Abstract
Not all couples live together; some partners live far from each other, causing potential challenges to relationship maintenance in terms of keeping the relationship ongoing. In the present study, complications in relationship maintenance experienced by heterosexual long-distance partners in post-Soviet Latvia are analysed. The complications are examined in the light of social norms as conceptualized by Parsons and Shils (Toward a general theory of action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1962) in their notion of dominant value orientations. The article suggests that the norm conflicts experienced by the long-distance partners are illustrative of the value transitions in societies undergoing rapid social change, such as in Latvia. The analysis is based on 19 in-depth interviews with individuals with long-distance relationship (LDR) experience. The social norms complicating or hindering LDR maintenance were found to be generation-specific and gender-specific. The interviewees born and raised in Soviet Latvia referred to collective-oriented norms while the interviewees born in the independent neo-liberal Latvia referred to their own interests that complicated their LDR maintenance.
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Notes
The other four value orientations and dilemmas are: (1) affectivity versus affect neutrality solving the dilemma of gratification of impulse versus discipline; (2) universalism versus particularism solving the dilemma of transcendence versus immanence; (3) ascriptions versus achievements solving the dilemma of object modalities; and (4) diffuseness versus specificity solving the dilemma of the scope of significance of the object.
A girlfriend in Latvian is “draudzene.” The word has a feminine ending of a word that also means a friend. Thus, the term “draudzene”, linguistically, does not have the meaning of a “girl” or a young female.
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Jurkane-Hobein, I. Do I Qualify for a Love Relationship? Social Norms and Long-Distance Relationships in Post-Soviet Latvia. Sexuality & Culture 19, 388–406 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-014-9263-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-014-9263-0