This survey by the Open University looks like a potentially very interesting project which I hope will give us a different view of family life than the usual divorce statistics and household data (The following is taken from the website):
The Enduring Love? research project is an exciting development in the study of personal and family lives in contemporary Britain. Much recent policy, academic and professional research has focused on the causes and effects of relationship breakdown, but many heterosexual and same sex couples also remain together for significant periods of time. In some ways, then, these couples appear to sit outside a growing tendency towards serial or transitory relationships. To understand more about couples who stay together, our research will focus on the meanings and everyday experiences of long-term relationships. However we will not be presupposing that such relationships are uniformly loving or straightforwardly associated with contentment. The project will rather be concerned with what helps people sustain relationships and how cultural myths, such as finding ‘the one’ and living ‘happily-ever-after’, are understood and reconciled by adult couples whose own relationships may fall short of these romantic ideals.
I find this particularly interesting as a researcher writing about family life. I have found that the mainstream theoretical approach of focusing on what kind of family structures are the most stable lacks the subtlety needed to understand the complexity of family life in the modern world; how it survives, endures and even flourishes. Instead I propose that we focus on the characteristics of family life which are constitutive of familial survival and flourishing. Of course, this research focuses on couple relationships which is only one aspect of family life but an extremely important one. The project, which targets couples in long-term relationships, aims to deal with the idea that we need someone who will sweep us off our feet or match up to some romantic ideal. The survey questions themselves centre on issues of how domestic labour is divided, what do we find satisfying about our relationships, are we listened to by our partners, do we feel valued and so on. I will be watching out for the results of this, and their more in-depth interviews, with keen interest. And while you're here, if you're in a long-term relationship, however you define that, fill in the questionnaire!
It completely baffles me as a British woman who is entitled to the benefits of free healthcare (for the time being at least) and, more specifically, free contraception that in the US there has been a debate about whether or not health insurance should cover contraception. The Obama administration recently proposed a policy requiring health insurance plans to offer free contraceptives for women. Even after an amendment to the proposed policy, which moved the burden of cost from the employer to the insurance company, the Republicans continued to try to block the plan. Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska, argued that the policy trampled on religious freedom because it would force all employers, regardless of faith or moral standpoint, to provide contraceptives to women through their insurance coverage. The Democrats responded by saying “The Senate will not allow women’s health care choices to be taken away from them” arguing that this infringed on women’s rights and is an issue which has long been settled. The battle raged on between different parties asserting their rights and freedoms.
I will not be arguing in terms of rights and freedoms. What I will say is this: I find it frankly bizarre that Roman Catholics still think that contraception is somehow a bad thing. What is my reason for being so intolerant, I hear you ask? Well it seems that some people (see Republican candidate Rick Santorum below) believe that contraception somehow encourages promiscuousness and is therefore dangerous to society and women (of course, he has women's best interests at heart!). They also argue that contraception encourages sex outside of marriage and the idea that we can do whatever we want regardless of the consequences. In other words it promotes a lack of moral responsibility. In the video below Santorum admits that he has supported birth control in the past because it is not the taking of a human life. If that is the case, then surely universal provision of birth control should be encouraged because it will lead to less reliance on abortion in a world which lacks the kind of self-control which he clearly has in bucket loads.
My main bug bear with the claim that sex using contraception is 'freedom without responsibility', is the idea that sex is only an instrumental good and not an end in itself. Do Santorum and the many others like him think that a married couple will never want to use contraception (okay, so some Catholics might but what about everyone else)? This suggests that the only purpose sex serves in any kind of committed relationship is the conception of children. It also implies that any other kind of sex is irresponsible pleasure seeking. Yet many married couples around the world have sex on a regular basis without the intention of conceiving offspring. There may also be many people who engage in sexual activity purely for physical pleasure. The only thing that would make them irresponsible is if they did not use contraception and passed on STDs or got pregnant without wanting to raise a child.
The picture Santorum paints is extremely black and white: there are those who are married who have sex to procreate and those who are outside of marriage who are basically sexual deviants without any sense of responsibility. This is a picture which I find frankly insulting. Sex is an activity which is so much more complex and nuanced than this picture portrays. People have sex for a number of good and bad reasons: to boost their self-esteem, to develop bonds of intimacy with their partner, out of a sense of duty to their husband, to console themselves, to feel loved, to express love, for pleasure and excitement, to exercise power over someone. Some of these reasons should be discouraged or even punished through the law (such as exercising power over someone in the case of rape). However, as an expression of love for, or development of intimate bonds with, a spouse or partner, sex should be considered a worthwhile good in itself which serves no further end but is constitutive of flourishing relationships. That is not to say that someone who abstains or has no sexual feelings is not able to live a flourishing life. What it does mean is that denying sex for non-procreative reasons, where the flourishing of relationships depends in some part on sexual activity, is a barrier to flourishing.
As for those who engage in meaningless sex, they often discover all by themselves that it fails to fulfill them in a meaningful way. That is not for a government to decide. In the mean time, the main priority is that they are not harming anyone else. Therefore, contraception is essential for protecting sexual partners from potentially life threatening STDs and preventing unwanted and unloved children. Finally, Santorum says he thinks engaging in sex outside of marriage is bad for society in particular young people. I assume he is referring to the rise in teenage mothers and the awful burden they place on the state (see: his rich friends' taxes). You're never going to stop young people from having sex. Young people act on desire and instinct - even Aristotle knows that. You might be able to discourage it and police it when they are under 16 but the best solution to preventing unwanted teenage pregnancy is contraception and good quality sex education.
(As a side note, one thing that Santorum is so wrong about in the above video is that artificial birth control is harmful to women. For me personally, artificial birth control has enabled me to live a normal life. Without it I would have crippling period pains and bleeding that last 2-3 weeks every month. I certainly wouldn't have been able to do my PhD. Contraception is something which serves a much wider purpose than uninformed men in US politics could possibly know, though I wouldn't want to justify the need for contraception on this ground alone.)
