based on love: that we freely choose whom to marry and that we do so, not so much for survival or social advantage, but for love. The invention of marriage for love inverted the old relationship between love and marriage. In the past, marriage was sacred, and love, if it existed at all, was a consequence of marriage; today, love is sacred and marriage is secondary. But now marriage appears to be becoming increasingly superfluous. For the past forty years or so, the number of weddings has been declining, the number of divorces exploding and the number of unmarried individuals and couples growing, while single-parent families are becoming more numerous. Love has triumphed over marriage but now it is destroying it from inside. So has the ideal of marriage for love failed, and has love finally been liberated from the shackles of marriage? In this brilliant and provocative book Pascal Bruckner argues that the old tension between love and marriage has not been resolved in favour of love, it has simply been displaced onto other levels. Even if it seems more straightforward, the contemporary landscape of love is far from euphoric: as in the past, infidelity, loss and betrayal are central to the plots of modern love, and the disenchantment is all the greater because marriages are voluntary and not imposed. But the collapse of the ideal of marriage for love is not necessarily a cause for remorse, because it demonstrates that love retains its subversive power. Love is not a glue to be put in the service of the institution of marriage: it is an explosive that blows up in our faces, dynamite pure and simple.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays

96 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2010

About the author

Pascal Bruckner est un romancier et essayiste français, d'origine suisse protestante, né à Paris le 15 décembre 1948. Après des études au Lycée Henri IV à Paris, à l'université de Paris I et de Paris VII, et à l'Ecole pratique des hautes études, Pascal Bruckner devient professeur invité à l'Université d'Etat de San Diego en Californie et à la New York University de 1986 à 1995. Maître de conférences à l'Institut d'études politiques de Paris de 1990 à 1994, il collabore également au Monde et au Nouvel Observateur. Romancier prolifique, on lui doit Lunes de fiel - adapté à l'écran par Roman Polanski - Les Voleurs de beauté - prix Renaudot en 1997 - et plus récemment L'Amour du prochain (2005).

Pascal Bruckner is a French writer, one of the "New Philosophers" who came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of his work has been devoted to critiques of French society and culture. He is the author of many books including The Tyranny of Guilt, Perpetual Euphoria and The Paradox of Love. He writes regularly for Le Nouvel Observateur.

Reviews

[Takisx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ωραιότατο δοκίμιο για πράγματα που σκέφτονται ολοι, αλλά δεν τολμούν να ομολογησουν, τουλάχιστον για όσους ζουν για χρόνια με τον ίδιο σύντροφο. Για τους υπόλοιπους, που δεν εχουν σύντροφο η δεν μπορούν να τον αποκτήσουν, ας παρηγορηθουν με τα βιβλία και τις ξένες ζωές. Ζωή ειναι άλλωστε, θα περάσει, αλλά τουλάχιστον ας ελπίσουμε να μην μας προσπεράσει 😉

[Lola D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Nos couples ne meurent pas d'égoïsme ou de matérialisme, ils meurent d'un héroïsme fatal, d'une trop vaste idée d'eux-mêmes. Ils s'écorchent à cette vision grandiose comme des prisonniers aux pointes des fils de fer barbelé."

"Terrible absurdité : le couple est devenu plus difficile à vivre depuis qu'il n'a retenu de tous ses rôles que le modèle de l'épanouissement. Parce qu'il veut réussir à tout prix, il se consume d'anxiété, redoute la loi de l'entropie, l'aridité des heures mortes. La moindre chute de tension est vécue comme un fiasco, un désaveu. L'adoration est mise à l'épreuve de sa propre défaite à mesure qu'elle se réalise, c'est-à-dire se normalise."

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hah, I used to be impressed by Bruckner's edgelordiness and faux wisdom (surprise, it was just boundless cynicism all along!) when I was 18 and I read Bitter Moon and Les voleurs de beauté and. They. Were. So. Edgy.

I read this particular essay after putting it off for a while, because I'm going to write something bigger about it, that hopefully will become a YT video.

