An Anthropologist Goes Looking for Love in All the Old Places: A Personal Account

doi:10.1017/9781108658225.013

Chapter 12 - An Anthropologist Goes Looking for Love in All the Old Places: A Personal Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2018

William Jankowiak

Edited by

Robert J. Sternberg and

Karin Sternberg

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Robert J. Sternberg: Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Karin Sternberg: Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York

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Summary

In 1986, I returned to Inner Mongolia, having lived there between 1981 and 1983. I wanted to understand how Mongolian youth were adapting to what was then becoming a new discourse in their lives – one in which the criteria for selecting a mate was changing. There was a shift away from social attributes as the dominant factors in mate selection to new criteria that saw love as an important consideration. Although “love,” the term itself, was rarely mentioned or infrequently referred to, I was struck by how many individuals felt that it was something to be valued, even cherished.

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Type: Chapter
Information: The New Psychology of Love , pp. 240 - 258

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108658225.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2018

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