We began, when we first introduced our notion of the ‘shared household’, with a reference to a ‘utopian moment’. A point which has been made very succinctly by feminists in relation to the same-sex marriage debates is that it is all too easy to become constrained by the parameters which have been set by these debates into being forced to argue on one side or the other, when really one wants to begin in a very different place and to keep open the possibilities of thinking other futures, rather than being caught by the past. Butler, Boyd and Young, Stychin and Cooper, for example, all recognise the constraints and limitations of the way in which the debates are constructed within the political arena and how difficult it is to open spaces to think outside of these constraints.[185] All emphasise, Butler in particular, the closure which this can effect in trying to think more creatively about domestic relationships. But there is more than this — there is also the clear-sighted recognition that the way the debate is presently structured not only confirms present privileges in relation to marriage and marriage-like relationships, but also carries with it some very dangerous agendas. Writing with a particular concern with same-sex relationships, all are concerned that only certain types of relationship are likely to receive recognition at law — those which are most similar to a social marriage model (although through a process which de-signifies sexual practices and therefore sexuality) — and that this will therefore exclude more non-conformist practices. But all are also clear-sighted in their recognition that there are powerful forces in play that are not progressive, even if they work within, or alongside, a paradigm of equality discourse.
The first element of this is that a concern to include same-sex couples not only privileges marriage-like behaviour for same-sex partners, but also may be utilised to confirm a marriage model for opposite-sex couples and indeed the exclusivity of marriage status. In Alberta, for instance, the Adult Interdependent Relationships Act 2002 not only extends a registration model and a presumptive model to all and any ‘interdependent partners’; the legislation also confirms, in its Preamble, the ‘sanctity of marriage’, referring to marriage as ‘an institution that has traditional religious, social and cultural meaning’, and draws a sharp distinction between spouses and others.[186] Thus, at one legislative moment, it not only extends the marriage model but also limits ‘real’ marriage to heterosexual married couples. A similar move might be seen in this country in the decision to limit the Civil Partnership Act to same-sex partners, on the grounds that marriage law is available to opposite-sex partners, and a decision by the government to encourage the take-up of marriage status through an advertising campaign which focuses on the economic vulnerability of unmarried opposite-sex cohabitants. The Alberta legislation, further, does not mention same-sex partners, preferring to lose them in a more generalised package of ‘interdependent relationships’. Not only is marriage preserved; same-sex recognition is also avoided. Further, as Boyd and Young[187] point out, this extension to a broad definition is clearly linked to a concern with the privatisation of welfare services — what is being accomplished here is a concern to make sure that domestic patterns are reinforced as patterns of economic dependency and where the function of caring should be either located or paid for.
Rights very rarely come without responsibilities, and ‘recognition’ is simply another word for ‘intervention’. We referred in the introduction to one imperative on the government to reform the law in relation to same-sex couples being the equal treatment argument, but we are very aware of a second imperative: the increased use of economic modelling by academics and policy makers to inform reform proposals aimed at stabilising couples, families and households for the socioeconomic good of the country. In the work of such academics as Bob Rowthorn,[188] in which legislative reform is simply one tool to achieve social ends, the use of ‘family’ law and the recognition of certain types of household is modelled in terms of whether it achieves its purposes: the stability of the unit. Within these terms, it is really not surprising that Tasmania has recognised care relationships or Alberta, interdependent relationships — it will help, it is thought, to stabilise them. The Civil Partnership Act, it is hoped, will stabilise male same-sex couples through patterns of regulation as much as through the privilege of recognition. In all cases, economic modelling can be used to suggest that being given a signal of commitment is a crucial factor — but it is important to remember that in both Tasmania and Alberta this signal is supplemented by the right of the state to recognise these relationships even when the partners have not chosen to utilise that signal.
Thus, it would be naive of us not to recognise this element and further to recognise that the emergence of new patterns of household sharing may well ‘require’ forms of regulation which will be policed and achieved through recognition.
Social trends suggest that in this country we will see emerging households not corresponding to the ‘typical type’ as a response to such factors as the economics of owner occupation, linked to the high cost of higher education and caring for the sick and elderly, etc. We are likely to see many more three-generation households, more friends buying together and often needing more than two members within the household economy — it may well become the case that these patterns will require, in policy terms, some recognition in order to stabilise them and minimise any economic fall-out if and when they break down in difficult circumstances.