Love and economics are usually considered to be opposites: While love is seen as an irrational, unexplainable and ungovernable feeling towards another person, economics is regarded as the art of egoistic, profit-oriented, rational calculations and actions. But are they, really?
By examining a wide range of literary and historical sources throughout European modernity, the papers assembled in this volume investigate how the process of finding a partner or spouse interlaces love and economics. In their analysis of Early Modern marriage legislation, drama, Spanish novellas, Jane Austen’s...