To not understand why people get married?

We bought a property together as broadly equal earners and if we split up I wanted a legal basis for our separation. I also had much higher earning potential and was largely asking DH to not pursue his career so I could pursue mine with a view to him retiring early to be a SAHD or house husband.

Marriage meant that we could go into building a life together as a partnership planning for the best possible future, but meaning we would have an equitable and court mandated protection in the event we decide not to stay together.

And it is easier for tax now to transfer assets between ourselves and for inheritance tax.

@Mummyto4WM If you're not overly keen on the idea of getting married - and I think you've put your views on it very well - why not discuss the idea of some sort of commitment ceremony or similar? I believe a lot of registry offices offer that which means the celebrant usually covers the same venues as they would for a non-church wedding. I think you can also have it in your own home as it's not a legal thing.

You can exchange rings, have readings but the ceremony has no legal status. Basically it's a wedding without the paper work or legal standing.

I suppose the question is does your OH want to marry to show commitment or does he want to marry to be married (being married was important to DH and I for example)?

I got married to my DH because I loved him, respected him and wanted to make my life with him. I wanted to make that public and legal commitment to him. And, I don’t regret a day of it. I also took his name - shoot me now.🙄

He felt the same, it was just right for us.

On a practical level, it also helps with bereavement. My DH died last year, and being legally wed smoothed the legal way.

I agree with a lot of your post, but important to spell out that despite women being more qualified than men as a cohort, we still earn less on average.

"To not understand why people get married? Waste of money and merely a show to the world"
Newsflash, a marriage is different to a wedding!

No one is forcing you to get married OP or even saying you should.

Pps have covered the legal aspects so I will cover the wedding aspect - What a waste of money and show to the world

Whats wrong with having a party, some fun, dressing up nicely and participating in the traditions of your culture? If course there's nothing wrong if this doesn't appeal, but for many it does. I'm actually divorced but I don't regret my wedding day. It was fun at the time. I'm not rich or anything, but if I had that 10k back now, would it make a significant difference to my life - no it wouldn't.

Having eloped on the cheap, it definitely not to show the world nor do I think it was a waste of money.

Most of it was just we wanted to, we had spent a lot of time discussing what we wanted in the future and that included marriage. Also, neither of us personally would commit to someone including moving in with someone permanently or having children with someone who wouldn't put in legal protections. Some of those protections could happen in other routes as others mentioned and I would have been open to considering those, but that can be a far more expensive route to get all the paperwork in place.

Then to boot you can look forward to being taxed far more than couples with the same household income, lone parents subsidising couples with 48 hours per day to do what we must do in 24. The whole thing is beyond a joke.

Yes, precisely. The law is set up to assume that the mother is the lower paid partner and the main carer. The reality now is women are on average more highly qualified than men. Women have more earning potential and many are the higher paid of the mother and father.

Meanwhile women are still the main carers for children even in such relationships. In fact, research indicates that when the woman earns more than man does even less of his share of domestic duties on average than when a couple earn the same.

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 as well.

I would never, ever get married again. It's a fool's game. It has nothing to do with love. You can gave love without risking your financial security.

I don’t regret my hospital marriage, dh died eight days later. We were getting married anyway, just brought it forward.

we married for love but I’m not going to lie we were both aware it would make things much easier for me afterwards.

I love having dhs name.. it means a lot to me

This again.

"Why do people get married, urgh, I have no idea because I'm so tunnel visioned!"

I don't understand why people feel the need to own pets but I don't have to keep harping on about it, I just respect the fact that people like and do different things.

Not sure what there is to understand. And I say this as someone who doesn’t want to get married, but whose dp does.

Being married offers security, especially where one person takes a hit to their career to Have and raise children. It also ensures that one can’t build assets up at the expense of the other and just walk away.

You can get many of the legal protections in other ways as you have. Or get married.

My aunt got married at 70. To her partner of 40 years, due to inheritance tax rules.

marriage is the same as any other legal contract. Will suit some people, won’t suit others. Is a good idea for some people, not for others. Might not be right for someone now, but will be in 10 years time.

