Marriage and Love in England
by Alan Macfarlane.
Max Weber observed long ago that ‘being one of the strongest non-rational factors in human life’, sexual drives are ‘one of the strongest potential menaces to the individual’s rational pursuit of economic ends’. (8) Yet, by a subtle shift, love and sex were domesticated, the force was channelled, and it became one of the central dynamic elements in the capitalist system. Weber saw that as societies became more bureaucratic and ‘rational’, so at the heart of such systems grew an impulsive, irrational and non capitalistic emotion at the level of the individual. Just as he had caught the paradox of otherworldly mysticism leading to capitalistic accumulation, Weber hints at the way in which love marriage lies at the heart of rational capitalism.
https://www.alanmacfarlane.com/FILES/MARRIAGE.HTML [downloaded PDFs below]
I THE MALTHUSIAN MARRIAGE SYSTEM
II THE VALUE OF CHILDREN
III THE PURPOSES OF MARRIAGE
IV THE RULES OF MARRIAGE
V CONCLUSIONS
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chapter1