Can Love get some love?

Laura Kipnis' article “Against Love: A Treatise on the Tyranny of Two” challenges the American social acceptance of monogamous relationships. She compares the confines of those seemingly chosen relationships to those of other enforced social institutions like prisons and asylums. She argues that there is evidence all around us that suggests that a committed relationship to one person for eternity (in the case of marriage) or for an extended period of time is quite unrealistic. For example she uses the fifty percent divorce rate in America, amongst other data, as evidence of this.
A major strength of this article is Kipnis’ comparisons of monogamous relationships today to monogamous relationships over the course of history and to other social institutions. Kipnis begins by analyzing the Greeks and their beliefs about love. She reveals that the Greeks believed that love and passion was synonymous to pain. According to Kipnis, the Greeks strongly believed that love was meant to be a short lived experience, so much that they turned to the 12th century book, “De Amore et Amor is Remedio” (that translates into On Love an the Remedies of Love) to help them navigate the tricky and painful path that love leads one down (Kipnis, 332). She goes onto challenge the idea that love is a happy experience and that it can continue to be so over an eternity. She points out that before industrialization the family unit was mostly an economic structure as opposed to one where there was a presence of what she calls “happy love” (Kipnis, 332). Marriages were business arrangements at that time because the larger the family the more work that could be done by children and adults in the largely agricultural communities of that time. Kipnis argues that it was not until the 18th century that language that described happy love came into existence. Kippins’ turns to historian Michael Foccult to reify her conclusion of love as a social institutional comparable to prisons, factories, schools and more. Foucault argues that “modern power made its mark on the world by inventing new types of of enclosures…” (Kippins, 336). Kippins asserts that monogamous relationships with their restrictions on both individuals’ time and freedom counts as one of those man made institutions.
A major weakness of this article is Kipnis’ exaggerations of potentially negative aspects of monogamous relationships. She bases her conclusions about monogamous relationships on her research of various couples across all demographics. However, her data still seems exaggerated and generalized. Every couple has their own set of rules of acceptable conduct. In her findings there seems to be an assumption of certain rules for all couples. She discounts the diversity that now exists in modern monogamous relationships.
This article illustrates the ability of society to socially control our behavior. Social control is the ability of social mechanisms to regulate individual and group behavior by using rewards and punishments. This social control is best seen in the structure of monogamous relationships. One example of this social control lies in what Kipnis’ calls “opening up” (Kipins, 335). In this expected behavior in relationships both parties reveal their deeper selves to one another after a period of time. This implies that people are hiding parts of themselves and only their lover has the ability to help them reveal that inner self to their self and to others. According to this notion if you do not engage in these meaningful, monogamous relationships you will not be able to access your deeper self. In the second example of how we are socially controlled by monogamous relationships Kipins suggests that adulterers are “home grown social theorists because adultery is not just a referendum on the sustainability of monogamy; it is a veiled philosophical discussion about the social contract itself” (Kipins, 334). According to Kipins adulterers are proof that the renunciation of desire is much more than the amount of gratification in relationships; therefore some people cheat.
I found the Kipins’ challenge of such a traditional institution very interesting. I had never though of love or relationships as a social institution but after the evidence presented I realize that in many ways it is and the real interesting part is that we engage in these relationships by choice.