Purchase of Intimacy

<p>In their personal lives people consider it essential to separate economics and intimacy. We have for example a long-standing taboo against workplace romance while we see marital love as different from prostitution because it is not a fundamentally financial exchange. In <i>The Purchase of Intimacy</i> Viviana Zelizer mounts a provocative challenge to this view. Getting to the heart of one of life's greatest taboos she shows how we all use economic activity to create maintain and renegotiate important ties--especially intimate ties--to other people. <p/> In everyday life we invest intense effort and worry to strike the right balance. For example when a wife's income equals or surpasses her husband's how much more time should the man devote to household chores or child care? Sometimes legal disputes arise. Should the surviving partner in a same-sex relationship have received compensation for a partner's death as a result of 9/11? <p/> Through a host of compelling examples Zelizer shows us why price is central to three key areas of intimacy: sexually tinged relations; health care by family members friends and professionals; and household economics. She draws both on research and materials ranging from reports on compensation to survivors of 9/11 victims to financial management Web sites and advice books for same-sex couples. <p/> From the bedroom to the courtroom <i>The Purchase of Intimacy</i> opens a fascinating new window on the inner workings of the economic processes that pervade our private lives.</p>