The Social Dimensions of Unhappiness in Love in Eva Illouz: An Analytical Reading

This paper sheds light on one of the new fields of sociology, the sociology of love. It presents an analytical reading of Eva Illouz's vision, which sought to study contemporary love to reveal the causes of unhappiness in love, which differ from unhappiness in love in the past. Adopting a comparative approach in her analyses of love before and after modernity, Illouz concluded that suffering in romantic relationships in the past was the result of various societal obstacles. In contemporary societies, unhappiness in love is a result of profound transformations in the modern self, which has made the emotional sphere of individuals more volatile and more fragile, thus depriving us of happiness in love. Since the human being is the focus of every development process in any society, as he is both the goal and the means of that process, it was imperative to focus on one of the most important moral pillars that helps humans discover themselves. Love possesses a power capable of unleashing the various true potentials of the human being, and then directing those capabilities toward achieving the goals of sustainable human development. Therefore, it was necessary to address the causes of human suffering in love, shed light on them, and seek to address them.