Synopses & Reviews
Chapter 1. The Neglected Relationship
Chapter 2. On Kinship and Friendship
Chapter 3. Many Friends/Many Selves
Chapter 4. Men, Women and Friends: The Differences Between Us
Chapter 5. Understanding Our Differences
Chapter 6. From Singles to Couples and Back Again: A Rocky Road for Friends
Chapter 7. On Marriage and Friendship
Chapter 8. Women and Men as Friends: Mind, Body and Emotion
Chapter 9. Best Friends
Chapter 10. Possibilities
Synopsis
Drawing on years of study and based on interviews with three hundred men and women from diverse backgrounds and circumstances, Rubin turns her attention to that most valued yet fragile bond: friendship-friendships between women, men, women and men, couples, even between best friends. In chapters covering this full range of friendships and their interrelations with kinship, marriage, and romance, Dr. Rubin exposes the ambiguity, ambivalence, and contradiction with which friendship in our society is hedged. Unlike other relationships, friendship, for us, is a private affair. We have no rituals, no role requirements, no institutional supports of any kind to bind and hold friends together. We're -just friends' we say, as we try to explain that these are not relationships of blood. Yet, Rubin argues convincingly, these same friends are central actors in the continuing developmental drama of adulthood. Throughout our lives, friends provide a reference outside the family against which to judge and measure ourselves, helping us during passages that require our separation and the development of an autonomous sense of self, supporting us in our efforts to adapt to new roles and new rules.
Synopsis
An exploration of the role of friendship in men's and women's lives.
Description
Bibliography: p. 213-225.
About the Author
Lillian B. Rubin is an internationally recognized author and social scientist She is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College, C.U.N.Y., in New York and Senior Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley Currently, Dr. Rubin resides on both coasts, spending part of each year in New York City and part in the San Francisco Bay area.