The purchase of intimacy
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The purchase of intimacy
（Princeton paperbacks）
Princeton University Press, c2005
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [309]-345) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In their personal lives, people consider it essential to separate economics and intimacy. We have, for example, a long-standing taboo against workplace romance, while we see marital love as different from prostitution because it is not a fundamentally financial exchange. In The Purchase of Intimacy, Viviana Zelizer mounts a provocative challenge to this view. Getting to the heart of one of life's greatest taboos, she shows how we all use economic activity to create, maintain, and renegotiate important ties--especially intimate ties--to other people. In everyday life, we invest intense effort and worry to strike the right balance. For example, when a wife's income equals or surpasses her husband's, how much more time should the man devote to household chores or child care? Sometimes legal disputes arise. Should the surviving partner in a same-sex relationship have received compensation for a partner's death as a result of 9/11? Through a host of compelling examples, Zelizer shows us why price is central to three key areas of intimacy: sexually tinged relations; health care by family members, friends, and professionals; and household economics.
She draws both on research and materials ranging from reports on compensation to survivors of 9/11 victims to financial management Web sites and advice books for same-sex couples. From the bedroom to the courtroom, The Purchase of Intimacy opens a fascinating new window on the inner workings of the economic processes that pervade our private lives.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix Prologue 1 Chapter 1: Encounters of Intimacy and Economy 7 Chapter 2: Intimacy in Law 47 Chapter 3: Coupling 94 Chapter 4: Caring Relations 158 Chapter 5: Household Commerce 209 Chapter 6: Intimate Revelations 287 References 309 Index 347
by "Nielsen BookData"
