Why Are Romantic Relationships Privileged Above Others?

Humans have many different kinds of relationships. With other humans, they have relationships with people such as friends, neighbors, coworkers, teammates, and mentors, as well as parents, children, and many other kinds of relatives. Some people have deeply meaningful relationships with spiritual figures. Some are attached to their pets.

In the U.S., none of those relationships get recognized, respected, valued, or celebrated the way romantic relationships do. Romantic relationships are privileged relationships.

They are, in a sense, the white males of relationships. Medical research used to focus mostly on white men. Scholarly research on relationships still focuses primarily on romantic relationships.

In many academic journals, it is no longer acceptable to describe the participants in studies as, say, “100 adults,” if they were all men. Relationship researchers, though, can still use terms such as “relationship satisfaction” when what they really mean is “romantic relationship satisfaction.”

The term “relationship” has been co-opted far beyond the halls of academia. In the popular press, in serious non-academic publications, and in everyday conversations, “relationship” means “romantic relationship.”

Romantic relationship partners are the focus of other people’s interest and concern. They are privileged that way, too. If you have a romantic relationship partner, other people will ask how that person is doing. If they are not sure whether you have such a partner, they will ask. “Are you seeing anyone?” is not a question about your friends. Rarely do people ask about the relationships in your life that are not romantic ones, no matter how important those relationships may be to you.

Do you hope to have the option to bring a “plus-one” to that event you were invited to? That’s more likely to happen if you have a romantic partner. Maybe you have only known your romantic partner for three months, but that still counts more than a decades-long relationship with, say, a close friend.

If your romantic relationship progresses to a marriage, then a tsunami of rewards is unleashed. You get better deals on many services and products. Your marital relationship is benefited and protected by more than 1,000 federal laws.

If your company transfers you to a new location, special efforts may be made to accommodate your spouse. If you are a scholar and get a job offer from a college, that college may even try to find a position for your spouse. If you are single, no such efforts will be made on behalf of the most important person in your life, no matter how interconnected your lives may be.

The examples are endless.

I think that the privileges accorded to romantic relationships are unearned. I’m more impressed by scrappy friendships. They don’t lean on the crutch of sexual attraction. Friendships are not buttressed by legal benefits or protections. They endure on their own steam.

Friendships deserve a more important place in our society. Other non-romantic relationships do, too. Amatonormativity, begone!