Forming and Formalising Relationships

Abstract

Given the emphasis that many of our couples placed on the ordinary, and the enduring nature of the relating ideals and values that they had grown up with, as discussed in Chapter 3, it is perhaps unsurprising that they should choose to ‘marry’. However, while the majority of partners saw their entry into civil partnership as an expression of their free choice, a minority felt that they had little choice but to formalise their relationship so as to protect it. At the heart of couple and individual narratives of marriage are stories about romance, love, mutual care and commitment that attest to the enduring centrality of the couple to the relational imaginary. These are stories about self and relational investments in couple projects and of the affirmative power of formalising commitments. They are also stories of convention and its disruption. While the majority deployed some of the conventions of marriage in ceremonialising their relationship, the fact that they were same-sex couples could also disrupt such conventions in practice. Same-sex unions could trouble the heterosexual relational landscape and at the same time bolster the couple as the ‘natural’ focus of adult relational life.