To not get the whole getting married thing

[Snoozebox]

I know I am ignorant about the legal benefit side of things. I need advising!

Seriously, what are the advantages of getting married as opposed to just living with a partner?

I find the whole furore over the actual wedding ceremony just bizarre. I can't get my head around making a public celebration over a relationship which is mostly private. I don't get why we even need marriage in our modern society. I thought living together is commitment enough

AIBU? Someone explain to me why marriage is special, please!

Rather debatable gimmejake.

Agree with rainuntilseptember that it would be a worry if marriage could be done by signing a form because of consent issues. I'm quite good at forging certain signatures, for example (probably shouldn't be revealing that one on here, but oh well! I have never used it for anything other than showing off though). There are countries where it's possible for a marriage to take place without one or both parties present (proxy marriages) and frankly I don't think this facility is something that should be emulated.

I'd love to just send a piece of paper away. Would have done itr by now if that was the case. Women and coerced into marriage in all sorts of ways and are present at the time.

One thing that's often not mentioned on threads like these is the bereavement benefits you can be entitled to if your spouse dies. It's not a huge amount but can come in really handy when sorting out funerals etc, particularly if your spouse dies suddenly.

I know two women who have been disadvantaged in some way by not being married to their long term partner who then died young and very suddenly. They had issues with life insurance, death in service payments, NOK decisions and scattering ashes etc. All these things just made a terrible time even worse.

'You should campaign for the law to allow civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples. At the moment same-sex couples can have a marriage or a civil partnership and an opposite sex couple can only have a marriage'

Absolutely right venusandmars. There's a court case pending which has been brought by an opposite sex couple who want a CP, as they say the current legal situation in the UK is discriminatory, which it sure as hell is. Lets hope they're successful. The historical baggage of marriage does not sit well with everyone, a CP is a much more equal arrangement.

Many people definitely do treat you differently when you're married -in our personal life it is not friends so much but some older family members/old family friends only really took us seriously when we got married and it's all very well saying "well they're twats then" but they're not, they're lovely people who take a certain view of marriage.
My job and Dh's job both looked very favourably on it and it helped me get a promotion younger than I would have anyway as it was seen as stable/respectable (maybe that's wrong of them but that's a whole other story)
I was seriously ill in 2014 and had 3 operations and lots of hospital stays and it absolutely makes a difference being married rather than asking as a "boyfriend'"/"partner". again, perhaps that is wrong but it is still the experience we had in many hospitals.

And it is much more of a commitment than living together because you have to get a divorce when you split which is a huge, drawn-out legal PITA far worse than just separating joint finances etc.

Most of all though if the woman (or man, but usually the woman!) is going to take years off work due to childcare and then miss all the pension contributions, pay rises etc she would have gotten and the marriage then breaks up, she is protected financially. Not so if not married!

Peonies- the 1950s rang and said can you hurry back- it's nearly te time!

Would have done itr by now if that was the case. Women and coerced into marriage in all sorts of ways and are present at the time.

While this is true, it doesn't follow that it would be a good idea to introduce a way to make it even easier. Which marriage by sending off a form would be.

bertrand

The hospital knew from my notes infront of them. The midwife refused to belief I was in labour even though it was my 2nd child. Tried sending me home even though I knew I was ready to push, said "you young girls get yourselves pregnant then complain at the first sight of pain". So sometimes in life people will judge. Just too add I put her in her place and told her I was a 25 year old woman who's given birth before, my son was born 5 minutes later and my instincts was right btw.

I second that about Widows allowance too. My Mum's partner of 10 years died and she was entitled to zero. All his children refused to contribute towards the funeral so my mum paid for every last thing (she's disabled and lIves off DLA), only for his children afterwards legally be allowed to take his car and ashes!

If people don't want to marry fine, if people do fine. Nobody should judge anybody as each to their own :)

bertrand not sure what you mean, really?

Especially given in 3 out of 4 examples I was talking about other people's attitudes to me and how they changed after I got married.

The finance stuff is just true, so sorry if that isn't something you want to hear...

How is Peonies living in the 50s? Surely it's the judgemental people in society that are!

Moopymoodle its examples like that which show how marriage protects more vulnerable woman. If you are pretty savvy, access to a solicitor, legal knowledge etc, your own income/ savings it is probably less important. SAHPs are the group most protected by marriage.

