On Marxist Theory of Love  Cover Image

Apie marksistinę meilės teoriją
On Marxist Theory of Love

Author(s): Almira Ousmanova
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų
Keywords: Marxism; love („free love“; non-reproductive love; „pure love“; courtly love; romantic love; „individual sexual love“); sexuality; family, promiscuity; sexual asceticism; private property.

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the role and the status of the concept of love in classical Marxist theory vis-à-vis the feminist discourses of love and intimacy. At first sight it may seem that Marxism (being primarily a socio-economic theory) has nothing to do with love. However, this particular ‘indifference’ has its own historical and political reasons. The author argues that the Marxist project of gender emancipation and its approach to the issues of marriage, family and sexual relationship has resulted from the appropriation of some discourses of love and/or deliberate denial of other topoi, which had been of crucial importance for European culture (starting from the ancient philosophies of love and proceeding to the mythologies of courtly and romantic love). Marxism has excepted ‘love’ from the domain of private life and intimacy and has given it political meaning, having brought together the issues of sexuality, (private) property and social order, which would be based on the principles of justice and equality. This conceptual framework was inherited by K. Marx and F. Engels from French utopian socialists and was further elaborated by Soviet Marxists in the context of revolutionary praxis of the Soviet 1920s. The author demonstrates that ‘love’ has no place in Marxist theory in the sense that it denies the value of non-reproductive love (along with subjectivity and individual autonomy, which can be seen as cornerstones of feminist theory), for the latter compromises the politico-economic project of the transformation of the social structure under socialism. However, the idea of the emancipation of love from the repressive order of capitalism and the analysis of correlations between love and commodity exchange has paved a way to the ‘political critique of sexuality, desire and love’.

  • Issue Year: 2010
  • Issue No: 6
  • Page Range: 139-168
  • Page Count: 30
  • Language: Lithuanian