So instead of talking about relationship structures (examples of those being strict monogamy, open relationships, swinging, or any of the many versions of polyamory) how about we take it a bit more meta and discuss relationship frameworks. What is a relationship framework you ask? Well, I think the best way to describe it would be to say it’s the way we internally view and describe all of our interpersonal relationships to ourselves (and how we try to explain said relationships to others, even if that’s a lot more difficult.)
I like to think of the most basic form of relationship frameworks as existing on a 2 dimensional grid, with Categorical versus Attributed for one dimension, and Hierarchical versus Egalitarian for the other dimension.
People more attuned to Categorical frameworks want to fit every relationship into a simple category from which all attributes are easy to determine. So "Romantic Partners, Sexual Partners, Platonic Partners, Friends, Acquaintances, Enemies" might be a common list of relationship categories.
People more attuned to Attributed frameworks on the other hand tend to see every relationship as something unique, with it's own set of attributes that can't easily be assigned to some predetermined category. Relationship anarchists are almost always more on the Attributed side than the Categorical side, but even we will sometimes use categories when explaining our relationships to other people, as it's often simpler.
For those more attuned to Hierarchical relationships, every interpersonal relationships exists on a multi-leveled hierarchy of relative importance. This often goes hand in hand with Categorical frameworks, so for instance, Romantic Partners are at the very top of a lot of people’s relationship hierarchy (actually, you may have guessed, but my list of example categories was actually in what I’ve observed to be a pretty standard hierarchy for a lot of people.)
For those more attuned to Egalitarian relationships, every interpersonal relationship is on a single level, with every case of importance being based more on the individual circumstances than on what category or attributes it has. As you might have guessed, relationship anarchists tend to be more egalitarian by their very nature. Not to say we might not sometimes have exceptions, as while it’s easy to say in theory that all our relationships are equally important, there are sometimes specific attributes that may cause at least a small imbalance (nesting partners for instance, especially those with fundamentally integrated finances.)
Putting this on a two dimensional grid, I’d say the stereotypical cultural norm would fall somewhere in the Categorical/Hierarchical sector, while relationship anarchists would fall somewhere in the Attributed/Egalitarian sector. Noting there are sometimes going to be exceptions, and not everyone is going to fall on the same grid point. I also think like any other scale, it’s going to be very rare to find someone who is exactly 100% attuned to one scale or the other. For the simple reason of being human, nobody is perfect. I’m not a perfect relationship anarchist, and never will be.
Anyway, this is a brief introduction to this topic, which will be referenced in future posts. Stay tuned for more (which as always will arrive when I’m ready to write them.)
So, where do you fall on the relationship framework grid?