But doesn’t the financial security of the mother directly impact the welfare of the children?

OP everything my husband and I have, we built together. Even if it ended in divorce due to a fault on one side, it would still be a fair split. I can't say I'd feel the same if it deprived our kids of a home, but there is no separate money to resent sharing.

That aside it mainly makes a difference for immigration and inheritance tax.

Why you'd want to marry with previous ones + existing kids I have no idea unless it's for one of the above reasons.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships

Stats for opposite sex civil partnership. Most popular with 55-64 age group. When you are young death/IHT probably isn’t on radar. In this bracket you start going to funerals and it focuses the mind. In many cases they won’t have told anyone but it can save a huge amount in tax.

A wedding doesn’t have to be expensive, we got married in a bar (it’s where we had our first date), had a small number of guests and opted to have the usual menu so people could order what they wanted whenever they wanted it.

Its only been legal to get married in the UK since 2014, it took decades of protests, outreach work and fighting to finally allowed to get married, I wasn’t going to fight for something and not do it myself.

Legally for us marriage makes no difference where we live, no inheritance tax etc here, but it’s important when travelling, when we lived in the UK it made adopting our daughter easier, if we hadn’t been married our relationship wouldn’t have passed our LAs relationship length requirements, bizarrely no length requirement if you’re married. Financially we earn a very similar amount and bought similar assets into the relationship, so unless things change drastically in the future we’ll remain on fairly similar income levels etc.

Because people cheat and leave their partners is the very reason marriage is important, for the legal protection. It provides. Wills can be changed, insurance and pension beneficiaries altered. No amount of bits of paper can fully replicate the legal protections of marriage, it might not be for you. And that’s fine, but for the love of god find out what the implications are before making that decision.

It can have legal implications re children too. Eg seeing the recent thread re birth certificates lots don’t seem to realise an unmarried dad can’t just add himself to his child’s bc.
Ok if mum is alive and conscious but what if she’s died in childbirth or in a coma. Unmarried dad needs to apply to court, married dad can just register the birth. Latter is easier when grieving and caring for a newborn.
At stressful time of life having that piece of paper often makes things smoother especially if abroad or there are family issues eg family would take over and do funeral how they wanted.
This is an example of type of issues this lady faced when her partner died. Slightly out of date as unmarried partners can now get bereavement support allowance.
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7334313/amp/I-never-felt-marriage-important-day-Paolo-died.html

Weddings don’t have to be expensive or showy. They are show of commitment of a union between 2 partners. The family unit in western cultures is slowly being eroded. Motherhood attracts criticism, women are being encouraged to despise men. The differences between men and women and their roles in the family are no longer celebrated and fewer women are choosing to have children. It’s all part of the same theme. More and more children are growing up without role models or a sense of direction. Successive generations are selfish and only care about themselves and the latest selfie they took or how they appear on social media. It’s no wonder suicide rates are at an all time high.

There are HUGE differences in IHT if you are married or not. Nobody wants to think about death but it’s inevitable one day. Why let HMRC have tens of thousands of pounds of your money instead of getting married?

I thought it was about love and commitment and forming a new family.

Idiot.

Most expensive financial decision I have ever made and so much stress to extricate myself from, so I could protect my children.

I followed all the "rules". Did everything "right". Years of dating before moving in, years of living together before marriage. Years of marriage before children.

Far from offering protection, it could well have bankrupted me and left me unable to provide for my children as well.

I am very clear with my children that marriage is a legal contract about assets. Do they want to give half of their belongings to someone else? That they can have a relationship or not, have children or not, spent their life with someone or not, love someone all their life and be in a committed relationship with them or not, and that marriage is not necessary for any of those things. I hope neither fall into the same trap that I did.

Women (usually) who have babies and then give up work or go part time are very financially vulnerable if they aren’t married. You see it over and over on posts on here. That may not be the case for you personally, but it’s good protection.

Obviously people will say love at the beginning. But love may often not endure. I am not being taken for a ride by anyone.