ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION In her wide-ranging scholarship, which responds to an often
uncritical advocacy of the legal recognition of same-sex relationships through the institution of marriage, Professor Ruthann Robson has become an articulate and impassioned voice for those skeptical of (both) law and marriage. Writing specifically about lesbian relationships in her landmark book Sappho Goes to Law School,1 Robson convincingly articulates the disciplinary way in which marriage would operate in a lesbian context and, one might argue, in other contexts. She describes the "codification of lesbian relationships as mimetic of traditional heterosexual ones,"2 as conveyed by the "normative aspiration" of life-long monogamy3 and the imposition of the legal form of divorce as a means of discipline.4 Robson has also written of the way in which marriage can divide and rule a community, by the "award of benefits to those who comply [with the norm] and a concomitant disadvantage to those who do not comply."5 Moreover, she has written of the extension of marriage as a form of economic privatization, which "seeks to encourage family responsibility while allowing the government to escape from its obligations" of care.6 Finally, the differential class implications of the benefits and detriments of marriage have been underscored by Robson, who describes being "troubled by the rift between class and sexuality."7