Anyway, this essay comes to you from a very privileged point of view. Monsieur Bruckner, in the span of 160 teeny tiny pages, manages to be sexist, homophobic, classist, islamophobic - all of the phobias basically. Sure, he includes some feminist ideas. And sure, he mentions gay marriage (in a chapter near the end of the book), but he lacks any sort of nuance of issues and so doesn't manage to say anything that's super interesting. He conflates love and passion for most of this book. He fails to give a meaningful definition of love (I mean, we are talking about marriage based on love here). He dismisses polyamory in like 1 paragraph and conflates it with polygamy in another paragraph.

There are a couple of things that make sense to me, but they're hardly revolutionary. One is: don't idealize love and put it on a pedestal, which, fair enough. And two: don't base marriage on passion. Which, duh!

Anyway, glad this is over with. I can go back to reading things that I actually like.

[Μαρία · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Στις εποχές της λογοκρισίας των ηθών πρέπει να υπερασπιζόμαστε το δικαίωμα στην επιθυμία, στις εποχές της "επιτρεπτικότητας" πρέπει να υπερασπιζόμαστε την αρχή της ευγένειας και της ευπρέπειας. Εφόσον η κοινωνία έπαψε να μας περιορίζει, αλλά επιμένει να μας χειρίζεται, ο καθένας μας πρέπει να τοποθετήσει τους κανόνες του...να συγχωρούμε τις αδυναμίες των άλλων και να μην πληγώνουμε εκείνους που αγαπάμε."

[Roxana Sabau · Rating 2 out of 5]

O să încerc să trec peste faptul că Pascal Bruckner ar face combustie spontană dacă ar scrie o carte în care să nu menționeze, măcar în treacăt, islamul radical.

Cartea e mai degrabă un eseu, o sumă de considerații personale ale autorului despre subiectul din titlu.
Mi-a plăcut primul capitol, mi-a plăcut scurta istorie a conceptului de virginitate și importanța pe care i-o conferim în societate.
Sunt de acord cu critica felului în care consumerismul a transformat iubirea într-un produs. Atunci când produsul nu corespunde în totalitate standardelor noastre nerealiste, primul impuls este să-l înlocuim. Dar subiectul nu este explorat suficient. Repet, este mai degrabă un eseu, nu un volum de sine stătător.

Dacă ar fi să recomand un autor care scrie (bine și amplu) despre relații, ar fi Alain de Botton. Din păcate, nu prea rezonez cu cinismul lui Bruckner, aciditatea lui, eterna dorință de a părea blazat.

[Haymone Neto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algumas provocações, talvez um pouco conservadoras demais para meu gosto, mas sempre inteligentes, a respeito da instituição do casamento. Leitura rápida e simples, e está de graça no kindle unlimited.

[Kumar K · Rating 1 out of 5]

OK, I am a science major, and I picked this book up in order to take a look at current information, even if it is philosophical, on marriages and why there's so much divorce in societies that seem to put so much emphasis on love. What I got was a mish-mash of buzz-words that seem to not only be incomprehensible for the common reader (even if you do look up their definitions) but also assume the reader is in the author's head already. I know this was written for the French, and I am an English-speaker, but if this book wants me to take it seriously, it should have stated clear stories/metaphors and went with them, or it should have had at least SOME semblance of structure, which it does not. If you want a scientific and/or philosophical look at marriage and what makes it work and why there's so much divorce, I'd say skip this little book.

[The Bookshop Umina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quirky little book/essay looking at the history of marriage, sex and divorce.

[Daniela Ducaru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iubirea,iata darul divin,comoara infinita care stabileste echilibrul dintre toti oameni.

[Christina Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting little essay on how modern western "liberated" love is undermined by the consumerist desire for perfect, passionate love all the time (leading to divorce) and by the undervaluation of other, soberer, more "rational" kinds of love and attachment, including quiet friendship and economic partnership. Thoughtful and not moralistic.