Annotated Bibliography: Romantic Love And Anthropology
Romantic Love and Anthropology
Author(s): Charles Lindholm
Source: Etnofoor, Vol. 19, No. 1, ROMANTIC LOVE (2006), pp. 5-21
Published by: Stichting Etnofoor
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25758107 .
Accessed: 17/10/2014 16:30
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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Stichting …show more content…
For
example, consider Hawa, theAfrican bar girl (ashawo), whose adventurous transna tional sexual lifehas been documented by JohnChernoff.While herjoie de vivre and ability to adapt to adverse circumstances is admirable, the truth is that she lives in a world where a singlewoman 's survival often requires submitting to the sadistic sexual
fantasies of the rich and powerful; Hawa 's life, devoid of illusion, is also devoid of options and almost devoid of hope. As she says, 'There is not any girlwho will wake up as a young girl and say, "As forme, when I grow up I want to be an ashawc>"
(ChernofF2003:203).
Perhaps, then, romantic idealization ought not be summarily dismissed as a delu sion propagated by themovies and propelled by commerce. Instead, I am going to argue that it ismore complex, and more interesting: it is a form of the sacred that is neither universal, nor unique to theWest, but instead is characteristic of certain kinds of social formations, (for earlier versions ofmy analysis, see Lindholm 1998a, 1998b,
1995, and 1988). If this is so, then romantic lovemay not be so easily done away with; and if it is on thewane, then its disappearance will not be without consequences. …show more content…
For them, romantic love is culturally constructed, though itmay be based on some more fundamental human impulses. Those most influenced by sociobiology, in con
trast,believe romantic lovemust necessarily appear in all human societies, and search for itbeneath thewelter of cultural variation.
My own sympathies are with the formerposition. I believe that the sociobiologi
10
This content downloaded from 128.194.155.67 on Fri, 17 Oct 2014 16:30:01 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
cal affirmation of the ubiquity of romantic love is unproven, and that the connection between love and sex isproblematic (as Iwill demonstrate below). I also believe that
Western civilization did not discover love. Other people, in other cultures, both now and in thepast, have also known thebittersweet pleasure and anguish of romance; the job of ethnography is to discover these cultures and outline the circumstances and trajectories of love in them. For example, a great body of literary evidence clearly demonstrates that the ideology and practice of romantic love was well developed, at least among the elite, inmany pre-modern non-Western complex societies, such
Author(s): Charles Lindholm
Source: Etnofoor, Vol. 19, No. 1, ROMANTIC LOVE (2006), pp. 5-21
Published by: Stichting Etnofoor
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25758107 .
Accessed: 17/10/2014 16:30
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp .
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Stichting …show more content…
For
example, consider Hawa, theAfrican bar girl (ashawo), whose adventurous transna tional sexual lifehas been documented by JohnChernoff.While herjoie de vivre and ability to adapt to adverse circumstances is admirable, the truth is that she lives in a world where a singlewoman 's survival often requires submitting to the sadistic sexual
fantasies of the rich and powerful; Hawa 's life, devoid of illusion, is also devoid of options and almost devoid of hope. As she says, 'There is not any girlwho will wake up as a young girl and say, "As forme, when I grow up I want to be an ashawc>"
(ChernofF2003:203).
Perhaps, then, romantic idealization ought not be summarily dismissed as a delu sion propagated by themovies and propelled by commerce. Instead, I am going to argue that it ismore complex, and more interesting: it is a form of the sacred that is neither universal, nor unique to theWest, but instead is characteristic of certain kinds of social formations, (for earlier versions ofmy analysis, see Lindholm 1998a, 1998b,
1995, and 1988). If this is so, then romantic lovemay not be so easily done away with; and if it is on thewane, then its disappearance will not be without consequences. …show more content…
For them, romantic love is culturally constructed, though itmay be based on some more fundamental human impulses. Those most influenced by sociobiology, in con
trast,believe romantic lovemust necessarily appear in all human societies, and search for itbeneath thewelter of cultural variation.
My own sympathies are with the formerposition. I believe that the sociobiologi
10
This content downloaded from 128.194.155.67 on Fri, 17 Oct 2014 16:30:01 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
cal affirmation of the ubiquity of romantic love is unproven, and that the connection between love and sex isproblematic (as Iwill demonstrate below). I also believe that
Western civilization did not discover love. Other people, in other cultures, both now and in thepast, have also known thebittersweet pleasure and anguish of romance; the job of ethnography is to discover these cultures and outline the circumstances and trajectories of love in them. For example, a great body of literary evidence clearly demonstrates that the ideology and practice of romantic love was well developed, at least among the elite, inmany pre-modern non-Western complex societies, such