All these recent efforts reorient discussions of the intersection between intimacy and monetary payments in fundamental ways. They reject separate spheres-hostile worlds dichotomies as well as noth — ing-but reductionisms. What’s more, in one way or the other, each critic discussed recognizes the presence of differentiated social ties and corresponding variations in payment systems. They begin to appreciate the prevalence and complexity of relational work. Thus, they move closer to adopting a view of connected lives.
This book joins their effort. It examines how people and courts alike actually negotiate the overlap of intimate social ties with economic transactions. It does so by concentrating on three highly contested areas of intersection between them. The first, chapter 3, is coupling, the whole range of social relations in which one significant present or future possibility is sustained intimacy, including sexual intimacy. The second, chapter 4, deals with caring, the provision of personal attention and services, running from professional to domestic. Chapter 5 takes up households, broadly defined as all forms of durable cohabitation; in households we see strong overlaps among coupling, caring, and cohabitation. After these close examinations, the book closes with a more general reconsideration of intimacy’s purchase.