None of this means that Westerners for centuries led emotionally empty lives. Humans have probably always nurtured close ties with other humans. What has changed over the course of history is the place of the spouse as the object of an adult's intense and exclusive affections.

In medieval through early modern times, to describe the love for a spouse as the greatest love of all would have been sacrilegious. The most special place in anyone's heart was supposed to be reserved for God. Over the years many kinds of people and entities have been deemed deserving of love and affection. They have included spiritual figures and ancestors, immediate and extended family, friends and community.

Even when the love for a spouse was compared only with feelings for other mere mortals, it did not always come out ahead of all the rest. As Coontz notes, during the 1800s Westerners believed that "love developed slowly out of admiration, respect, and appreciation"; therefore, "the love one felt for a sweetheart was not seen as qualitatively different from the feeling one might have for a sister, a friend, or even an idea."

Intense feelings did develop sometimes—often between two men. I'm talking about American men here, including men with wives. Until the turn of the twentieth century, many men spent vast amounts of time in men's clubs and fraternal organizations, and married men often shared closer bonds with their best friends than with their wives. Men with wives and children typically spent more time during weekends with their male friends than with family, and they even vacationed with other men. None of this was stigmatized.

Women did the same. They traveled and vacationed with other women. The feelings of married women for their sisters and friends, and for their children, were often deeper than their affection for their husbands.

This all-too-brief romp through bits and pieces of the past few centuries in Europe and America suggests that people can get their needs for emotional intimacy met outside of marriage and coupling. For most of history they probably have.

#книги