The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm : Intimate Citizenship Regimes in a Changing Europe

The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm explores the ongoing strength and insidious grip of couple-normativity across changing landscapes of law, policy and everyday life in four contrasting national contexts: the UK, Bulgaria, Norway and Portugal. By investigating how the couple-norm is lived and experienced, how it has changed over time, and how it varies between places and social groups, this book provides a detailed analysis of changing intimate citizenship regimes in Europe, and makes a major intervention in understandings of the contemporary condition of personal life. The authors develop the feminist concept of 'intimate citizenship' and propose the new concept of 'intimate citizenship regime', offering a study of intimate citizenship regimes as normative systems that have been undergoing profound change in recent decades. Against the backdrop of processes of de-patriarchalization, liberalization, pluralization and homonormalization, the ongoing potency of the couple-norm becomes ever clearer. The authors provide an analysis of how the couple-form is institutionalized, supported and mandated by legal regulations, social policies and everyday practices, and how this serves to shape the intimate life choices and trajectories of those who seem to be living aslant to the conventional heterosexual cohabiting couple-form. Attending also to practices and moments that challenge couple-normativity, both consciously chosen and explicit, as well as circumstantial, subconscious and implicit, The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm makes an important contribution to literatures on citizenship, intimacy, family life, and social change in sociology, social policy, socio-legal studies, gender/sexuality/queer studies and psychosocial studies. Praise for The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm 'The originality of The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm rests on its multifaceted historical observation and analysis of the recent developments of policies, social movements and cultures dominant in four different European countries and their effects on the intimate lives and relationships of individuals living outside the couple-norm. This book may serve as an invaluable work for academics and students who study intimate citizenship regimes, intimate and couple relationships and the ways such relationships accept or resist the norms of intimate citizenship.'LSE Review of Books 'The book is innovative in topic, accessible in style, and promising in its potential to inform policy-making. Moreover, it will undoubtedly contribute to future scholarship in gender studies, sociology, anthropology and European studies.'European Journal of Women's Studies

The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm explores the ongoing strength and insidious grip of couple-normativity across changing landscapes of law, policy and everyday life in four contrasting national contexts: the UK, Bulgaria, Norway and Portugal.

By investigating how the couple-norm is lived and experienced, how it has changed over time, and how it varies between places and social groups, this book provides a detailed analysis of changing intimate citizenship regimes in Europe, and makes a major intervention in understandings of the contemporary condition of personal life. The authors develop the feminist concept of ‘intimate citizenship’ and propose the new concept of ‘intimate citizenship regime’, offering a study of intimate citizenship regimes as normative systems that have been undergoing profound change in recent decades. Against the backdrop of processes of de-patriarchalization, liberalization, pluralization and homonormalization, the ongoing potency of the couple-norm becomes ever clearer.

The authors provide an analysis of how the couple-form is institutionalized, supported and mandated by legal regulations, social policies and everyday practices, and how this serves to shape the intimate life choices and trajectories of those who seem to be living aslant to the conventional heterosexual cohabiting couple-form. Attending also to practices and moments that challenge couple-normativity, both consciously chosen and explicit, as well as circumstantial, subconscious and implicit, The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm makes an important contribution to literatures on citizenship, intimacy, family life, and social change in sociology, social policy, socio-legal studies, gender/sexuality/queer studies and psychosocial studies.

Praise for The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm

'The originality of The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm rests on its multifaceted historical observation and analysis of the recent developments of policies, social movements and cultures dominant in four different European countries and their effects on the intimate lives and relationships of individuals living outside the couple-norm. This book may serve as an invaluable work for academics and students who study intimate citizenship regimes, intimate and couple relationships and the ways such relationships accept or resist the norms of intimate citizenship.'
LSE Review of Books

'The book is innovative in topic, accessible in style, and promising in its potential to inform policy-making. Moreover, it will undoubtedly contribute to future scholarship in gender studies, sociology, anthropology and European studies.'European Journal of Women’s Studies

The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm explores the ongoingstrength and insidious grip of couple-normativity across changinglandscapes of law, policy and everyday life in four contrastingnational contexts: the UK, Bulgaria, Norway and Portugal.

By investigating how the couple-norm is lived and experienced,how it has changed over time, and how it varies between places andsocial groups, this book provides a detailed analysis of changingintimate citizenship regimes in Europe, and makes a majorintervention in understandings of the contemporary condition ofpersonal life. The authors develop the feminist concept of'intimate citizenship' and propose the new concept of 'intimatecitizenship regime', offering a study of intimate citizenshipregimes as normative systems that have been undergoing profoundchange in recent decades. Against the backdrop of processes ofde-patriarchalization, liberalization, pluralization andhomonormalization, the ongoing potency of the couple-norm becomesever clearer.

The authors provide an analysis of how the couple-form isinstitutionalized, supported and mandated by legal regulations,social policies and everyday practices, and how this serves toshape the intimate life choices and trajectories of those who seemto be living aslant to the conventional heterosexual cohabitingcouple-form. Attending also to practices and moments that challengecouple-normativity, both consciously chosen and explicit, as wellas circumstantial, subconscious and implicit, The Tenacity ofthe Couple-Norm makes an important contribution to literatureson citizenship, intimacy, family life, and social change insociology, social policy, socio-legal studies,gender/sexuality/queer studies and psychosocial studies.

This book is about the ongoing strength of the couple-norm and the insidious grip it exerts on our lives as it defines what it is to be a citizen, a fully recognized and rights-bearing member of society. It exposes the construction of coupledom – the condition or state of living as a couple – as the normal, natural and superior way of being an adult,1 in order to offer an anatomy of the couple-norm – an analysis of its structure, organization and internal workings. It explores how the couple-norm is lived and experienced, how it has changed over time and how it varies between places and social groups. Our central argument is that the couple-norm is at the heart of how intimate life is organized, regulated and recognized by regimes of intimate citizenship.2 The couple-form has historically been valorized and conventionalized, so that it is the very essence of ‘normal’. Whether a person is coupled or not is fundamental to their experience of social recognition and belonging: the good citizen is the coupled citizen, and the socially integrated, psychologically developed and well-functioning person is coupled. Being part of a couple is widely seen and felt to be an achievement, a stabilizing status characteristic of adulthood, indicative of moral responsibility and bestowing full membership of the community. To be outside the couple-form is, in many ways, to be outside, or at least on the margins of, society. Despite changes and challenges, coupledom has long been constructed as the normal, natural, and superior way of being an adult. The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm offers an anatomical dissection of the conceptan analysis of its structure, organization, and internal workings. It explores how the couple-norm is lived and experienced, how it has evolved and mutated, and how it varies among places and social groups. In doing so, the book provides an analysis of changing intimate citizenship regimes in Europe and makes a major intervention in understandings of the contemporary condition of personal life. The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm makes an important contribution to literature on citizenship, intimacy, family life, and social change in sociology, social policy, socio-legal studies, gender/sexuality/queer studies, and psychosocial studies.