Love...just another commodity?

In the last few months I've come across a couple of excellent books discussing Western culture and our beliefs/attitudes towards love.

While my brother was home from college break he left a book lying around the house entitled, "The Art Of Loving" by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. The book was written in 1956 and was interesting enough for me to pick up for my trip to Thailand. Additionally, just last week, Steven Levitt, author of Freakanomics, blogged about a new book from sociologist Andrew Cherlin called, "The Marriage Go-Round" which caught my attention.

Cherlin's research provides insight into the sociological factors that contribute to the startling fact that in America we have more marriages and remarriages, more divorces, and more short-term cohabiting relationships than any other western country.

According to Cherlin there are two conflicting ideals in American culture. First, marriage is considered as one of the great milestones in a young adult's life. A significant emphasis is placed on finding one's soul mate/partner. While America has a higher marriage rate than most countries, there is also the contrasting ideology of individualism. We tend to evaluate our marriages according to how personally fulfilling we find the relationship; that is, living a personally fulfilling life that allows us to grow and develop as individuals.

Fromm believes most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of love, of one's capacity to love. The problem arises, how to be loved, how to be lovable. Therefore, Fromm suggests that our capitalistic society influences our human relations in love; "A culture where material success is the outstanding value, there is little reason to be surprised that human love relations follow the same pattern". Instead of learning how to love, we become consumed with making ourselves desirable to the opposite sex.

Finally, most American's confuse the initial experience of 'falling in love' vs. the permanent state of being love, according to Fromm. Initial infatuation does not always translate into one's intensity of love for another. With relationships we always tend to move at an accelerated speed and Cherlin suggests that it's best just to slow down, what's the rush?