Love or Concern?

"Love or Concern?" is a scholarly book that examines the changes in private lifestyles in Europe since the 1970s and the associated concepts of love and family. It investigates how the traditional notion of family, consisting of a married couple and their children, has evolved within a context of diversified lifestyles. In contrast, the search for institutional family structures in Japan in the 21st century is addressed, where, despite a trend towards intimate relationships, the need for stable familial bonds is strongly pronounced. These seemingly contradictory phenomena of intimacy are analyzed within the framework of societal configurations of families, individual modalities, the dynamics of (married) couples, and the concept of love. The book is aimed at students and professionals in the fields of sociology and Japanese studies.