Romantic Love in Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives

Abstract

This paper traces the debate in sociological and anthropological studies about romantic love. Romantic love has been analyzed by sociologists and anthropologists as social construct, as narrative about love ideal that relates to identity, self, intimacy, sexuality and unequal gender relations, and as lived experiences. The paper argues that love as ideal is not an essential emotion that naturally exists across space and time. Its meaning has also been inconsistent and altered in accordance with changing social structure and discursive production of the society. The paper also examines debates in romantic love in relation to power relation between women and men. On the one hand, romantic love is viewed by sociologists such as Anthony Giddens as liberating force that unleash women from the traditional world. On the other hand, feminists perceive romantic love as perilous trap that only move women from being wives and mothers in the traditional world to delusive world of freedom that never exists. The paper proposes an alternative way that combine together imaginary world and interpretative capability of women to understand the interactive aspect of narrative about romantic love. It suggests to view romance as a form of bricolage, a creative mixture of lived experience among women that move beyond the binary opposition between freedom and subordination.