ABSTRACT
Chapter 1, ‘Love in a globalised world’, looks at how love and intimacy has changed in late modernity as a result of globalisation. Intimate lifestyles have changed and this is reflected in this chapter. Love and intimacy has been constructed in different historical periods and the chapter reflects how sociologists, feminist and cultural theorists represent changes. The chapter also reviews the undertheorisation of love in the sociological tradition. The contemporary emphasis on love and marriage has been amplified in the media through the relationships of celebrities and the Royals, and the way society has changed in its attitudes to love and intimacy as a result. In particular, the chapter reviews the Royal Marriage in the United Kingdom of Prince Harry to an American actress, Meghan Markle, and shows how this royal marriage to an American differs from an earlier era of the marriage of a Windsor to an American. In this chapter, a comparison is made between Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales, which provides a yardstick of how attitudes have changed.
