Introduction

This introductory chapter tries to show that, even if the expression “power couple” is relatively recent, the phenomenon has existed since Greco-Roman antiquity. It explains the signification given in the book to the terms “power couple/ordinary couple” and why all the “power couples” were “political couples” in classical antiquity. It also sets the chronological frame of the survey (fourth century bce–first century ce). Within the limits of our possibilities, because the classical sources do not always allow it, the theme will be approached from a sociological perspective (dynamics of couple, real-life experiences, relationships between the power couples and their families, influence of a power couple on the public opinion, staging and representation of a power couple). In the second part, as a point of comparison, the chapter evokes the characteristics of the contemporary “power couples” (twentieth to twenty-first century): origin of the expression in an American soap opera, definition in newspapers or online encyclopaedias, special terminology (“supercouple”, “superfamily”, “portmanteau”, etc.), staging of the love feelings between the partners and staging of their families, media audience.