Don't people realise that marriage has a point other than a wedding
There is a misconception (possibly down to the misunderstood concpet of "common law wife/husband") that as social attitudes to marrage v co habitation have changed, that the law has kept up.
SIL's solicitor saw plenty of women who found their misconcpetion come crashing down when a relationship collapsed and their un married status adversely impacted them.
So yes sentiments along the lines of "only have themselves to blame" is putting the boot in. Especially given that the scenarios being discussed do not exist exclusively in the hypothetical.
Many people do not have ready, low cost access to accurate legal advice. Many people do not realise that commonly proported "truths" can be more assumption than reality and that they need to avil themsleves of legal advice to clarify what they think they know and understand what options are avilable to them, and what the shortcomings of each option are.
There but for the grace etc.etc.etc.
Given that it is primarily women who currently tend to carry the "reduced earning ability" can as a result of child bearing/raising, both long and short term, I'd like to see the profile of the legal side of marriage v cohabitation raised.
At least to the extent to which consumer rights have been made accessable to the public.
It's great that people don't have to trawl through small print to know about 14 day cooling off periods etc. Would be even better if the vast majority of 20 somethings entering adulthood knew that a shared address and and a child together was not necessarily more or less equaivilant to legal rights/responsibilities offered by marriage.
And roll on civil unions being availble to all, so those who do not wish to be married, but do wish to formalise the commitment to each other with legal rights and responsibilities, can do so by signing just one bit of paper, that one partner can't change behind the others back.
but it's not exactly fair to extend the stress of a divorce to people that haven't even asked for that stress by getting wed, is it?
Divorce is not that onerous (unless you both come from two differnt countries and running the divorce from a third).
It tends to be sorting out the practicals like residence/visitation of the kids, selling/not selling propery, divvying up jiont assets, working out who should get what of the jiontly bought stuff in the house, support for the wife/kids etc. that drags things out, gets acrimounious, costs loads in legal fees and generally stresses people out.
My no kids/no property "three country hell" of a long drawn out divorce, with lawyers from each country losing bits of paper and driving me batty, was a walk in the park compared to what my cohabiting SIL went through sorting out the banks accounts, debts, kids, property, support etc when my brother walked out on her.
If you want to aviod post split stress you are better off avoiding kids together and jointly owned stuff, than you are marriage.
Personally if my marriage goes bent (makes sign of the horns to ward off potential invitation to bad luck caused by mentioning such a thing) I am never living with OR marrying anybody ever again.
Not so much as a joint investment in a small box of choccie digestives TYVM.