To not understand why people get married?

@PuttingDownRoots but being married doesn’t guarantee against your spouse doing a runner and even fleecing you for cash! I really believe both I and my children would have been better off if I hadn’t married!

You say you would only have children if you could be financially independent (which is a good viewloint, I'm not disputing it).

But what if your child was disabled, or you became disabled? A massive part of this is planning for the unknown.

I think the situation is changing rapidly. Many women will be in the situation I was - earning the most and doing the most as well in terms of raising the children. This meant my ex-husband who earned less and did less for the family was entitled to more than 50% in the divorce settlement. That is not justice! I rue the day I said “I do”.

It doesn't. The situation now is what it is. If it changes in the future, so will the way we discuss it and what's best for women as a cohort. Until then, generalisations will remain a bad idea.

If you want some sort of insurance or financial protection, take out an insurance policy. Don’t get yourself entangled in an antiquated unwritten contract! It’s not security or protection if you earn more than your spouse. Definitely not if you earn more AND do the child rearing. It’s the only contract you will enter into where you don’t see the small print. Getting out of it is based solely on previous case histories. And of course you’ll need to pay a lawyer too at that stage. You could make a commitment by saying “I love you” without the rest of it. I will never marry again.

As the second wife (not the OW) it secures my position in terms of inheritance.

But I also prefer permanent employees to contractors for the same reason! They do the same work but I feel more comfortable trusting big budgets to someone who's committed to it long term and signed a paper to say so.

To add: I actually earn a lot more than DH and we both own our own properties as well as the house we bought together. So I prob defy the convention of women doing it for financial security. But for me a contract is someone being equally committed to our relationship (because psychologically any contract is a bigger commitment than just saying you love someone) and it's more what happens if once of us died/got sick or even if we decided to divorce. Also want any children we have to be part of a legal family - even if we ever split up i want them to have the security of knowing we once had that.

@PregnantWithHorrors

If something is only applicable to a small percentage of women, that cannot then be generalised to a whole. It's valid to say there's a group of women who buck the trend and this is why/how, but it's not the same thing.

True but I guess it depends on whether you think they are bucking the trend or the start of a new trend. It’s not necessarily a static situation that women who earn more than their partners are in a minority. Over time I think (hope) this will increase.

Because...... we want to?

We eloped. Just us, registry office and honeymoon. Best date night/week ever!

Getting married was for us to formalise our little family. I don't work jobs without contracts, buy house without contracts, and I don't spend my life/invest money/tie my future to anyone without a contract. I love DH but am a pragmatist and like knowing we both have skin in the game. Any relationship requires some paperwork - a will, mortgage, title deeds etc - marriage gives me all of it in one bit of paper with a nice little ceremony to celebrate the boring paperwork. Win win and efficient.

I was divorced before but exH and I didn't work out, getting married had nothing to do with it. If anything it probably helped us realise sooner we weren't compatible. Psychologically marriage adds a sense of urgency/level of lifetime commitment you can avoid thinking about when not married - focuses the mind.

If something is only applicable to a small percentage of women, that cannot then be generalised to a whole. It's valid to say there's a group of women who buck the trend and this is why/how, but it's not the same thing.

All the generalisations that are made about marriage vs not getting married trouble me. On the numbers, though, I'm not at all sure that women thinking marriage gives them more protection than it does is the biggest problem relating to those generalisations. Not when there are so many who aren't aware of the legal and financial implications.

I'd particularly highlight what happens when the first partner dies, too. Of course, with the demographic of this forum we're more focused on the childbearing years, and on relationships that end with separation rather than death. Because most of us will have seen more divorcing than widowing. That changes later. Because of the changes in marriage and cohabitation rates over the last half century, we've not really seen a critical mass of unmarried cohabitees in that position yet.

This is the whole point of it - it is a contract, and both parties should go into it willing to abide by it, or not enter it in the first place.

As with any contract, you can choose not to sign.

That’s how I would do it if I ever did it again (which I almost certainly won’t). I find the thought of a full fat wedding exhausting.

There are lots of benefits to marriage and civil partnerships.
There are few benefits to a wedding imo

We got a civil partnership with 2 friends as witnesses treated them to lunch as a thank you. No rings no fuss. Most people don't know we have done it.

@PregnantWithHorrors

If the prevalence of marriage were playing into those wider social and cultural factors, we'd expect to see unmarried women be less affected

At the highest levels of the income distribution unmarried women probably are less affected. A rich unmarried woman is not going to get rinsed in a divorce. A married one will.

