Page | 168 Analize – Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies • New Series • Issue No. 10/ 2018 Love, not the Family Anca GHEAUȘ Universidad Pompeu Fabra agheaus@gmail.com Abstract: I propose a speculative, debunking explanation for the widespread tendency to attribute special value to family relationships. Instead, I suggest, the value of family relationships between adults flows from the same source as the value of intimate relationships between people who are not related by kinship: that of love. This is important because social expectations and (contested) pieces of legislation often privilege family over non-family close relationships, and often seek to preserve family relationships that, if my suggestion is correct, would be better dissolved. Moreover, if love is the source of value of all intimate relationships, this can help reframe debates such as that concerning same-sex marriage in more constructive ways. Keywords: love, family, commitment, value. We often assume that family relationships, even with second or third degree relatives, have a special kind of value that other intimate relationships, such as friendships with non-family members, lack. I want to challenge this belief and suggest that, ultimately, the value of friendship and kinship alike flows from the same source: that of the love that bounds people. This, as I explain in due course, is part liberating and part threatening. A few terminological clarifications: I am talking about love in its broad sense, beyond the usual divides between companionate and passionate love, love for parents or for children, etc. I assume that emotional attachments to others play a huge role in our wellbeing 1 , making close relationships indispensable to the leading of a good life. When I talk about “friendship”, I refer here to all close relationships based on affection and intimacy that, unlike family relationships, are chosen, rather than given. (Understood in this way, friendship and family relationships obviously intersect insofar as we choose whom to marry. 1 See, for instance, the large literature on attachment theory, originated in the work of John Bowlby (1968-1980). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License © Anca Gheauș. ISSN 2344-2352 (Online).