From Jane Austen to Taylor Swift, a look at the surprising politics of romantic love and its dissolution. Whatever the underlying motives — be they love, financial security or mere masochism — the fact is that getting involved in a romantic partnership is emotionally, morally and even politically fraught.

In Hard To Do, Kelli María Korducki turns a Marxist lens on the relatively short history of romantic partnership, tracing how the socioeconomic dynamics between men and women have transformed the ways women conceive of domestic partnership. With perceptive, reported insights on the ways marriage and divorce are legislated, the rituals of 20th-century courtship and contemporary practices for calling it off, Korducki reveals that, for all women, choosing to end a relationship is a radical action with very limited cultural precedent. (From Coach House Books)