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The single woman and the fairytale prince / Jean-Claude Kaufmann ; translated by David Macey.
Van Pelt Library HQ800.2 .K3813 2008
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Kaufmann, Jean-Claude.
- Standardized Title:
- Femme seule et le Prince charmant. English
- Language:
- English
- French
- Subjects (All):
- Single women.
- Living alone.
- Physical Description:
- xxi, 223 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge : Polity, [2008]
- Summary:
- The number of one-person households is rising steeply all over the world and a growing proportion of these 'new singles' are women. It is estimated that one woman in three lives on her own. This development reflects general social trends, ranging from the rising divorce rate to the growing professionalization of women and their dissatisfaction with a traditional model that offers them a future organized solely around 'husband-baby-home'. At the same time, the attractions of that model still linger and the fairytale prince is by no means a figure from a story or a remote past. Even in an age in which the Internet promises that love is 'just a click away', many women still wait for their prince to come.
- Jean-Claude Kaufmann's sympathetic study, based mainly on an analysis of a sample of the hundreds of letters sent to Marie Claire magazine after it published a first-hand account of the single life, is a brilliant portrayal of the lives, aspirations and sometimes despair of the 'new single woman'.
- Contents:
- Part I Is There a Model for Private Life?
- 1 Living Alone: A Long History 3
- What Marriage Was 3
- Intolerable Celibacy 4
- Great Buffalo Woman 5
- Celibacy Becomes Legitimate 6
- A Maid in Men's Clothes 7
- Introspection 8
- The World Turned Upside Down 10
- The Nineteenth Century: The Main Trend Begins 11
- Grisettes and Phalansteries 14
- The Break 16
- Dark Times 18
- The American Model 19
- The Scandinavian Model 20
- Crazy Times 21
- Uncertain Times 22
- 2 A Life Divided 24
- The 'Accusing Finger' 24
- 'Weird' 26
- Uncomfortable Places 27
- The Family: What Can Be Said and What Cannot Be Said 30
- The Laughter of Girlfriends 34
- Betrayal 37
- A Cycle in Three Stages 40
- 3 A Life Shared 43
- Back to History 43
- Premonitory Experiments 44
- The Personalization of Feelings 46
- A Model for Private Life 51
- The Mother/Children Group 54
- The Model Undermined 56
- 4 Prince or Husband? 57
- Facts and Fairies 57
- The Prince with a Thousand Faces 59
- 'Like a Love Story' 61
- The Prince Settles Down 63
- When the Carriage Turns Back into a Pumpkin 66
- The Prince Plays Musical Chairs 67
- Part II Portrait of a Single Woman
- 5 Introspection 71
- 'The Disease of the Infinite' 71
- From Laughter to Tears 72
- Double Reflexivity 73
- From Diaries to Blogs 74
- The Mirror and the Clairvoyant 78
- 6 At Home 82
- Fixtures and Fittings 82
- Bed 83
- Meals 84
- Wrapping Up and Regressing 85
- Freedom from Domesticity 86
- The Lightness of Being 88
- 7 The Outside World 92
- Going Out 92
- Other Ties 94
- The Family 95
- Work 97
- Being Oneself in the Outside World? 99
- 8 Men 101
- Arms 101
- Sex 103
- Man-Hunters 104
- Age Difference 106
- A Gloomy View of Life 108
- Married Men 110
- 9 The Internet Revolution 115
- A Sudden Change of Epoch 115
- Love is Just a Click Away 117
- The Dark Side of the Web 119
- Real Life 121
- Men and Women: Sex and Commitment 123
- 'Don't Give Up!' 125
- An Experience in its Own Right 127
- Part III The Autonomy Trajectory
- 10 Being Oneself 133
- The Trajectory 133
- The Irrepressible Injunction to be Oneself 134
- Widows 137
- Young People 138
- Women Who Have Broken Off Relationships 140
- Predisposing Factors 143
- The Impulse to Remain Single 145
- The Lesser of Two Evils 147
- Two Trajectories, Two Identities 150
- 11 Waiting 152
- Dinosaurs of Love and Galloping Horses 152
- The Ravages of Love 154
- For Want of an Alternative 155
- Sentenced to Hard Labour 156
- Comforting Habits 157
- Extreme Isolation 159
- Negative Individualism 162
- 12 'Women Can Do Anything!' 164
- Flight as Therapy 164
- The Logic of the Shell 166
- The Paradox of Appearance 169
- 'Women Can Do Anything'! 170
- Autonomy with Company 173
- Appendix The Globalization of Singledom: The Figures 184
- The Unstoppable Rise in the Number of One-Person Households 184
- Interpreting the Figures 191
- Late Marriage 193
- A Short World Tour 195
- Mail-Order Brides 199
- Men and Women 202
- A Note on Methodology 205
- Stages in the Research 205
- The Letters 206
- Constructing Hypotheses 210
- The Informants 210.
- Notes:
- Translated from the French.
- Includes bibliographical references.
- ISBN:
- 9780745640495
- 0745640494
- 0745640508
- 9780745640501
- OCLC:
- 228224821
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