The social meaning of money and intimacy: Review of Viviana A. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy

Abstract

There has always been fear that the market's penetration into every aspect of people's daily lives will corrupt the ethical and moral foundation of our society. However, Viviana A. Zelizer in her latest book, The Purchase of Intimacy, reassures us that economic activities and intimate relations can be well mingled. Such mixing only becomes dangerous when third-party organizations are involved and lead to the abuse of power. To some extent, The Purchase of Intimacy continues the same theme from the author's earlier book, The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief and Other Currencies (1994, New York, NY: Basic Books), that society is not transformed into a commodity market, and economic transactions are filled with social meanings designated by people involved in them. The book starts with a legal case dating from the 1840s in which the heirs of a land owner, Samuel Miller, sued his emancipated slave and sexual partner, Patsy, for the possession of promissory notes given to her by the deceased. The case pivoted on the definition of Patsy's relationship to Miller at the time of the gift: whether she was a slave, a concubine, or a wife (though the Catahoula jury, applying the more liberal laws of Missouri, declared the gift legal, the Supreme Court of Louisiana repealed the initial verdict, and ruled in favor of the heirs in condemnation of interracial concubinage). Zelizer goes on to consider more recent cases of compensation disputes among relatives of the victims in the 9/11 tragedy, revealing that the legal system constantly gets involved in situations where economic transactions and intimate relations intersect. She then poses three sets of questions that the book attempts to answer: when and how do people intertwine economic transactions with intimate relations and with what consequences for third parties; why and how do they create elaborate stories and