Intimacy and the New Sentimental Order

Intimacy is at the heart of affective relations in western societies. This intimacy is characterized by a paradoxical tendency. On the one hand people hope for fusion (a ‘pure relationship’ in Giddens’s terms) and at the same time they are driven by individualism and the desire for self-actualization. Drawing on data from a Belgian survey conducted in 1998, we can see that fidelity and transparency in the love relationship are what is most important to people. This aspiration is more important to women than to men, but there is no difference according to the level of education. Contemporary love is contradictory. Divorces are very numerous and yet at the same time people aspire to romantic love, fusion and fidelity.