The duality of class and love

Social classes are, in part, the intersection of economic and intimate relations. Just as groups and individuals form a duality, social classes and marriages form a duality to the extent marriages are homogamous along class-relevant dimensions; yet analyzing homogamy through the lens of duality is largely under-exploited. Using network, geometric, and text-analytic methods, I explore the intersection of individuals and groups through the social sinews of elite marriage as represented in nearly 14,000 New York Times wedding announcements over fifty years. In particular, I find that homogamy at the level of educational organizations and surnames has increased in the last few decades among this group of elites, while homogamy by occupational organizations and titles has decreased. The technique outlined here allows us to explore fine-grained similarities, moving beyond measuring identical matches or assuming affiliations are independent, to arrive at the latent social structures that emerge from the “homogamy space” created by the dualities of marriage. • Marriage shapes class identity, (de-)consolidation, and broad economic relations. • By generalizing duality we can simultaneously model class and marriage. • Embedding models can operationalize this generalized duality. • This is demonstrated on elite marriages in nearly 14,000 wedding announcements. • Both surname and educational homogamy have been increasing in recent decades.