Love and Marriage Aren’t What They Used to Be

Newswise — Americans' attitudes toward love and relationships have changed dramatically over the past 40 years, a shift that is manifested throughout popular culture in films, fiction and self-help books, according to "Modern Love: Romance, Intimacy and the Marriage Crisis," by Carnegie Mellon University English Professor David Shumway.

While the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s such as "The Philadelphia Story" and "It Happened One Night" were stories of romantic love that culminated in marriage, modern films like "Annie Hall" and "When Harry Met Sally" explore relationships that are beset with difficulties and do not always survive, let alone lead to marriage. The earlier films celebrated romance, while the modern pictures emphasize intimacy, which favors marriage but does not assume it is the norm. Shumway said this change reflects the diminishing role of marriage as a social institution. Divorce rates in the United States are high not because of a moral breakdown but because, thanks to gender equality, marriage is no longer an economic necessity, he said.

"With the divorce rate running around 50 percent, a lot of people have been divorced and don't regard it as unnatural, as something to be avoided at all costs," Shumway said.

Sex plays an important role in this transformation. Reflecting the social mores of the time, romantic comedies up until the 1960s implied that sex occurred only after marriage. Now, the culture takes for granted that many people have sex before marriage, and in modern relationship films, sex often is another obstacle that couples must overcome.

"These are all changes that have come about in the last 30 or 40 years, and obviously not everyone agrees with them," Shumway said.

Shumway's book also chronicles the portrayal of romance and intimacy in the print media, including fiction and advice books. The early 20th century witnessed an explosion of novels in the United States, and one of the most popular genres was historical romance. A common characteristic of these books was a love triangle that resolved itself with a marriage. But in the period following World War II, authors such as John Updike explored the conflicts of marriage, including infidelity, even as they affirmed its values. Books and films both reflect and reinforce popular notions of relationships, Shumway said.

"These media are among the most important ways that people see representations of love and marriage, especially love," Shumway said.

Shumway also is the author of "Michel Foucault" and "Creating American Civilization: A Genealogy of American Literature as an Academic Discipline," and is the co-editor of "Knowledges: Historical and Critical Studies in Disciplinarity." He currently is working on a book about rock and roll stars.