Love Apocalypse

Alex J. Nelson is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Indianapolis. His research explores the ethnology of romantic love, erotic entrepreneurship in commercial sexual economies, and the transformation of love, marriage, and gender relations in South Korea, where he has been conducting ethnographic field research since 2013.Victor C. de Munck is a professor of anthropology at Vilnius University in the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies. He has conducted field work in Sri Lanka, Macedonia, Lithuania, Russia, and the US He is the author of Romantic Love in America (2019) and coauthor of Cultural Models (2014).William Jankowiak is a professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has authored more than 124 articles/book chapters and nine books (five edited). His research is conducted primarily in Northern China and in the US. His most recent book is Illicit Monogamy: Inside a Fundamentalist Mormon Community (2023).

• Series Foreword by Péter Berta ix Introduction: Global Concerns About Marriage and Fertility Decline 1 ALEX J. NELSON, VICTOR C. DE MUNCK, AND WILLIAM JANKOWIAK PART ONE Transformations of Intimacy: Individualization and Declines in Marriage and Fertility 1 Gendered Obstacles of Love and Fertility in Contemporary Cuba 23 HEIDI HÄRKÖNEN 2 Love's Fallout: Fertility Decline and the Individualization of Intimacy in South Korea 43 ALEX J. NELSON 3 China's Independent Women and the Decline in Fertility 66 WILLIAM JANKOWIAK AND SHELLY VOLSCHE 4 Individual Choice? On the Rise of Love and the Decline of Fertility in Urban Middle-Class India 87 ANNA ROMANOWICZ 5 From Courtship to Contingent Intimacies in Lithuania: Love Nomads and Porous Dyads 109 VICTOR C. DE MUNCK AND INES TORRASPART TWO Intimate Innovations: Emerging Adaptations to the Individualization of Intimacy 6 Women's Householding in the Rural Andes: Othermothering, Chosen Families, and Demographic Transition 133 MARY ELENA WILHOIT 7 Becoming Childless in Reunified Berlin: Narratives of Low Fertility and Emergent Intimacies in Berlin 155 MEGHANA JOSHI 8 Choosing a World of Two: Childfree Intimacies in Contemporary Urban China 177 BIRGIT HERRMANN 9 Seeking a Spouse at the End of the World: "Marriage Hunting" and Neoliberal Capitalism in Japan 196 ERIKA R. ALPERT Notes on Contributors 217 Index 000

"Drawing on rich ethnographic research from diverse global contexts, Love Apocalypse reveals how transformations in intimacy are driving declines in marriage and fertility while giving rise to new forms of family life. This timely collection offers fresh insights into cultural and socioeconomic forces shaping fertility decline and shifting configurations of intimate relations." - Lihong Shi, author of Choosing Daughters: Family Change in Rural China"An excellent collection of case studies from a variety of world areas. The distinction of this volume is that it offers a broad sweep of variables in considering marriage delays and fertility challenges in societies around the world and brings the issue of delayed/non-marriage, declining fertility, and new intimacies up to date. Convincingly argued and thought-provoking, Love Apocalypse offers timely insights into these pressing issues." - Nancy Smith-Hefner, coeditor of Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays