“The Conjugal Ideal” Between Personal Choice and Parental Vision

Abstract

Love is a theme at the center of everyday life, one we all experience regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or religion. It is interesting to observe how love is regarded as important by individuals and how we choose to focus all our resources - social, economic, and material - to attain it. For this reason, relationships have not truly changed, but rather the angle from which we come to perceive them has shifted - this being due to the factors to which society exposes us. Classic sociologists demonstrate that the social nature of our most intimate feelings and the way we rethink love are tied to broader social changes. Factors such as passion, stability, stereotypes, and social pressure influence the choice of a future partner in a society often labeled as open, but which, in the end, has merely replaced the rules of the game. Illouz (2003) explains how the concept of love has evolved in contemporary society under the influence of several factors, such as the rationalization of suffering, aspirations shaped by society, and the ways in which modernity has brought about cultural and economic changes that, in turn, have fostered a certain affinity for a specific type of partner. In this context, the present research aims to explore how young people in modern society choose their “ideal” partner in relation to the expectations of their parents and the fluid society. It also investigates the factors projected by society onto the individual, which contribute to the “choice of the ideal partner.”