We agree with Cooper when she argues that what we are witnessing is an extension of familial patterns into, and onto, other forms of social organisation: in this case, into the setting of households beyond those based on marriage. And we also agree with Boyd and Young that this form of disciplining not only confirms existing patterns of marriage and marriage-like relationships, but also is essentially a concern to stabilise units in order to vest the functions of economic responsibility and caring within the ‘private’ sphere. Any argument to extend these patterns can only seem, therefore, to be in these terms retrogressive or at least naive. But we return to our ‘utopian’ moment and our model of the shared household.
Principally, we think that using the model of the shared household provides us with a frame through which we can more sharply consider present trends. The two most obvious trends we have indicated are the final constraints imposed by the ‘logic of semblance’: trends toward bilateral thinking and to a marriage-like model based either on the argument for equality or on the figure of the economically vulnerable party. Therefore, the only progressive move open to us, we think, is to argue beyond those limits: to argue from a perspective which takes the focus away from bilateral relationships and away from economic vulnerability.
It could be argued that in making this move we fail to address the specific issues of recognition of same-sex sexuality or a concern with actual economic vulnerability. But this does not need to be the case. By turning the argument around and taking a very broad approach we can, we think, leave open a series of questions about whether certain types of relationship should be given privileged recognition, or about when certain patterns of actual economic vulnerability should be recognised. The point is, however, not to presume that either sex or a fear of economic vulnerability is a sufficient reason for initial recognition. For instance, rather than presume that sexual partners are more economically entwined than others, we would like much more empirical work on whether this is the case. We would also like much more empirical work on whether, for instance, women are more willing to become economically vulnerable when ‘protected’ by the status of marriage or living in marriage-like relationships. We would also like much more consideration for why we, as feminists, might be willing to privilege sexual relationships over others and to keep open, as feminists, our concern with marriage and marriage-like models.[189]
The strategy of thinking in terms of a shared household allows us to return to these questions; it also allows us to go further and to reclaim, in our utopian moment, the possibility of a much more diverse and fluid account of different forms of domestic sharing and to argue the validity of thinking, if not moving, beyond the limited accounts of domestic arrangements which have so constrained us in the past.