I accept that this is currently a minority of women and I certainly agree about patriarchy loving it when it persuades women to do more of everything.

Look I certainly think for most women most of the time marriage is probably the most practical way to safeguard their financial interests.

But it troubles me that it is still being “sold” to women as some sort of financial panacea/utopia.

@MidnightLibraryCard

When children are involved clearly it is more complex depending on circumstances. I would favour instead of marriage having a system whereby all parents are required to provide 50% of the costs of the upbringing of their child regardless of whether they are in a relationship or married, unless the other party consents to waive this (e.g. in a couple where they have mutually decided that one will focus on care and one on work). This would protect children, with proper enforcement.

I agree. Current divorce law is exacerbating this but I find the whole idea of marriage really problematic around this. It incentivises people to treat their romantic relationships like a business proposition. Historically mainly women but increasingly also men.

i do think there ought to be legally enshrined protections for women who are forced to take time being economically unproductive due to raising children. It’s justified if you can’t work. But the idea that you take a sexual or romantic relationship and convert it into a lifelong annuity stream is a bit repellent to me.

This is why I have always found weddings and all their trappings a bit gross. Fundamentally they are about women going “kerching: I am sorted now,” and wrapping a veneer of “romance” around them. Marriage has never been about romance. It is purely about money and I hate the collective social dishonesty about this.

This is something which I can understand if you want to have and raise children. But I suppose when men start getting in on the act for no reason other than because they see a source of cash it lays bare what a cynical affair it all is.

If the prevalence of marriage were playing into those wider social and cultural factors, we'd expect to see unmarried women be less affected. That evidence isn't there. Unmarried mothers on a societal level don't behave significantly differently to married mothers. They just do it with less of the legal protection, as a cohort.

It's always valid to talk about the influence of patriarchy. But that applies in cohabiting relationships too. With the increasing rate of cohabitation, part of that picture is how much patriarchy adores it when women do all the things women usually do, but in a way that makes fewer legal and financial demands of men. It's one of the ways in which we can end up fucked by modernity and tradition simultaneously: being the higher earner and doing a disproportionate share of household stuff is another.

Marriage is one of a suite of tools, that may or may not be appropriate. The same is true of cohabitation.

Even if there were no children involved the lower earner after a long period of marriage would be entitled to an equal share.

Why should somebody be entitled to half of someone else's money just because they've been in a romantic relationship? The presumption that this "fair" or should be expected is bizarre to me. People don't expect this from friends or family so why from a romantic partner? Why does being intimate with someone make it reasonable for them to be entitled to half of your assets?

When children are involved clearly it is more complex depending on circumstances. I would favour instead of marriage having a system whereby all parents are required to provide 50% of the costs of the upbringing of their child regardless of whether they are in a relationship or married, unless the other party consents to waive this (e.g. in a couple where they have mutually decided that one will focus on care and one on work). This would protect children, with proper enforcement.

But I find the idea that an adult feels entitled to live off the proceeds of the work of another adult quite repellent.

It gives legal protections which can’t be replicated.

People seem to forget that it is a contract, and one you should go into with your eyes open in terms of the terms of that contract that you’re about to bind yourself to.

I wasn’t keen on getting married, my husband really was. We didn’t have an expensive wedding.

We are very happily married. We started with nothing - I have a good career now and my husband has done extremely well - far, far in excess of anything I could ever achieve financially. We both know, everything is ours jointly. We know where we stand. If I left him tomorrow (I wouldn’t), he knows he would be handing over 50% of various things he has from a business POV. He went into this contract with his eyes open, and they remain open. We both are happy with that. Neither of us has more ‘power’ over the other.

Ironically, if I’d stuck to my preference to be unmarried, the entirety of the lifestyle we all enjoy would be completely within his gift. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy living that way.

I think issues happen when people romanticise marriage and forget above all else it’s a legal and financial contact. They then decide further down the line that they don’t like the terms of it.

Life is short. Then you die. I guess it’s nice to have some frilly bits.

I think it gives dc better security emotionally in some ways to feel that their parents are officially bonded, and sadly ( at least at our DC’s schools) those whose parents aren’t are often slightly pitied.

Then the financial aspect - though I do find on MN there is an auto-assumption that women end up with more than they bring to the marriage which isn’t always the case.

But mostly sentiment I guess, an attempt to imbue life with more meaning than practicalities and paying bills and getting loose body parts as you age.