Sociology: Display of Intimacy in Families - Essay Example

Sociology: Display of Intimacy in Families The basic unit of a society is a family. In a family, individuals connect and interact in to create an environment of love, support, and association. The intimacy and love expressed in a family depend on a number of factors all of which determine how the members of a family confer to one another and what aspects of their relationship they hold important. Although the interaction in a family is based on the blood relationship, the initial coming together of lovers is largely based on love and the need for intimacy. This is the main reasons people develop feelings towards spouses to be and eventually end up in a marriage relationship. This paper will focus on the development and growth of intimacy between partners before a marriage and how this intimacy and connectedness develop throughout the marriage and changes it undergoes in old age. The paper is based on a movie ‘The Notebook’ and guided by the thesis that important family relationships are developed with patience and grown to perfection to old age. Observing development and growth of intimacy between spouses from the movie required a cool and quiet environment. This is because the development of the story and the ‘take-back’ aspect of the movie requires concentration and attention. A home setting was selected as the most appropriate and the noise was largely manageable. We were able to rewind the movie at will and pause to discuss a point in the movie. The movie features a couple whose search for love and intimacy calls for a great deal of patience and making of difficult choices. Further, the movie depicts a family that is eager to keep the love and intimacy for long and through to old age even when one of the partners does not recognize the other or even their own story. At the start of the movie, a man is reading a love story to a woman who has dementia in a nursing home. As the movie develops, we are made to understand that the wonderful story that the woman can barely recall is her love story and the man reading the story is her husband who is visiting her at the care center. This movie is a contemporary love story of Noah and Allie. After the two spend a summer together, they become great friends but their desire for intimacy and love is prevented by family and socioeconomic realities of Allie’s family. The two are forced to separate, but Noah tries to keep contact with numerous unanswered letters. In a final letter, he declares his undying love for Allie and later travels away from the village to escape the frustrations. Eventually, Noah goes to war and his endeavor is featured in a newspaper that Allie, now engaged to another man reads. On return from war, Noah is mysteriously reunited with Allie after 14 years. Although Allie is now engaged, she spends two days with Noah and has to make a decision between marrying Noah and honoring her engagement to the other man. An intimate relationship in marriage develops from a mutual feeling of want and love. Each of the partners in a relationship wants that their friendship and love will grow to intimacy and that they may become a family. This is the kind of feeling that starts a marriage relationship. However, with the ups and downs of life, this relationship is sometimes faced with difficulties. When it is a real feeling, the intimacy will develop despite the distance or time. True intimacy will, therefore, pass the test of time and distance. A display of intimacy between marriage partners is dependent on the mutual understanding of what each of the partners want and how the two can together navigate through the difficulties and come out victorious. When Noah and Allie were initially in love with one another, they both felt that their being together was far more important than anything else. However, at this time, their intimacy was never displayed. For this to happen, the two had to separate, long for each other’s company for 14 years before they are reunited. This separation requires utmost patience and focus. Whereas Noah was able to hold on to the love he had for Allie, Allie almost lost her hold, fell in love with another man and got engaged. Intimacy is crucial in any marriage relationship. A family is brought together by the intimate relationship between partners which goes beyond the sexual relationship. A culture that teaches the importance of sharing and knowing one another deeply before getting into a relationship champions intimate marriages. The patience involved in developing a relationship should be healthily utilized to let people know one another deeply and help them to get intimate. It is only when Noah was back from the war that the fondness that had grown between him and Allie brought them closer. The two days spent together in the reunion gave the two a period of knowing one anther deeper and become intimate. The desire for intimacy at this level was grown by the fondness and is the fruit of the patience that the two had shown for all this time. This clearly proves that for true intimacy to develop between couples, patience is a necessity. With such an experience choices are easily made and lived with. When intimacy is at last established, there comes a period of time when changes happen. This period is life and aging. Throughout life, partners learn to know one another even more and share experiences, resources, and feelings. This sharing keeps the partners together in a kind of intimacy that surpasses bodily desires. Socially, the family interaction is the most important binding factor for a couple. Sometimes, changes happen as the couple grow and have children. For instance, the coming of children is associated with a divided attention. The couple that initially felt that the world ends in the other partner has to think broadly. As the wife diverts some attention from her husband to the children, the physical intimacy and the fulfillment of bodily desires seems to fade but this does not mean that true intimacy changes. Since true intimacy is associated with sharing of ideas, feelings and desires, couples can still remain intimate even when their physical sharing seems impossible or improper. Noah and Allie develop an intimate relationship that has besides the physical sharing the emotional connectedness. This is why even as the two grow to old age, with Allie sick and not even able to recognize Noah, the emotional intimacy remains. As Noah reads the story to Allie, she feels that it is a wonderful story and is elated even if she cannot recognize the story or even the reader. This is a high level of a perfected intimacy that has developed out of mutual love and patience to old age. The need for intimacy is expressed by the old couple as strongly as it is by the young. The family is an important social institution. It is the environment in which mutual love that leads to intimacy first develop and become manifest. The display of this intimacy requires patience to allow the partners to know and learn about one another. This learning leads to positive sharing of ideas, feelings and experiences. As the family grows and children are introduced into the relationship, intimacy now becomes more of psychological and emotional sharing as opposed to physical desires. As the partners age, their intimacy sometimes gets back to bodily desires and the need to be together increases. This sometimes happens even with physical changes that challenge recall and memory. However, even with these challenges, the partners are still able to connect with one another and their intimacy is still displayed although in a different fashion. Read More