According to this article, starting from the last half of the 18th century there was a decline in parents' influence over young people's choice of partners, and the idea of romantic love started to be introduced to people's mentality, thanks to a plethora of books and philosophical treatises promoting freedom in marriage.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, parental influence over the choice of a spouse had sharply declined. One indication of a decline in parental control was a sudden upsurge in the mid-eighteenth century the number of brides who were pregnant when they got married. Around this time, young people were more likely to come to each other based on their own compatibility with each other rather than the arrangement of their parents, and this trend continued to the 19th century.
As parental influence over courtship declined, a new romantic ideal of love arose. In the years just before the Revolution, a flood of advice books, philosophical treaties [sic], and works of fiction helped to popularize revolutionary new ideas about courtship and marriage.
In a survey of all magazines published during the 30 years before the Revolution, one issue out of four contained a reference to romantic love as the proper basis of marriage; during the next twenty years the number of references to romantic love tripled.
However, the article gives no source for its claim (for example, there is no source for the magazine references). I can't fact-check it either, because this is the only article I can find that talk about attitude on marriage. Almost all articles I found on the Internet are about marriage customs of the time. Could you help me verify if what the article I link to is accurate?
