Marriage without love versus love without marriage. A diachronic approach to the framing of men-women relationships in women's magazines

In this exploratory study we applied the linguistic frameworks of lexical (naming) analysis and systemic-functional transitivity analysis on the one hand, and framing theory on the other hand, to map out the textual representation of women in their relationships with men in two popular Flemish women's magazines. We compare Het Rijk der Vrouw of 1958 with Libelle of 2008, in order to gain some insight into the evolution of these representations over time. The key findings suggest that the importance of men as a topic in women's magazines has increased, but that the importance of marriage has declined. While marriage was considered the highest good in Het Rijk der Vrouw of 1958, in Libelle of 2008, the number of roles that men take on in women's lives has increased and the emphasis is on love, without it necessarily leading to a marriage. In both magazines, however, the presence of a loving man in women's lives is a central theme.