J. Stacey, Unhitched. Love, Marriage and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China

Sexualities ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-244
Author(s):  
Petra Nordqvist
Keyword(s):  
Family Values ◽  
Western China ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
West Hollywood ◽  
Love Marriage

Family, love, marriage and migration: the push and pull of private life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James Hammerton
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Love Stories ◽  
Transnational Marriages ◽  
Love Marriage ◽  
Family Breakdown ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Push And Pull

This chapter explores ways in which the dynamics of love, marriage and family have shaped experiences and stories voiced by modern migrants. It focuses on the darker and brighter sides of migration and private life, where twin influences of migration and emotionally driven events are difficult to disentangle. These cases provide stark evidence of how modern migration became more discretionary, facilitating decisions to change countries for love – or for loss of love. Even the darker stories suggest migration could provide relief from the pain of family breakdown and divorce possibly due to resilience born of the challenges of adaptation to new countries. Transnational child custody cases and the complications of transnational marriages add further dimensions of complexity. Stories of close-knit but fractured families across three countries, with complex emotional histories, reveal equally complex understandings of the idea of ‘home’ as sanctuary, which owes something to changing attitudes to mobility. The final section, ‘Making the heart grow fonder: transnational love stories’, explores two women’s accounts in which emotions drove transnational love stories in striking ways, one over nearly half a century. All the stories mark a new trend of discretionary migration in an age of affluence.

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