Love-affairs and the ordering of love practices in Brazil during the belle époque

Abstract

This article examines the diversity of love and the way sexual and emotional practices were ordered, in particular, in belle époque Brazil. Based on a human and social sciences approach, the study stresses the hierarchical nature of love relationships and the imposition of a model of relations determined by prevailing political, social and economic circumstances, as well as woman 's role in the transformations of love.