A midwife who thought you'd got yourself pregnant moopy? I thought they had to be good at biology! If you can get yourself pregnant, you're the first woman in the history of the species to pull that particular trick off.

And like several previous posters, I don't know why people are so resistant to the idea that there exist folk who look down on relationships outside marriage. I mean, there are some who believe it's morally wrong for sex to occur outside marriage. A number of major world religions say that, for a start. They have adherents. Thought this would be pretty uncontroversial? It obviously doesn't follow that they're right, or even that any given individual will have come across them. But of course they exist.

I don't get your example at all, moody. Your saying that when you were married the nurses treated you differently? How on earth so you know that was why- and not that you were, say, older or had given birth before?

And it is much more of a commitment than living together because you have to get a divorce when you split which is a huge, drawn-out legal PITA far worse than just separating joint finances etc.

The fact that divorce is a PITA doesn't make the marriage more committed though. Even if the prospect of divorce being awful makes people stay married longer (debatable), that's not 'commitment' being exhibited, is it?

Every once in a while, when there's a moral panic about the divorce rate and a succession of reactionary rentagobs opine about how divorce should be made harder, I think, actually, how about making marriage harder, if what you want is to reduce the number of divorces. I think marriage is actually quite lightly entered into by many people.

Divorce can be pretty straightforward, in certain circumstances. If you don't have assets or children and haven't been married that long, if both are wiling to co-operate it's pretty easy. Much simpler than the process of unentwining an unmarried couple who've been together forever and have various children and properties in common. I think a better way to put it is that if you take two comparable couples, ie with the same assets and kids, the ones who are married will have an extra layer, if you like. They'll have to sort the divorce and the house and DC.

I also agree divorce doesn't need to be made harder. We probably need no fault divorce. At the moment, people do sometimes lie about adultery or unreasonable behaviour in order to be able to be divorced sooner. Since there are clearly people who want or need divorce sooner than the no fault provisions will allow, it would be better and more pragmatic not to effectively force them to lie.

I am married so this isn't relating to me. But the common law spouse thing. I thought it was nonsense but I know of two different people who weren't married and didn't own a house with their partners, yet when they split up the partner they were entitled to money from the house/belongings etc. I was told on both accounts it was to do with common law spouse type reasons. How does that happen if there is no such thing? Proof of contribution to house/household costs? Genuinely interested to know as one of the people was a family member who had to stump up a lot of cash to someone who really didn't seem entitled to it

I've been seriously ill,rushed into high dependency,had hoards of ops and procedures and never once have they asked if I was married or dealt with dp any differently than if he was my husband. He has been named as next as kin and has always dealt with everything if needs be with zero problems.

Maybe you were just lucky that you didn't have his family making difficulties when he was not able to make decisions, LilyTucker. As I said earlier you need to get on really well with his family. I know one where his parents didn't like the partner and froze them out of all decisions.

I know one where his parents didn't like the partner and froze them out of all decisions.

But family (of any sort) don't get to make medical decisions. Doctors do. If it seemed as though an unmarried partner's wishes were being overridden by, eg, parents, then that will only be because the parents' wishes were more closely aligned to what was considered medically in the patient's best interests. People seem to hate to hear this, but try disagreeing with your child's doctor about how to proceed in a medically serious situation and you will find just how much say you have without a court order.

I would advise you not to have a partner on a life support machine in Saudi Arabia, MrsLupo, with parents who agreed with doctors and were far more able to deal with the situation than the partner- that was the situation that I was thinking of. Had she been married they would have to have dealt with her. In fact don't have an accident abroad- it can be very dodgy if not married.
I was widowed young- I would have been in a hell of a mess without a marriage certificate.

In this country nobody is allowed to make decisions other than doctors,it doesn't matter if you're married or not.

My dp is always named as next of kin so doctors have always happily discussed everything with him. We've had more hassle getting info re his own critically ill mother due to living 4 hours away. Dealing with doctors and the elderly is a nightmare.

Sure lily, but do you understand that some unmarried couples have had different experiences?

Paddington where do you live? If it's England and Wales, it's nothing to do with common law spouse reasons because there's no such thing. But it is possible for unmarried couples to have joint assets. Loads do. It doesn't necessarily have to be official either, for example an unmarried partner who'd paid towards the mortgage or improving the property would have a claim reflecting this.

No in a British NHS I find it very hard to believe.Sorry.