Status of unmarried women in long term relationships should be taught in schools.

[prorsum]

A friend of mine has recently separated from her partner of 16 years, 2dcs under 14.

Legally she is entitled to nothing, common law wife is not a legal status. She has performed all the acts a sahm wife performs yet it counts for very little.

Her partner would not get married despite her wanting it and I know why, he knew.

She's not a money grabber, just wants some security for her children in case he meets someone else and has other dcs.

We've both done google to get some information as she cannot get legal aid and it's not happy reading.

I'm not man bashing, I think that it would be useful for both sexes to be aware of the implication of living together but it does impact more negatively on women.

I love they way people think she has not taken responsibility. It's this constant line that bugs me. She not fucking asking them for anything. i'm not asking for anything. It's a discussion about providing knowledge. In a school.

Your suggestion is that schools provide the knowledge needed to make informed decisions on adult life.
My response is that I disagree, and that schools already teach pupils the skills to take personal responsibility for gaining that knowledge so further education is not necessary if pupils apply those skills when they are adults.

Your friend has applied these skills in some areas of her life and not others. Why are you so offended on behalf of your friend?

I guess because she is my friend and I don't like the way she is being spoken about. Is that abnormal?

So we disagree about the way this could or might be avoided in future.

I don't think that made it wrong for political geography of the then current day to be on the curriculum.

It depends what that information is used for by the pupils when they are adults.

If, as the OP is suggesting, pupils rely on the information given in political geography lessons to make choices about holidays, and places of work, then they may well be ill informed!

I think the OP and title were phrased VERY BADLY.

I do think tha citizenship lessons etc should cover the importance of making a will.

It's hard to say that they should cover "things that you think might be true that are not" - how do you decide which myths are prevalent enough to be worth covering? Will there be different myths for different areas?

On that note, do sex education classes specifically tell you that yes you CAN get pregnant if you do it standing up?

For many children school is the only place they're going to be exposed to views that are different from their parents'. This can be a lifeline for children who are realising that they're gay, or they don't share their parents' religious or other beliefs. I think it's really important that children are educated about citizenship, relationships and so forth in school. Not all by any means will get it from home and many will be taught factually incorrect stuff if this thread is anything to go by. Yes, of course they need to be taught how to find out this kind of thing for themselves and given the skills to evaluate possible sources of information to check that they're reliable. But I do think schools have a role in providing the knowledge too.

Trills Totally accept that. Will do better.

If, as the OP is suggesting, pupils rely on the information given in political geography lessons to make choices about holidays, and places of work, then they may well be ill informed!

I suggested that where?

Common Law marriage was 'abolished' about the time of the industrial revolution, when urbanisation took place, people were no longer closely known in their parishes and proof of who belonged to whom became more necessary (growth of middle classes possibly a factor).

No of course until reliable contraception became available (1960s) and widespread (1970s) there were totally different societal expectations and cohabitation was uncommon and Not Respectable. And marrying in a hurry with a baby in the way was still pretty common for quite a while even when child-free set ups were normalising.

So there was a gap - roughly 1980s (cohabitation more frequent) to the 00s (rise of Internet) when, as pointed out by previous posters, unless the print media carried an article about relative legal status of marriage and cohabitation, there probably wouldn't have been much information out there. And unless you knew someone who had been in circumstances that ended badly, you probably wouldn't have thought about it.

Put an insert in a Bounty pack, not everyone gets one; have a lesson in school, someone might be off sick that day.
Short of stapling a leaflet to everyone's forehead there is no foolproof way of ensuring everyone knows the same things and urban myths/common misconceptions are incredibly persistent.

I do think there should be an effort made to disseminate important information - they didn't have phse at school when I was young and I learnt all kinds of bollix from my peers instead - to counter the most prevalent misconceptions as this must be to the benefit of society at large but this cannot be a guarantee against making bad decisions.

Whilst I'm not convinced that schools should be responsible for picking up the bits of parenting that some shit parents shirk - there does need to be a greater awareness within society of the precarious position women like your friend are in.

However, as most teenagers tend to view the world through rose-tinted specs (I have 3 DSD in their early 20's who are convinced that their current BFs are "the one" and they will be together forever, as well as 2 young DDs who assume that they will meet their prince and get married blah blah blah) trying to educate them about some of the realities of human relationships isn't going to sink in.

I have frequently told all the young women I know (family, students, friends etc) never to rely on a man to fund their lifestyle - but they never think it will happen to them, until it does.

Unfortunately the way that most people learn is by totally fucking up.

That's not a criticism, I'm not calling anyone stupid or irresponsible, but until we are screwed over ourselves, we never really see it coming.

I guess because she is my friend and I don't like the way she is being spoken about. Is that abnormal

But you're the one who presented her in this particular way and told a lot of strangers about the situation she found herself in (and created). I wouldn't be thanking you if I was your friend.

Re schools teaching this stuff. Leaving aside the fact that laws change and current advice is likely to be out of date by the time its of any use to kids, and the fact that it won't seem relevant to them, and all the other points: Where does it end? Just how many things do you want schools to teach? If you want this stuff, what about stuff about housing policy and rental agreements? Budgeting and shopping and taxes and employment law? Changing plugs and home safety and smoke alarms? Credit agreements and mortgages and loans and benefits and insurance? Care of the elderly and the mental health act? Looking after babies and first aid and relationships and how to spot the red flags and self esteem and and and and.......

For every thing you could argue to teach in schools there are another hundred things just as useful, just as necessary for a good adult life. It isn't possible for schools to do all this. And considering that there are kids coming out of more than a decade of schooling barely able to read and write, or make change, is this really want you want schools to have to add in to the already bursting curriculum?

