AFFECTIVE INDIVIDUALISM

A change in family life, said to have accompanied the demographic, industrial and capitalist revolutions that occurred in 18 th century England, and has since bern experienced widely in other modernized and modernizing countries. The term affective individualism describes the formation of ‘marriage ties on the basis of personal attraction, guided by norms of romantic attachment rather than being arranged by parents. 

A number of authorities (including L.Stone,The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1977) have argued that the 18 th century saw a revolution in familial norms. Hitherto, families(even nuclear families) were deeply embedded in a wide network of community involvements (including close relationships with other kin), so that family was not a major focus of emotional attachment and dependance for its members. Among other things, therefore, sex was instrumental (necessary to propagate children) rather than a source of pleasure; as indeed was marriage itself (which was undertaken for economic or political reasons, rather tgan feelings of romantic attraction). For reasons connected with ‘industrialization (the precise casuality varies between accounts), this form of family life gave way rapidly toh the ‘closed domesticated nuclear form’, characterized by intimate emotional or affective bonds, domestic privacy, a preoccupation with love and with rearing of children for expressive rather than instrumental reasons.  By extension,this process is said to have accompanied the spread of ‘capitalism and industrialization’ throughout the globe. The theory of affective individualism as an invention of modern societies has been strongly challenged – most notably by Alan Macfarlane mainly on the grounds that it posits as revolutionary a series of changes that were incremental and long pre-dated the processes of industrialization. 

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