Slow love, twenty types of couples and private agreements, this is the x-ray of love in Spain

The things of love, why deny it, are experiencing a critical moment.

It is not that before we loved each other a lot and before less, but that the process has been turned upside down.

People already fell in love through digital applications before the pandemic, but it ended up consolidating the phenomenon.

Distance prevailed, and there was no other choice, especially for singles, than to add originality.

Or value.

Or everything.

will be celebrated on Monday

, with all its marketing and pomp, but the truth is that the study of love, the formation of couples -also breakups- is not something that is usual in

, as yes it is it in other countries of

and

.

But the

has just published a sociological study that focuses precisely on this, on

, the acceptance of rupture and re- pairing."

Privacy management in the information and knowledge society.

Couples and breakups in Spain today

, directed by Professor

, from the University of Malaga, offers an x-ray of the evolution of couples in our country and establishes up to 20 different types of different unions.

Among them, the following: "open, polyamorous, digital, long-distance, weekend couples, couples without living together...

For now, what is clear from this research, which has been carried out thanks to the support of the

, is that

: 70% of the Spanish population lives with a partner and the majority of those who don't say it's because they haven't found the right person. Only 8% of adults say they've never had a relationship."

And

, a member of the University of Malaga team, says that we should change the prism in which we observe the structure of our partners and highlight that "it is an issue that affects us all, a vital pillar together with the workplace" .

"But the subject of intimacy still seems like a black box, when it is extremely important to have scientific and rigorous information on it."

What is the culture of love in Spain?

Why don't Spaniards have children?

These are some of the questions that a report that will soon become a book tries to answer.

"If we look at the fertility survey, it turns out that between 18 and 29 they don't have them because they look young, between 30 and 35 because they don't have money, then because they can't find the right partner, that they can have it, but not the they come to have children, and then they want to have them but they don't come...", says Ayuso.

What has changed is that one no longer marries someone and their entire family

, but "private pacts" prevail among people.

In recent decades, "greater life expectancy has been accompanied by more chances of mating over time, and marriage as a unique model and couple ritual has gone to a varied map of relationships that focus on the private pact" says the study.

That is, what each one considers to be their relationship with another, in a structure agreed upon and shared by both members.

Of course, the rise of technology has also had an influence, as the report itself highlights.

But Ayuso highlights "the sociology of the family" that hides behind the data.

"Spain has experienced a process that has not happened in other countries, such as Italy or Portugal,

, we have had a homosexual marriage law for years, in a short time different types of sexual behavior have been normalized. This is a silent change that grandmothers have made with their granddaughters, when they used to say phrases like 'you have many friends but don't get married' or 'don't have children, don't do like me'".

The results obtained in the report indicate that

; that the new technologies contribute to expanding the matching markets and the new values ​​to accentuate the trend , giving rise to a wide diversity of affective-sexual relationships that affect stable couple projects".

Breakups are more present in all generations, but this is experienced with greater normalization than in the past.

says the study.

And the network analysis reveals the particular process of "nuclearization" of couple relationships in Spain, with fewer children and with a greater weight of digital networks and friends, but without losing the structural links that have been key , for example, before confinement.

Another conclusion is that the "utopia of romantic love" is still very present, says the report, but coexisting with other types of love, such as

"People want to continue mating, but in a different way than previous generations," the study authors elaborate.

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