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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to want a civil partnership rather than a marriage?

197 replies

victoriousponge · 07/05/2016 16:12

I'm in a happy, committed relationship. We were talking recently about the future, and are in agreement that marriage is not for us. However, if the option were available, we would enter into a civil partnership, but legally (as we are not a same sex couple) this is not an option.

I know that there is a challenge to this potentially going to the ECHR (although not sure what effect Brexit, if it happens, will have on that) but in the meantime AIBU to want this?

OP posts:

IndridCold · 07/05/2016 16:48

Becoming Mrs after you marry doesn't just happen, you have to send off your marriage certificate and tell everyone if you want to get all your documentation changed. If you don't want to be Mrs then nothing could be simpler!

firesidechat · 07/05/2016 16:49

You can easily have a marriage ceremony with no religious content at all.

You can choose not to be a Mrs. Call yourself whatever you like.

Of course marriage is an equal partnership. It's who you marry that matters not what you call it.

See, problem solved.

Floggingmolly · 07/05/2016 16:49

The sheer bollocks on this thread!! I can't get married, much as I want to because the words "husband and wife" represent oppression and unhappiness.
Do you write for Mills and Boon, JonSnow? Or are you on recreational drugs medication?

MattDillonsPants · 07/05/2016 16:49

Yes but you can't have both your parents on the marriage certificate can you?

Why is that do people think?

OurBlanche · 07/05/2016 16:49

Thanks, Dotty I didn't want to have pissed you off accidentally by agreeing with you badly

I do think that there is a significant difference between the 2 though. And do think that there should be the option of either for everyone.

As I said, we got married, almost 30 years ago, as there was no other way for us to register the permanence of our relationship. We would have chosen a CP had one existed for us.

Mishaps · 07/05/2016 16:50

Get married and carry on as you are with all the legal benefits of marriage. Keep your names the same and carry on as before. I think you are being more than a bit oversensitive. Just because the old view of marriage turned you into a chattel, does not mean it is the same now. Say you are in a partnership.

I just don't get it. Why do anything at all? What do you want to achieve?

Ricardian · 07/05/2016 16:50

You can easily have a marriage ceremony with no religious content at all.

It is illegal for a registry office wedding to contain any religious content: part of the 19th century bargaining that established civil marriage.

MattDillonsPants · 07/05/2016 16:50

Flogging don't take it personally. Of course you can get married as much as you want. Doesn't stop others from wanting something different to you. It's not a personal attack.

WhatamessIgotinto · 07/05/2016 16:50

Either party can tear up their will or write a new one if the relationship breaks up.

Well if my marriage broke up I probably would change my will anyway so what's the difference?

Original poster

victoriousponge · 07/05/2016 16:50

JonSnow I agree entirely re the repressive tradition.

It would make matters simpler from a legal and financial POV if we were civil partners, but it will not make me significantly worse off if I stay as I am.

OP posts:

Ricardian · 07/05/2016 16:51

Yes but you can't have both your parents on the marriage certificate can you?

And that matters because...?

I confess, I didn't even know that, and I am married.

IWILLgiveupsugar · 07/05/2016 16:52

Marriage might once have been oppressive for women, but today it isn't. No one seriously believes that when their father walks them down the aisle that they are seriously being 'given away'. It is just a tradition that has a dodgy root but no rl meaning anymore. An engagement ring was insurance to protect the woman's reputation if the man backed out and to demonstrate his commitment. Totally unnecessary today but I'm sure as hell not giving back my diamond

MattDillonsPants · 07/05/2016 16:52

Ricardian it matters because it's not equal...WHY isn't the Mother's name included? Why?

People have campaigned for it to change but no...it's a leftover from the bad old days when women were mere chattels and that alone is enough to put some people off.

IWILLgiveupsugar · 07/05/2016 16:53

what the difference is that your h couldn't ignore your legal rights in changing his will. If you weren't married, you would have no legal rights.

MattDillonsPants · 07/05/2016 16:54

Sugar...I don't know ONE woman who went through the old shite of being symbolically given away. And if you think that shit doesn't still stand for something, you're wrong.

I'm not suggesting people really think they're giving their daughter away...but the SYMBOLISM of it matters to some people. People with old fashioned views which do women no favours.

meditrina · 07/05/2016 16:54

Marriage may not have been conceived as equal, but history can be left behind

Nowadays, marriage tends to protect the lower earner or the spouse who takes time out to care for children. It is sex-blind, though in an ever more gendered society it's easy to blame marriage for the way it reflects wider (and stereotyped) gender roles.

Now, as long as you have not reduced your earnings, or suspended your career (or worse reduced your and your employers contributions to your own pension) chances are that remaining in an arrangement that is not legally recognised will make next to no difference. You may need to rethink should either one of you contemplate altering their independent finances.

You don't need to use 'Mrs', you don't need to use the words husband/wife, you don't need to tell anyone who doesn't need to know. You can hang on and wait to see if CP is abolished or extended (I think the former is more likely, tbh, we don't need two ways of establishing legal recognition of a pairing). And you can decide to do whatever is available at the time you think the benefits of legal recognition outweigh the objections.

DottyButtons · 07/05/2016 16:54

So OP you don't want a marriage due to repressive traditions but are quite happy to have a CP despite it marginalising same sex couples?

firesidechat · 07/05/2016 16:54

It is illegal for a registry office wedding to contain any religious content: part of the 19th century bargaining that established civil marriage.

Yes that was point exactly Ricardian. We agree, yes?

OurBlanche · 07/05/2016 16:55

Have a read back:

Husband and (then) wife or partners? How we say that matters, there is 'natural' order to it that has always irritated me.

The whole thing is patriarchal in so many ways. It doesn't even register for many people.

MuttonCadet · 07/05/2016 16:55

You can leave that section blank, why not do that?

MattDillonsPants · 07/05/2016 16:56

Meditrina but history hasn't been left behind has it? Not when the Mothers of the parties aren't deemed important enough to put on the paperwork!

Original poster

victoriousponge · 07/05/2016 16:56

The parent's names aspect is of significance to me.

My (now deceased) father's name is not on my birth certificate. I have been advised that on a MC, it would be left blank. In a CP, I could at least include my mother's name.

OP posts:

MuttonCadet · 07/05/2016 16:57

Again, what difference does it make?

firesidechat · 07/05/2016 16:58

Personally I would much prefer the mother's name to be included in the marriage certificate, but that's more of an administrative change in this day and age. It would have made my family history research much easier if both parents were mentioned.

OurBlanche · 07/05/2016 16:58

Really? I'd have thought that was pretty obvious!

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