Research Catalog

Title

Age-dissimilar couples and romantic relationships : ageless love? / Lara McKenzie.

Author

McKenzie, Lara, 1985-

Publication

Houndmills, Basingstoke Hampshire ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

ix, 209 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

In recent years, there has been a widespread fascination with age-dissimilar, heterosexual romantic relationships. This interest is not new - these types of couples have been featured in Western media for decades, even centuries - yet qualitative research into such relationships has been limited. This book examines how the romantic relationships of age-dissimilar couples are understood. Based on a range of interviews, McKenzie argues that historical shifts toward greater personal autonomy in partner selection, within relationships, and in marriage and relationship dissolution have been greatly overstated. Through her focus on age-dissimilar couples, whose increasing prevalence have often been seen to be part of this shift, she suggests that these relationships are an avenue through which shared cultural understandings of relatedness, as well as individualism, might be further analysed. McKenzie argues for an approach that emphasises cultural continuity, and which accounts for complexity and contradiction in how age-dissimilar relationships and romantic love are understood. Examining key issues of kinship, ageing and emotion, Age-Dissimilar Couples and Romantic Relationships will appeal to scholars of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Family Studies and Sociology.

Series Statement

Palgrave Macmillan studies in family and intimate life

Uniform Title

Palgrave Macmillan studies in family and intimate life.

Subject

• Couples > Australia > Psychology
• Age groups > Australia
• Courtship > Australia
• Mate selection > Australia
• Interpersonal relations > Australia
• Man-woman relationships > Australia
• Age groups
• Couples > Psychology
• Courtship
• Interpersonal relations
• Man-woman relationships
• Mate selection
• Age groups: adults
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Cultural Policy
• Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography
• Social & cultural anthropology
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture
• Society
• Sociology
• Sociology: customs & traditions
• Sociology: family & relationships
• Australia

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• 1. Researching Age-Dissimilar, Romantic Couples: Trends, Concepts, and Methods -- Researching age-dissimilar relationships -- Trends in age-dissimilar relationships -- Conceptualising age-dissimilar relationships -- Conceptualising romantic love -- Contradiction, change, and cultural themes and understandings -- Autonomy and relatedness -- Methodology -- Methodological considerations: conducting interviews -- 2. Love through the Ages: Theorising and Historicising the Contradictions of Romantic and Age-Dissimilar Couples -- Towards a r̀omantic love ethic': changes to love, marriage, and the family -- Theoretical and conceptual approaches to age-dissimilar relationships -- Theorising autonomy and relatedness in age-dissimilar, romantic relationships -- 3."T̀hey're Just a Child': Uncovering the Boundaries of a Normative Relationship through Dialogue on Media Depictions of Age-Dissimilar Couples -- Why focus on dialogue? -- Media depictions of age-dissimilar couples --^
• How did participants talk about age-dissimilar relationships? -- What makes a normative, age-dissimilar relationship? -- Connections between the normative and the romantic -- 4. Àge Is Just a Number': How Couples Challenged Chronological Age and Minimised Their Age Differences -- The relationship or partner as unique or similar to others -- Defining age: non-chronological conceptions of age -- Defining age: theorising individual uniqueness -- Defining age: conceptualising chronological and non-chronological age -- Old age and decreased fertility: problems for non-chronological age? -- The contradictions of age in relation to others -- 5. Free to Be Fated: Similarity, Compatibility, and Choice or Blind, Fated Love in Couple Formation -- Colin's list -- Who a relationship is with: similarity and compatibility -- Who a relationship is with: blind love -- Why a relationship is formed: free choice -- Why a relationship is formed: fated love --^
• Resolving contradictory understandings of couple formation -- 6. Equal and Autonomous? Couples' Gendered Differences and Power Relations -- Age (in)equality: Juliette's age-dissimilar relationships -- Conceptualising power relations, equality, and autonomy -- An unequal relationship? Power relations in male-older relationships -- An autonomous ideal? Power relations in female-older relationships -- Power relations in male-older relationships with additional social differences -- Equality or inequality in partners' power relations? -- 7. Conclusion: The Synthesis of Autonomy and Relatedness in Age-Dissimilar Couplings -- The limitations of previous research -- The possibilities of my approach: themes and understandings -- Contextualising the cultural themes of autonomy and relatedness.

ISBN

• 9781137446763
• 1137446765

LCCN

^^2014050086

OCLC

• 895728268
• SCSB-12614524

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library