Surely this is less about creating another lesson in which children can zone out, and more about parents and general society encouraging young women to be less British squeamish about discussing money, particularly within relationships? I know plenty of women who are the higher wage earners, yet there's still a weirdly 50s sense that requiring equal contributions is somehow 'grabby' or being upfront about how bills will be split, and who owns, or what might happen in a split is 'unromantic'.

FWIW, I lived with a charming but work-resistant bloke for most of my 20s, and paid every bill, including the mortgage. When we broke up, yes, I kept the house, and he got a lump sum to move somewhere else, but definitely not half of what I'd worked two jobs to pay for. I loved him, but that sense of 'someone else will look after the money' got kind of wearing after the first five years, despite plenty of input about what might happen if we broke up from his parents, his mates, etc.

I mentioned political geography (not OP) and only because it is something that can change overnight with a new law or treaty. And by the logic of 'the law might change, so don't teach it' would also be excluded on the same grounds as excluding information on the legal status of choices underpinning future households.

FWIW, I really don't see why information on the legal underpinnings of LTRs (whether cohabiting, CP or marriage) should not be included in a good SRE curriculum.

"Is this really want you want schools to have to add in to the already bursting curriculum?"

?

SRE is already on the curriculum.

Apologies OP I worded that badly - what I meant is that you are suggesting that schools should provide pupils with the knowledge they require to make decisions in their adult lives.

My badly made point is that the law, and geopolitics, may well change in the intervening time, and so if adults make decisions based on knowledge gained during their time at school, they may put themselves at risk.

So there was a gap - roughly 1980s (cohabitation more frequent) to the 00s (rise of Internet) when, as pointed out by previous posters, unless the print media carried an article about relative legal status of marriage and cohabitation, there probably wouldn't have been much information out there.

The OPs friends DCs were both born since 2000' scaevola; which suggests that it was available had she wished to inform herself.

I have no idea what SRE is or what it entails. But if it already covers what OP is asking for, why not say so? And if not, then the point stands.

Oh Trills, it was only luck I didn't become a parent at 16, I sincerely believed that one.

All our version of phse (the early 80s) covered was periods and something peculiar that rabbits did! So not that long ago we were told bugger all useful.

In the specific case of your friend, I don't think it would have made any difference at all to her if this had been told to her at school. It sounds like she didn't necessarily think she had protections in place, she just isn't the sort of person who really thinks ahead much at all or thinks about the possibility of things going wrong. Even now, you say that she still doesn't want to read about the issue and get info, you're having to help her.

I think it takes a lot more than 30 mins in school one day to get things like this across to some people. There's no polite way to say this, even though intelligence is to a certain extent innate like height and it's ok to say someone is short, but some people just aren't very bright and, when that's combined with other factors like not having good parents, they can be exploited very easily. We should absolutely as a society look to protect them but that has to be bigger than just conveying a short message in school because this sort of person just won't have the nous to apply that to their life.

More generally, I would hate for schools to perpetuate the view that women will automatically always be the lower earners that so many women on here have and that all they can do to protect themselves is marry. I would much rather that schools taught girls that they need to take responsibility for their own financial futures.

Is this you're first time here? MN threads are largely about ourselves or other people. You only know a few facts about her life so I think her anonymity is safe. When the dust is settled I'll get her to read this thread, I think she may actually find it amusing.

Your and yours were the ones who decided to attack her when that was not the point of my badly worded post. However nowhere in that op did ask for anything for her or said that she blamed anyone for her predicament. That's what you all jumped on though and you can't get off it.

So you think my suggestion is a bad one. Fine.

notinagreat Very possible but I'm not really talking avoided pitfalls for her; she's in deep already, but for future generations it might help.

My idea was that it could be a marriage v live together comparison, legal consequences and the rest. Just a statement of facts.

School was basically pointless for me but there are things I remember that have been useful and I was given opportunities to do things that affect my cultural enjoyments today. Some things stick in the brain.

'My idea was that it could be a marriage v live together comparison, legal consequences and the rest. Just a statement of facts.'

My Victorian grandfather told me never to have sex with someone I wasn't married to and never to hand over my financial security to someone else because I'd be helpless if something bad happened.
He'd have been very smug at being thought of as an educational resource.

Victorians are excellent educational resources. I discovered the myth of common law whilst reading about a scandalous Victorian divorce.

I have lived with dp since the 70's, whilst I have seen family and friends marry and divorce I actually cannot see how marriage protected any of them. Not one got anything more than a large wedding bill and an equally large solicitors bill when they divorced.
If they owned a home jointly then they walked away with their 1/2 after it was sold.
One who 's dh bought the house after they married and had only his name on the deeds and mortgage moved his new girlfriend in and dw ended up in the spare bedroom. Her solicitor told her she had to stay in order for them to proceed to get her share. Her name was put on the deeds. He then stopped paying the mortgage. Dw in the end accepted £2000 to go away.

A few others have tried claiming through the CBA who are useless as it takes them so long to process a claim and get an attachment of earnings. see my pp.

The only thing that does worry me is IT on our joint home. Wills are in place and I and our dc are put on company insurance, pension pot etc.

If I had seen one good divorce and a exh paying up then I might have a different attitude but I haven't.

"More generally, I would hate for schools to perpetuate the view that women will automatically always be the lower earners that so many women on here have."

How many times have you read on here "I used to have a very high earning job and then I had children". It's absolutely unfair that the earning potential of so many women is so dramatically affected by having children, but it is unfortunately one of life's realities.

The situation in Scotland is slightly different in that if a couple are widely believed to be married, common law can be applied. But in all of my 53 years, I have only known of one such couple (and only found out they weren't/hadn't been married when she told me they had just tied the knot!)

I think the situation may have changed and the Court of Session has ruled that no future "marriages of habit and repute" - as the Scots call them - can be entered into. Any Scots lawyers about?