Love, Inc.: Dating Apps, the Big White Wedding, and Chasing the Happily Neverafter

304 Pages·2019·2.34 MB·English

by  Laurie Essig

Love, Inc.
Love, Inc.
Dating Apps, the Big White Wedding, and
Chasing the Happily Neverafter
Laurie Essig
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished
university presses in the United States, enriches lives around
the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social
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the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions
from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit
www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press Oakland, California
© 2019 by Laurie Essig
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names:
Essig, Laurie, author.
Title: Love, Inc. : dating apps, the big white wedding,
and chasing the happily neverafter / Laurie Essig.
Description: Oakland, California : University of
California Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Description based on print
version record and CIP data provided by publisher;
resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018034895 (print) | LCCN 2018038243
(ebook) | ISBN 9780520967922 (epub and ePDF) |
ISBN 9780520295018 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780520300491 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH:
Love—Social aspects. | Happiness—Social aspects. |
Economics—Sociological aspects.
Classification: LCC BF575.L8 (ebook) | LCC BF575.L8 E83
2019 (print) | DDC 152.4/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034895
Manufactured in the United States of America
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For my daughters, Willa and Georgia. I have always loved you
both without question.
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Learning to Love
2. Finding Love
3. Marry Me?
4. White Weddings
5. The Honeymoon
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
FIGURES
Romance has its own forms of propaganda
Valentine’s Day cards
Teaching teens to love romance
A diamond ring and the Statue of Liberty
Weddings require research
Wedding dresses rarely have prices on them
Matching bridal high top sneakers
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I could never have written this book without the unflagging
support of my home institution, Middlebury College.
Middlebury gave me financial support, research leave, and so
many wonderful research assistants, especially Erin Work and
Beatrijs Kuijpers. The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and
Feminist Studies at Middlebury lets me teach a course on the
sociology of heterosexuality as often as I want. This course,
which I have now taught for over two decades, not only
undergirds the theoretical scaffolding of this book but also
provides me with a lot of smart students who ask really dumb
questions—questions that force me to think deeper and harder
about romance as an ideology that is both destroying us and
keeping us alive.
I also am deeply in awe and rather in love with my many
feminist colleagues at Middlebury, especially Sujata Moorti,
Carly Thomsen, Kevin Moss, Catharine Wright, and Karin
Hanta. At the European University at St. Petersburg, Russia,
my colleagues—especially Anna Temkina and Alexander
Kondakov—keep me from forgetting how particular love can
be.
I am very grateful to the many people who told me about
their own journeys through love and romance, friends and
strangers alike.
I am thankful for UC Press and my editor there, Naomi
Schneider, for bringing this book to fruition. Naomi’s utter
calm and professionalism made the entire process a fairy-tale
come true.
If this is a book about love, it is love that has kept it going.
While writing this book I watched as my daughters, Willa and
Georgia, and my partner’s daughter, Emma, entered the adult
world of love and romance. I hope they will always love deeply,
but also widely and in ways that do not follow the scripts that
have been written for them. All of them have helped me ask
questions about dating and other contemporary practices of
romance and “anti-romance.” Emma tagged along to a wedding
expo to find out what all the fuss was about, Georgia went to
Disney with me and even taught me how to spot honeymooners,
and Willa took photos for the book, her artist’s eye always
trained on the effects of Love, Inc.
I also had the love and support of my friends, especially my
“spouses” Calvin and Gordon White and “our” daughter
Addison, Carrie Rigoli, Sue Cronin, Anson Koch-Rein, Patricia
Saldarriaga, Glenn Gamblin, Tina Escaja, and Lindsay London,
who taught me so many things, like taekwondo and Spanish,
and how to cast spells against fascism. And to my canine loves,