Congratulating women on getting married

In answer to Mooncup - the only things I want that marriage confers that I can't do anything about at present are the IHT benefits that DawEtoHaul alludes to above, and the right for my partner to receive the spousal part of my pension should I die.

I am allowed to be his partner on his company pension but my company will only pay it to married or CP'ed couples. Rather discriminatory in my opinion.

I also want to be able to protect my assets on entering a partnership (some form of legally binding pre-nup I guess).

I would also want any partnership agreement to be wholly secular.

Thank you mooncup that makes sense of that anomaly. It's interesting how close state and church have been. Why so close? Maybe because both have benefited men. I read a great book about women in medieval Europe (can't remember the author) it seemed that only religious women were free from the expectation of marriage and motherhood. Women went into the male dominated church to avoid.......well, men.

What rights would you like to protect, then, Mini? Sounds like you don't need an institution at all, and there's nothing wrong with that!

I have just had a quick read, I wouldn't personally go in for either. I consider myself to be an individual (living with DP for 14 years) and I have no desire to make a claim on what is his and he feels the same. Also I think because I am anti personal property I think we only create institutions and arrangements so we can deal with existing laws. What if there were other ways in which peoples rights could be protected? What if rights were based on something other than just property.

Yes, that's true, it does discriminate.

I suppose that because the C of E has been our state religion for so long, we're used to think of 'marriage' as potentially both a legal and a religious thing.

I mind about 'marriage' being available for both gay and straight people, because I hate that nit-picky 'oh, X and X aren't married, they're in a civil partnership' crap. I also think that if the law were changed, perhaps some religious groups that are havering at the moment would change too - and this stuff matters for people who are religious.

These redefinitions of marriage are why I find it difficult to understand being totally 'anti-marriage' on principle (and I don't mean that in the sense of knocking it, I mean I don't understand).

As of the 1753 Marriage Act, marriage in the UK was only valid if performed by the Church of England (or Church of Wales/Scotland/Ireland). I assume Catholics became entitled to perform legal marriage ceremonies after Catholic emancipation in the 1820s. Civil marriage was then made legal in 1836 (according to Wikipeda) but presumably they didn't extend the privilege of enacting a legal marriage ceremony to other religions or Christian sects. I am really surprised no one has campaigned for this since!

So it's only C of E and possibly Catholic. I have always thought that it discriminates against other faiths, even more so then.

It's not even that, mini. It's the C of E, and possibly Catholic churches? It's certainly not all Christian churches (I know, my wedding was Christian but I had to have the legal registry office version beforehand).

LRD I think it's only in Christianity. If you are Jewish and you marry in a synagogue you still have to marry in a registry office, or at least you have to register the marriage. Same for Hindu and Islamic ceremonies, I think.

I agree that it's a bit silly to have two institutions, one called marriage and the other civil partnership, but conferring identical benefits.

Here are the links to the details French and New York institutions I mentioned earlier, as compared to marriage. The French one covers more than the New York one, which enables next of kin protection but not inheritance benefits or sharing of assets.

www.le-pacs.fr/comparatif-pacs-mariage.html

www.cityclerk.nyc.gov/html/marriage/domestic_partnership_reg.shtml

It would be interesting to hear from posters in serious but not married relationships which sort of model they'd prefer.

I would like to see marriage for both gay and straight couples - I don't like that people who want to call themselves married, or to whom the religious aspect is important, have different status under law. One way to sort things out would be to say all religious ceremonies must be separate from the law, for a start.

It'd be nice to have legal protection like you describe, mooncup, too.

Can't you just deal with the relationship not the marriage? Wish them many happy years together or something. Makes no reference to marriage at all.

I have a fundamental dislike of marriage because of it's historical and religious roots. Strangely I am not atheist so it's more to do with the women and children as property. In the past church missionaries tried to convert isolated tribes to Christianity, when they failed they concluded it was because these tribes people were too egalitarian! Some ideas put forward to try and make people more susceptible to monogamy and marriage was to create competition between men for resources, introduce a little inequality and you have the makings of marriage.

I am not married and never will I be, DP would love to marry, I have told him to start looking for a wife before he loses all his hair

Actually LottaPianos did say Civil partnerships - no expectations of being together forever, no 'til death do us part', no patriarchal baggage (giving away the bride, dowries, diamond rings etc etc), no vows (you can just both show up and sign a bit of paper if you want, with a very brief spoken declaration which is so refreshing in its simplicity), no name changes (unless you really want to), no Mr and Mrs, no husband and wife (both are 'partner'), no expectations either within the couple or within society about the roles of either partner and most definitely no expectation for the relationship to be 'consummated'.

