Traditional inequalities and inequalities of tradition: Gender, weddings and whiteness (2021)
Journal Article

The (British) white wedding offers a unique lens for studying a number of social and cultural phenomena from practices of intimacy, consumption and romance to macro level studies of economics, value and exchange. The wedding also represents an ideal... Read More about Traditional inequalities and inequalities of tradition: Gender, weddings and whiteness.

Understanding tradition: Marital name change in Britain and Norway (2019)
Journal Article

Marital surname change is a striking example of the survival of tradition. A practice emerging from patriarchal history has become embedded in an age of detraditionalisation and women’s emancipation. Is the tradition of women’s marital name change ju... Read More about Understanding tradition: Marital name change in Britain and Norway.

The transformation of love? Choice, emotional rationality and wedding gifts (2019)
Book Chapter

Illouz (2012) claims that love has undergone a great transformation in modernity. The choice of romantic partners occurs through individual decisions disembedded from moral communities. Romantic love becomes a source of the self as one’s beloved affi... Read More about The transformation of love? Choice, emotional rationality and wedding gifts.

Romantic Relationships in a Time of 'Cold Intimacies' (2019)
Book

This book addresses the nature of intimacy and relationships in a time of what Eva Illouz characterizes as ‘cold intimacies’. The contributors to this collection highlight the ambivalence and tensions contained in ‘intimacy’ by uncovering a nuanced a... Read More about Romantic Relationships in a Time of 'Cold Intimacies'.

Researching race in a white space: Negotiating interviews at white-wedding shows in England (2018)
Book Chapter

Our research methods case focuses on how, as researchers, we negotiated the topic of race in recruiting participants and conducting interviews for a study about the cultural reproduction of Whiteness at wedding fairs in the United Kingdom. Here, we d... Read More about Researching race in a white space: Negotiating interviews at white-wedding shows in England.

Why marry? Understanding marriage in modern Britain (2018)
Journal Article

In the early 1990s Anthony Giddens proposed that major changes in working life, equal rights and globalisation trends had impacted significantly on the ways in which men and women relate to each other in their personal lives (Giddens 1992). This brea... Read More about Why marry? Understanding marriage in modern Britain.

Women (not) troubling ‘the family’: Exploring women’s narratives of gendered family practices (2018)
Journal Article

This paper is concerned with examining the ways in which young woman make choices about their family lives and in so doing reproduce traditional unequal gender norms and family practices. In a time when it is (supposedly) increasingly easy to live al... Read More about Women (not) troubling ‘the family’: Exploring women’s narratives of gendered family practices.

White weddings and the reproduction of white femininity (2018)
Journal Article

When my colleague and I entered the wedding show venue in London we were immediately confronted by a salesperson asking if she could see our legs so that she could administer a hair removal treatment. This was somewhat off-putting and neither my coll... Read More about White weddings and the reproduction of white femininity.

Reinventing Couples: Tradition, Agency and Bricolage (2018)
Book

This book presents a new approach to understanding contemporary personal life, taking account of how people build their lives through a bricolage of ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’. The authors examine how tradition is used and adapted, invented and re-inve... Read More about Reinventing Couples: Tradition, Agency and Bricolage.

Review of Srećko Horvat, the radicality of love (2017)
Journal Article

What would happen if we could stroll through the revolutionary history of the 20th century and, without any fear of the possible responses, ask the main protagonists – from Lenin to Che Guevara, from Alexandra Kollontai to Ulrike Meinhof – seemingly... Read More about Review of Srećko Horvat, the radicality of love.

Constructions, reconstructions and deconstructions of ‘family’ amongst people who live apart together (LATs) (2017)
Journal Article

© London School of Economics and Political Science 2016 This article explores how people who live apart from their partners in Britain describe and understand ‘family’. It investigates whether, and how far, non-cohabiting partners, friends, ‘blood’ a... Read More about Constructions, reconstructions and deconstructions of ‘family’ amongst people who live apart together (LATs).

Why marry? The role of tradition in women’s marital aspirations (2017)
Journal Article

© 2017, University of Surrey. All rights reserved. While the individualisation trend has given way to a relational, reflexive turn in the sociology of relationships, there continues to be a writing out of convention and tradition in understanding rel... Read More about Why marry? The role of tradition in women’s marital aspirations.

Wedding paradoxes: Individualized conformity and the ‘perfect day’ (2016)
Journal Article

© The Author(s) 2016. Marriage rates in twenty-first-century Britain are historically low, divorce and separation are historically high, and marriage is no longer generally seen as necessary for legitimate sexual relationships, long-term partnership... Read More about Wedding paradoxes: Individualized conformity and the ‘perfect day’.

Age-dissimilar couples and romantic relationships: Ageless love? by Lara McKenzie [Book review] (2016)
Journal Article

Book review

Sex, Love and Security: Accounts of Distance and Commitment in Living Apart Together Relationships (2016)
Journal Article

© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. Drawing on a 2011 national survey and 50 semi-structured interviews, we explore the differing ways in which those in living apart together (LAT) relationships discuss and experience notions of commitment. We found that s... Read More about Sex, Love and Security: Accounts of Distance and Commitment in Living Apart Together Relationships.

The sociology of love (2015)
Journal Article

In a recent Sociological Review paper Julia Carter​, Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, reported on the curious absence of love in young women's account of their relationships. She found that many of these women struggled to talk... Read More about The sociology of love.

Practices and perceptions of living apart together (2014)
Journal Article

© 2014, © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Routledge. This paper examines how people living apart together (LATs) maintain their relationships, and describes how they view this living arrangement. It draws on a 2011 survey on LAT in Britain, suppleme... Read More about Practices and perceptions of living apart together.

The curious absence of love stories in women's talk (2013)
Journal Article

Sociological debate has dealt with love in a number of different ways. For some, love offers a unique opportunity; it is a path to salvation (Jackson, 1993; Langford, 1999). Others, however, take a more sceptical approach to love in modern society: f... Read More about The curious absence of love stories in women's talk.

Why do people live apart together? (2013)
Journal Article

© The authors 2013. Interpretations of living apart together (LAT) have typically counter-posed 'new family form' versus 'continuist' perspectives. Recent surveys, however, construct LAT as a heterogeneous category that supports a 'qualified continui... Read More about Why do people live apart together?.

Legal rights for people who 'Live Apart Together'? (2012)
Journal Article

About 10% of adults in Britain have a living apart together (LAT) relationship; they are nearly always administratively and legally defined as single but in fact they have a partner who lives elsewhere. The question then arises, should LAT couples ha... Read More about Legal rights for people who 'Live Apart Together'?.