Opinion: It’s time to end the tyranny of coupledom

The couple norm has proved tenacious in the face of enormous social changes. But increasingly, people are challenging it, argues Professor Sasha Roseneil (Dean of UCL Social & Historical Sciences). Recent decades have seen huge changes in how we live our close relationships. As the extended family has receded from daily life, and the nuclear family has loosened its hold, people have been more free to make the sort of intimate choices that suit them. Women's greater economic and social independence, and the reshaping of cultural expectations and personal desires by feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, have spread ideals of equality, freedom and self-actualisation throughout the population. Divorce has become easier, and equality legislation has enabled more women to live autonomously. Sex between men has been decriminalised and same-sex marriage legalised.