That actually sounds like "less demanding" to me, but absolutely none of it is required with marriage! You can go to your local Town Hall with your two best friends and your opposite-sex partner, and come out married if you want to, and many people do marry that way--or get civilly partnered, if they're a same-sex couple. If people see things through prejudiced eyes, that's their baggage rather than any sort of requirement.

I'd like to hear why anyone wants to make an issue out of what the relationship/contract is called, and what different expectations they would have from one versus the other. Because if people are making an issue of who's allowed to be "married" versus "in a civil partnership" they ought to be able to explain what they want that they currently can't have.

Thanks bower!

lotta, yes, married people are better off in those respects legally, speaking as a recently ex-lawyer. I was going to say something to that effect to the poster who was unmarried but sure she had covered everything off legally, although I'm sure she knows how to take care of herself. Married people are usually better off tax-wise too, although this is obviously hardly a reason to marry.

TeiTetua, I never said anything about CP being less 'demanding' than marriage. They're actually not completely the same legally, there are some differences in pension and inheritance rights, and married couples are actually better off in this respect. But broadly speaking, yes, the rights are similar.

bowerbird, I'm glad you're happily married, good for you. And I hear what you say about intelligent, accomplished women making a choice to marry someone they love and live together in happy, healthy, supportive relationships. Unfortunately there are also women and men who live in miserable, abusive, soul-destroying relationships and in my opinion and experience, marriage makes that situation harder to get out of, not easier.

But you could still call yourself Mrs and promise "til death do us part" if you wanted.

In fact I could call myself Mrs right now if I liked!

Once again we've got people suggesting that civil partnership is different from marriage, when legally they're exactly the same except for the name. If someone thinks a partnership is somehow less demanding than a marriage, they've invented that. Psychologically it might be true, but legally not.

And if a couple (or a trio? or a quad? or a rugby team?) signed a contract to live together under such and such terms, and then difficulties turned up, I suppose the courts would have to try and deal with it. That would be if the contract were found to be legally valid and I don't know what the requirements for that would be; I know you can't make yourself into a slave, or promise to commit a crime, but in general I think a contract can cover most activities.

Daw brilliant post! Said it better than I could.

Only thing I want to add is OP should get out more. I am a feminist. I am married. I see no contradiction in this. The idea that marriage is still some patriarchal institution, and only that, is incredibly silly and frankly.. conventional.

If you would open your eyes, mind and possibly heart you might see that relationships between men and women have changed a bit lately (over the last few decades). Intelligent, accomplished women sometimes make the choice to marry a man they love and respect and hope to build a life with. Who are you to dump on this?

Yeah, you're right trills. Can you imagine the uproar though if marriage were replaced with CPs? Some people are terribly invested in the status of being married - using Mrs, calling themselves husband/wife, changing their name, getting engaged first etc and I have no doubt that some people see CPs as a load of leftie, airy-fairy claptrap which is marriage-lite. Not the real thing at all doncha know

some stuff about marriage, like consummation and promising to stay together forever, is really important to some people

And they can go promise that in whatever way they like, but not pretend that it's legally binding (because it's already not - if it was then divorce wouldn't be allowed)

Trills, I take your point about two systems possibly being excessive. The thing is though, some stuff about marriage, like consummation and promising to stay together forever, is really important to some people and if marriage is what they want, they should be able to have it IMHO. There are other people like lots of us on this thread who run a mile from all that stuff and don't think it's particularly healthy, but would still like to make a legal commitment to their partner.

Fully agree that the legal part should have to be carried out in a registry office/courthouse or whatever, and that any religious ceremony should be carried out separately.

The solution is to come of Facebook if it annoys you.

Otherwise congratulating people on getting engaged seems quite harmless.

Well it's nice to meet some like-minded CP fans on here! Google the 'Equal Love Campaign' if you're interested in finding out more. The current government are considering introducing gay marriage (a great thing) but have explicitly ruled out extending CPs to hetero couples. No idea why. The ECHR is due to rule on the Equal Love case, probably in 2014, and they will hopefully decide that anything less than marriage or CPs for all is discriminatory. So the government will be forced to open up CPs to all. They already have CPs in the Netherlands and France and about 65% of them are taken up by hetero couples - no reason to expect demand wouldn't be similar here.

About half of the things you listed there are optional in a "marriage" anyway Lotta, but I agree the other things sound good.

The question is why does there need to be two things? Why not have one thing that is the legal thing, then let anyone go off and make their promises in a sylvan glade or a catholic church or whatever they like, but on the understanding that only the legal part is legally binding?