Emotions, love, and sexuality in committed relationships

Abstract

Although emotions and sexuality are closely linked to marriage and other couple relationships, the sociology of family has historically been less concerned with these topics. In general, the study of emotions and of sexuality are two separate fields of research in European sociology. Therefore, this review will present their development separately. While the literature on committed relationships has privileged love, other emotions, such as jealousy and anger, have also been studied. We describe the debates over whether love is a universal or a culturally specific phenomenon, and show that the changes in sexuality within committed relationships began before the start of the so-called ‘sexual revolution’. Whereas diversity in sexuality used to be considered deviant, it has been largely normalised. In addition to reconstructing these cultural changes, this contribution shows how an era of liberated sexuality and established ethical sexual negotiation has shaped the sexual behaviour of couples.