Love, selfhood and authenticity in post-war Britain

This article examines the status and meanings of heterosexual love in post-war Britain. It is situated within the burgeoning field of the history of emotion and draws upon recent work on interiority and modern selfhood. It argues that love became a central plank in the quest for self-actualization in this period. It explains why love triumphed over pragmatism in the remaking of British matrimony and how this impacted upon the institution of marriage itself. The article posits the immediate post-war years as a time of significant discursive change and emotional instability: expectations rose and critical introspection deepened. The ways in which love was fashioned in the 1940s and 1950s were central to the dramatic social and cultural changes that occurred in the decades that followed.