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René Magritte’s 1933 oil on canvas painting Elective Affinities, characterizing the reality that although we are born free or may, at times, feel free, we are always “caged” by forces or chemical affinities over which we have no control.^[1]

Elective Affinities is a term used to define the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference to others.^[2] Although the origins of the term is difficult to pin down, it was likely used by William Cullen (1748) and was definitely used by Joseph Black (1755), Cullen’s pupil, and later popularized significantly by Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman in his 1785 Dissertation on Elective Attractions.^[3][4] The term was taken up in 1809 by Goethe in his novella Elective Affinities and has since been associated with human and cultural sympathies and aversions.^[5]

The term itself is based on the older notion of chemical affinities as was used by those as Albertus Magnus (1250), Francis Bacon (1620), Robert Boyle (1661), Isaac Newton (1704), Étienne François Geoffroy (1718), and others. In the late 19th century, German sociologist Max Weber, who had read the works of Goethe at the age of 14, used Goethe's conception of human "elective affinities" to formulate a large part of sociology.^[6]

In 1768, at the age of 19, German writer and scientist Johann von Goethe began his readings in chemistry among other subjects. In 1809, he scripted a novella Elective Affinities that set out examine whether or not the science and laws of chemistry undermine or uphold the institute of marriage, as well as other human social relations. From the time of its publication till the present, Goethe's novel Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften, 1809), has aroused a storm of critical confusion. Critics in every age have vehemently disagreed about its content: whether it defends the institution of marriage, radically supports its dissolution, or even whether it is about marriage at all.^[7]

Goethe’s 1809 novella Elective Affinities is situated around the city of Weimar, in which the lives of four individuals, who are living badly, are drawn into relationships as inexorably as if they were substances in a chemical equation.^[8] In early nineteenth century chemistry, the phrase "elective affinities" or chemical affinities was used to describe compounds that only interacted with each other under select circumstances. Goethe used this as an organizing metaphor for marriage, and for the conflict between responsibility and passion. When first published, it was considered controversial for questioning the institution of marriage, and in some ways was a precursor of Ibsen's A Doll's House.

The story involves two men (Edward and Otto) and two women (Charlotte and Ottelie) and their various longings and infidelities. Some perceived the book as very "moral", being that in some cases people stay unhealthily married in a state where they are no longer living, others viewed the book as being very "immoral", being that the chemical view of life derogates the sanctity of ideal true love and life-long marriage.

In culture, Goethe's affinities has been used ever since as a metaphor in human relationships. In 1933, René Magritte executed a painting entitled "Elective Affinities" to elaborate on Goethe’s view that although a person may, at times, feel free, he or she is always under the control of affinities or forces, over which they have no control.^[1] The following quote by Goethe summarizes this view:

In French New Wave director François Truffaut's 1962 movie "Jules et Jim", Catherine, the female in the love triangle who married Jim, was filmed reading this book while Jules reunited with the couple after years of separation caused by WWI, hinting the instability in her marriage. It was filmed in 1996 by director Paolo Taviani, as Le affinità elettive. It also served as the inspiration for the 1982 Francis Ford Coppola film One from the Heart.

1. ^ ^{a b} ABC Gallery – Elective Affinities (1933).
2. ^ Elective (chemistry) – Dictionary.com
3. ^ Bergman, T. (1785). A Dissertation on Elective Attractions. Edinburgh.
4. ^ Torbern Olof Bergman – Britannica Concise.
5. ^ Elective Affinity
6. ^ Herbert, Richard, H. (1978). 'Max Weber's Elective Affinities: Sociology within the Bounds of Pure Reason', American Journal of Sociology, 84, 366-85.
7. ^ Tantillo, Astrida, O. (2001). Goethe's Elective Affinities and the Critics. Camden House.
8. ^ Oxford University Press. (2006). Book Review of Goethe’s Elective Affinities.

• Elective Affinities - Peter D. Smith
• Elective Affinities – The Literary Encyclopedia

• Pragmatism and American Democracy: An Elective Affinity Analysis - Norbert Wiley
• Elective Affinity - Encyclopedia of Religion and Society

• One from the Heart at the Internet Movie Database (1982)
• Le affinità elettive at the Internet Movie Database (1996)