Love and Desire in the Bourgeois Era (Illustrated History of Western Love and Desire)

Author: Edward Fuchs
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: In the 18th century, the shift from artisanal production to machine-based factory production abolished the monarchy and replaced it with a modern bourgeois society. Similarly, it replaced old notions of sexuality and the ideal it had once envisioned to transform the world—with love believed to be innate and love supposed to ignite like sacred flames of pure chastity. Women became truly "human" since the Middle Ages, moving from being slaves without the right to their own opinions to mere tools for others' pleasures, gradually becoming partners and friends to men. However, the outcome of capitalist development led this idea to turn against itself not only in politics and economics but also in gender relations. Capitalism made everything universal—whether shameless hedonism adorned with wealth or moral decline born from poverty. Love, too, became an item of trade, like clothing.