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The Social Life of Love: And The Social Architecture of Meaning
Paperback
General PsychologyGeneral SociologyGLBTQIA Studies
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 5 2026
Pages: 206
Weight: 0.56
Height: 0.52 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
There is more than one honourable way to build a life.
We are taught to imagine a meaningful life in a familiar sequence: fall in love, form a couple, build a family, have children, belong. But real life is rarely so simple. Human connection is far richer than the narrow script society often rewards.
In The Social Life of Love, psychotherapist Ovidiu M. Ionel offers a warm, thoughtful and deeply human exploration of the many ways we build lives of care, intimacy, belonging and meaning. Drawing on psychology, sociology, care ethics and contemporary research, he asks why romantic couplehood, marriage and parenthood are still treated as the clearest signs of a serious life, while friendship, chosen family, childfree lives, caregiving and other forms of devotion are so often left unnamed or undervalued.
This is not a book against marriage, family or parenthood. It is a book against monopoly.
Accessible, intelligent and quietly provocative, The Social Life of Love invites readers to rethink what counts as love, what makes a life meaningful, and how institutions, culture and everyday language shape the bonds we recognise, or fail to recognise.
For readers interested in relationships, loneliness, social connection, chosen family, care, friendship, queer-inclusive thought and the future of belonging, this book offers both clarity and relief: love has always been larger than the forms we were given for it.
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