Exploring Civil Partnership From the Perspective of Those in Mixed-Sex Relationships: Embracing a Clean Slate of Equality

Nikki Hayfield, Bethan Jones, Julia Carter, Adam Jowett

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)
    113 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Civil partnerships first became available to mixed-sex couples in England and Wales in December 2019. To date, there has been no research exploring the perspectives of mixed-sex couples who choose to become civil partners. We interviewed 21 people, as individuals or in couples, who were considering, planning, or had already entered into a civil partnership. Our thematic analysis resulted in two themes. In Free from the patriarchal baggage of marriage: Civil partnership as a clean slate of equality, we discuss how participants portrayed marriage as imbued with problematic traditions. In contrast, civil partnerships were portrayed as a contemporary form of relationship recognition that was in fitting for them and their relationships. In the second theme, Doing thing differently? Rejecting or reimagining weddings we discuss how participants critiqued traditions to navigate whether and how to reject them entirely, or attempt to creatively reimagine them. We consider the implications of our results.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1925-1948
    Number of pages24
    JournalJournal of Family Issues
    Volume45
    Issue number8
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 14 Aug 2023

    Bibliographical note

    This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
    Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
    which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
    provided the original work is properly cited.

    Funding

    The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol.

    FundersFunder number
    University of the West of England

      Keywords

      • heterosexual
      • marriage
      • patriarchy
      • relationships
      • weddings

      ASJC Scopus subject areas

      • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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