Adorno

60 Part I: Origins

associated with the idea of love cannot function properly in reality has
its roots in the exchange relationship that has come to dominate in late
bourgeois society: ‘Love is chilled by the value that the ego places on
itself.’^30 For this reason, one partner is never willing to give more than
he can realistically expect from the other. In this way, love is replaced
by the social institution of partnership in which men attempt to estimate
the value of women and vice versa, according to the categories of
income, prestige and beauty. Adorno has no difficulty in illustrating his
point here: ‘The quality of every one of the countless automobiles which
return to New York on Sunday evenings corresponds precisely to the
attractiveness of the girl sitting in it.’^31 His observations tell him that
this calculation is made at the expense of the erotic charge of the love
relationship in which both parties ‘no longer want ecstasy at all, but
merely compensation for an outlay that, best of all, they would like to
save as superfluous.’^32
What were Adorno’s relations with the opposite sex? What is at-
tested is his always courteous treatment of women in accordance with
upper-middle-class manners. For example, the charming habit of kissing
a lady’s hand always has an air of gallantry about it that evidently did
not fail to make an impression on women. Adorno’s women students
testify that their teacher was a man whose ‘interest was quickly aroused’.

No sooner did he encounter a woman than he began to flirt with

her. This sometimes seemed arbitrary, as if he were ‘colour-blind’

to the individual nature of a particular woman – he was aroused,

seemingly automatically, by ‘woman as such’. To be sure, erotic

permissiveness was no male monopoly in his view – he conceded

the same rights to women. But in my opinion Adorno was neither

chauvinistic nor sexist. And I can say that because I felt close to

him personally and I do not wish to deny the presence of an erotic

undercurrent in our relationship. His approaches had nothing

macho or virile about them, they were instead uninhibited and

childlike – much as in other spheres of life Adorno always pre-

served a kind of natural spontaneity that went back to his child-

hood. But he could also be extremely timid, something that

does not fit the image of the ruthless ladykiller at all. Moreover,

I always found Adorno to be very dependable and affectionate

in his behaviour towards women. The decisive factor for me

was... that I was able to be friends with both him and Gretel.

I felt that the relationship between them was marked by the same

tension: loyalty despite everything, reliability, an almost symbiotic

mutual attachment on the one hand, and the ability to preserve

one’s freedom on the other.^33

During a marriage that lasted over forty years, Adorno took the
liberty of entering into relationships with other women, frequently