^Ve return to Louisiana more than a century later. In 1958, super­market entrepreneur John G. Schwegmann Jr. began dating, and bedding, sixteen-year-old Mary Ann Blackledge. They continued to have sexual relations when they started living together in May 1966. At that point, according to Blackledge, the middle-aged, twice di­vorced Schwegmann offered to “share everything” with […]

Within the social sciences, sociologists and anthropologists have taken the major responsibility for describing and explaining intimate relations. My analyses will frequently refer to anthropological stud­ies, but will draw especially on sociology. This appendix provides a brief overview of relevant discussions in economic sociology for those who have a special interest in the field. Sociologists […]

The following chapters draw extensively on American legal disputes. Scrutiny of such disputes shows, among other things, that relational work takes distinctive forms in the legal arena. The law, for example, defines spouses’ mutual rights and obligations somewhat differently from spouses’ own definitions of those relations. This book’s treat­ment of American law cases may, however, […]

How and why? It will take the rest of this book to answer that ques­tion adequately. But some preliminary answers deserve attention now. Over all of history, authorities have built their own templates of social relations and their boundaries into enforceable obligations and rights. Over most of history, however, valuation and compensa­tion have occurred in […]

Where does the connected lives perspective take us? Stated com­pactly, the argument pivots on three main points: [7] tions over appropriate transactions by type of relation draw on prevailing social relations outside the legal arena, but also influence how people deal with each other in rou­tine social life. 3. Hostile worlds ideas and practices emerge […]

In the broadest terms, people create connected lives by differentiat­ing their multiple social ties from each other, marking boundaries between those different ties by means of everyday practices, sus­taining those ties through joint activities (including economic activi­ties), but constantly negotiating the exact content of important so­cial ties. In order to understand these complicated processes, we […]

If prevailing analyses of intimacy and economic activity get causes and effects wrong, but still point to problems real people face, how can we improve on the faulty arguments of separate spheres and hostile worlds? One possibility is that some simpler principle—eco­nomic, cultural, or political—actually explains what is going on; that is the nothing-but line […]

Take the special case of money. Many social critics concede that peasant households, craft workshops, and fishing villages inevitably mingled economic activity and intimate relations, but somehow escaped the curse of hostile worlds. Elshtain and others reserve their fears and condemnations for monetized social relations, which they see as invading intimate spheres as markets expanded […]

Social critics and scholars have divided among three clusters of an­swers to these questions. A first group, the most numerous, have long proposed the twin ideas of “separate spheres and hostile worlds”: distinct arenas for economic activity and intimate relations, Table 1.1. Risky Dual Relationships for Practicing Psychologists Prime Professional Relationship Other Relationship Example Therapist/Counselor […]

Isn’t intimacy a good in itself, a bundle of warm emotions that pro­mote caring attention? Drawing a continuum from impersonal to intimate helps us avoid some common, morally tinged confusions in these regards: intimacy as emotion, intimacy as caring attention, intimacy as authenticity, and intimacy as an intrinsic good. Many analysts are tempted to define […]