When it comes to acceptability, society seems to have a hierarchy of relationships with longterm monogamous commitment the winner by a country mile. The serial monogamist is next in line followed by those people who have more than one partner at a time. People who choose to remain single remain an enigma. Diane is a single mother with one child. 1 chose to live without a partner because that’s the way I like it. I have had live-in relationships before but quite frankly I don’t need to make all the compromises it takes to accommodate another adult into our lives. My father worries because there is nobody to look after me. I tell him I am quite happy looking after myself and that I have a great bunch of close friends who would do anything for me. He often mumbles something about me being too choosy and how I must be difficult to live with. He just can’t understand that I actually prefer living the way I do. I never feel lonely or crowded and I never feel controlled.’

Longterm sexual relationships take many forms. Some partners choose to live in separate households; some choose to live in a de facto situation, while clearly for many men and women, longterm commitment to a sexual partner means marriage. The reasons people give for wanting to get married are many — wanting to make a public declaration of your commitment to each other, expectations of your family, planning children, social pressure, regular sex, ‘making it legal’, financial security, a ticket to freedom from controlling parents.

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