HISTOIRE DU COUPLE

Jean-Claude Bologne retraces the evolution of the
couple from antiquity to the present. Concise and
clear-sighted, this major synthesis expands the field of
reflection on this timely subject.

Traditionally, marriage is the focus for studying the couple, and all other possibilities outside of marriage are regarded as marginal – living together, free love, extramarital relationships, but also sibling bonds, medieval apprenticeship or exclusive friendship. Yet marriage is only one form of coupling among others.
Originally a multiplicity, these unions have gradually crystallized around the notion of love derived from a Christian concept of the exclusive couple. But what really is a couple? How is it formed and on what is it based?

A philologist who studied at the University of Liège, Belgium, historian and prominent novelist, JEAN-CLAUDE BOLOGNE has published some thirty books since 1986 on the history of social customs, including: A History of
Modesty (Perrin, 1986); A History of Celibacy and the Unmarried, ‘(Hachette Littérature, 2004); A History of Amorous Conquest (Seuil, 2007); Female Modesty (Seuil, 2010) and A History of Male Vanity (Perrin, 2011). He is president of the Société des Gens de Lettres, (The French Society of Authors).