To not understand why people get married?

Yes, at the moment it's true. 75% is looooooots! Clearly it is a more sensible idea to frame our understanding of an issue on what is happening now over changes that may or may not occur in the future.

We shouldn't make blanket assumptions, but saying marriage is really risky unless you're a SAHM very much is a blanket assumption. And wrong.

OK, first of all, no it’s not obvious as I have no experience of how family courts work. I had to Google CAFCASS when you said that was who you worked for. As I said, it was a genuine question.

It sounds from what you are saying that the parent with whom it is decided the child will live will be awarded whatever the parent needs financially to support and house the child, regardless of that parent’s legal rights. If that is indeed the case then perhaps understanding the legal implications of marriage is not in any way relevant to your job.

People have their own reasons.

For me, I sacrificed my career and earning to make family life easier for both of us so marriage will protect me financially to some extent if we divorce.

For my husband, I am not too sure to be honest, he earns a lot more than me, we share our finance, I think it's his destiny to have his own family and I am part of it.

I think it’s worth getting married if you have kids with someone. Yes in your situation you’re relatively ok as you earn similar amounts and you’re not part time and doing a lot of child rearing. I’ve got 2 friends unmarried but worked 2-3 days per week for the last 15yrs since oldest child born. When I asked one jokingly when the wedding is as she asked me to be her bridesmaid 13yrs ago when she got engaged she said never. I said well if anything you should as you’ve worked all these years part time whilst he’s been full time and got a few promotions and adding a lot more to his pension pot. She hadn’t ever thought of it like that. Sad as she doesn’t want to marry him as I genuinely thinks she doesn’t want to be with him and she would be gone in an instant if someone turned her head. So her risk but so many women don’t see this, and when the guy runs off with a younger version they are stuffed with their small pensions

Totally agree it’s a waste of money and also a very tricky contract to get out of

Too risky having children and owning assets without legal backup. My mum who never married my dad was screwed over massively.

My dad married my step mum last year after 20 years together - and thank Christ he did because he just had open heart surgery and their marriage made it that much easier for her to be at the hospital outside of visiting hours, in ICU etc. My brother in law, god bless him, died this year after marrying my sister last may (he wasn't sick when they married). It has made sorting out a terrible, terrible situation much easier, as he didn't have time to make a will and my sister received the respect she should.

I work in care. A gentleman I worked for had a catastrophic brain injury in his 50s, his partner of 28 years and mother of his children had absolutely no legal rights whatsoever in regard to his care. The person who knew him better than anyone in this world had no say on what would be in his best interest, instead a team of health care professionals who knew a little snap shot of him, in his worst moments, set up his ongoing care.

I'll be honest, I'm not saying that was the only reason I married my DH, but it was my main reason. There's no one on this earth I'd rather advocate for me, if such circumstances were to occur. Marriage may be just a piece of paper, but don't underestimate the power it holds.

I was 25, didn’t really know or care about the financial protections, the inheritance and tax issues etc. I was madly in love with a really wonderful man, we were living away from home and were happily renting as we knew we didn’t want to settle this far from home. So we got engaged because it was the he done thing and we saved for a wedding instead. I wore the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen, fabulous shoes, booked a gorgeous venue, chose lovely food. Paid a fortune for photos, videos and an awesome band. It was the best party I’ve ever been too, we had a fantastic day and have lovely pictures and memories with a number of older family members who are no longer with us.
10 years and 2 kids later it was still worth every penny. We are really happy and I’m proud to be part of a little family unit. Now I understand/care more about the other benefits. When my husband needed surgery it was me the drs spoke to, I didn’t have to wait for my in-laws etc.

@PregnantWithHorrors

There is rather a substantial middle ground here between being the high earning provider in the family and a SAHM. The majority of working mums won't be outearning their partners.

At the moment thats true.

But the proportion of women who earn at parity with their partners or out-earn them is growing fast. According to the ONS it one in four women out earned their male partner in 2020. And you don’t have to be particularly high earning either.

I just think it’s remarkable, as a previous poster pointed out, that the law takes as read that a man will always out earn his wife and in a divorce there is no mechanism to account for the fact that women invariably have more domestic and child related work.

I understand the law is a blunt instrument here but it’s very striking how little this is understood.

So the clarion call of “Don’t have a baby until you are married,” is less reasonable with every passing year. Obviously it’s useful in some situations but we should stop making the blanket assumption that it’s universally a good thing for a woman.

There is rather a substantial middle ground here between being the high earning provider in the family and a SAHM. The majority of working mums won't be outearning their partners.

There's a valid point that there's a category of women who marriage is a risk for, albeit those women may still need to consider IHT too. And there isn't a male equivalent of those women, because of what we know about how mothers still take on a disproportionate share of domestic labour even when they outearn their male partners. So it's a female specific issue. But it's an overstatement to say marriage is really risky unless you're a SAHM.

The legal system hugely penalises such women. They end up having to pay off an ex-husband AND be the sole provider/ carer. No allowance for this is made in divorce proceedings. Then the man is meant to pay a pathetic amount of money nowhere bear 50% of the cost of raising a child (if he even bothers to pay at all and no consequences if he does not), having waltzed off with a large chunk of the money the woman has earned

This. If you’re a high earning woman with children marriage is basically a cocklodger’s charter. A man divorcing a well paid woman can walk off with half her assets, pay nothing in maintenance and do nothing in the way of childcare or support if he doesn’t want to.

The people who come onto these threads saying “why aren’t you married?” don’t realise how punishing marriage and divorce can be to a working mum.

We need to wake up to this and stop knee jerking to the assumption that marriage is always in the woman’s interests. Unless you are a SAHM marriage is a really risky idea.

A friend sold her flat and moved in to her fiancés house, where they lived for several years.
Weeks before their wedding he died very suddenly. His grown up children inherited the house, kicked her out and left her homeless for a while, as the money from her flat was now too little to buy again.
Sofa surfing among friends in your 50s is no joke, and the mixture of grief, anger and fear for the future left her devastated.

@RainintheDesert CP has all of the same legal drawbacks as marriage.

Marriage is a legal, financial contract like insurance which is designed to protect the financially weakest partner.

It’s very binary as to whether it’s worthwhile or not. If you generate most or all of the household income it’s a net negative because you are likely to lose out financially if you separate. If you don’t generate income it’s a huge win.

If you are a woman who doesn’t work or is planning to stop work to raise children, marriage is essential. If you work and generate your own income and particularly if you out earn your partner it’s a bad idea.

The rest of it is just window dressing.

The main tax advantage is in IHT. On first death the deceased can pass as much as they want to their spouse without any IHT, and any of their tax-free allowance that they don't use can be added to their spouse's allowance.

The possible other tax advantage (I'm not sure of this, civil partnerships would be covered but I don't know about just living together) is that if one partner isn't earing enough to use their full tax-free allowance can be passed to their spouse to use against their income. So if husband is earning £25k and wife is a SAHM with no income, husband won't pay any tax, whereas if unmarried, whereas if unmarried it's possible that working partner in same situation would have to pay tax on about half their income.

I got married for legal reasons.

We co-owned a flat and I wanted children so though I loved him (at the time) the marriage part was merely getting a better standing under the law.

I'm divorced now. I don't see it as a waste of time in one sense because many of us want to believe the love story, and you think it's worth it. But I'm glad we kept our finances separate 😂.

My brother has never married his DP and I keep suggesting a civil partnership. His DP was married previously and doesn't want to go again. Would a CP be a compromise OP?

More definitely - you MUST remake your will if you marry because all wills automatically become invalid on marriage unless they contain wording to say that 'this will is made in expectaion of my marriage to..."

.., I hear about what others are saying about how marriage gives women security, but when as women, you hold the babies and all the financial cards... im not sure marriage is always as lucrative as many on this thread seek to portray.

You need to know what the legal implications are -tax - rights etc as it won't benefit everyone as everyone has different circumstances.

But I know more people blindside by not being married than ones who are - but in either case knowing what marriage is and what it means is best starting point.

I married as I wanted kids and felt marriage would be best position for that and DH agreed.

I don't think you should marry him if you don't really really want to.

I married my husband because I wanted to be married to him and spend the rest of my life with him, and I didn't think for a second it would end in divorce. (We did take steps beforehand to protect each of us in that eventuality, but almost 20 years later I still don't think it will ever happen.)

There are tax and other financial implications. Marriage offers a degree of financial protection if you have children and give up work or go part time in order to care for them. It affects whether you will be considered next of kin in a medical emergency.

I married him because I love him. We had a tiny wedding, no honeymoon, nothing showy, no waste of money because there was no money to waste.

On a practical side. I married a serviceman from a foreign country. Without being married I would not have got a visa, command sponsorship, access to military medical and dental facilities, and access on base for shopping. The military moved us around the world, paying for our transport and the transportation of our household goods.

Sorry, I’m not deliberately being obtuse but how can you make recommendations as to a child’s welfare when the financial position of the parent is uncertain? Doesn’t that mean the eg where they live will be uncertain?

I would die on the hill to not make this happen. There are plenty of cocklodgers who would benefit immensely from any such provisions.

You shouldn’t just assume the rights to someone else’s assets just by choosing to live together or have children together. You should be able to choose separately whether you want to share finances in this way.

If you want the rights associated with marriage, then go and sign the piece of paper that gives you those rights. It’s really not difficult.

If you choose to have children with someone who refuses to confer those rights onto you, then that’s a pretty big red flag that they’re not going to treat you fairly in future and you might want to rethink whether they are the right parent for your hypothetical children.