AIBU to thing a woman is over 35 earns enough to be a bread winner had no reason to marry?

[FlourishingMrs]

Just wondered in this day and age, unless you aspire to be A Stay at home mum/zap rent there is no reason to marry, you could just enjoy living together with you DP and provide the happiest home for you and the kids. That way if it all goes wrong your kids are not disadvantaged. Unless one is religious of course?

Yes it's just over 1k you can transfer, saves a couple of hundred a year. I think its more of a gesture than anything, though I did it when on SMP and was glad enough of it.

In Scotland you can't disinherit either your children or spouse.
Children are entitled to a third of moveable assets shared between them moveable assets includes savings shares pension art jewellery furniture etc, the minimum for your spouse is similar so as third of assets can be given to charity other relatives etc, there are different rules for immoveable assets houses land etc

Originally this was designed so no one was felt destitute so if farm left to eldest son the rest had something.
It also means that children of a first marriage are not disinherited when a second marriage takes place so wealth can't be left in its entirety for second spouse to distribute to their own children ignoring the children from the deceaseds first marriage

Surely that implies that the only reason women marry is because they don't earn enough and need a man to support them. I assume you don't feel that love is a valid enough reason to marry.

My parents have a similar view in that they believe that I need to get married soon, not because of love or anything like that, but because I do not currently earn enough to buy a property (I'm 27).

Marriage is another form of state/church control, be a good minion and we'll reward you with fuck all tbh but by being "in love" and getting married you'll create a nice line of income for everyone from the official licence to the lawyers when you divorce. If you refuse to partake nobody makes a penny out of you and where's the fun in that?

Late to the party replying to this, but I've only just noticed it and can't let this amusing level of naivety go unremarked.

I'm a solicitor, and believe me we do very well out of unmarried couples. The way they generously come in and spend two, three, four times what a basic wedding ceremony would cost in order to put in place half the legal protections it would bestow. Drawing up complicated trusts they need because they can't transfer their unused IHT allowances. Making visa applications that are twice as complicated and voluminous for an unmarried couple than a married one, and more likely to be refused and go to appeal. Believe me, there is a great deal of luvverly money to be made.

I work in the voluntary sector now, but when I was in private practice, unmarried couples were, well, kerching time. I can see that your argument holds true with respect to, say, wedding planners OP. Or morning suit renters. But certainly not with lawyers.

I divorced without too much "help" from lawyers luckily. To be fair it would seem people get fucked over no matter what then so best that he keeps his stuff, you keep yours and no intertwining of anything at all

Oh and a pretty lawyer free divorce still cost £2,000 and god knows what he spent.
Avoid avoid avoid if you ask me

No intertwining of anything at all will do you bugger all good if you're trying to get a visa as an unmarried partner. The opposite, if anything. As I said, kerching.

I'm in my 40s and wouldn't marry now because it would now doubt cost me another home. Never married, my x protected his assets by never marrying me, and I've been homeless without a pot to piss in once already so even if I met somebody worthy of being a husband, I still wouldn't risk it. My kids don't benefit from having a wealthy father as the maintenance is mediocre. So they need me to hang on to what I've got. I might feel differently if I'd come out of the family unit (not marriage) with some assets but I came out of it feel like I'd was 26 miles before the start line and I still had to go, had to compete.

Well as somebody who had their ex on my visa I can safely say I wish I'd had mine and made him have his and we'd have both been far better for it. It's a hard lesson most - thankfully - don't have to learn but personally going forward I don't want anything from a partner and they ain't getting nothing of mine

That may well be a wise approach for some, but is not going to get you very far when you've fallen in love with someone who wouldn't be able to enter the country on a work, student or investor type visa. Which people will insist on doing!

How often does that happen though?

Women are cornered, by biology (ticking clock age limit, being the one who is pregnant and gives birth), society (being paid less) and practicalities (getting stuck with most of the childcare).

I would do it all differently if the young foolish blind optimistic years didn't overlap with the fertile window.

I'd never marry anyone who wasn't financially solvent.

Was that to me thevirginqueen? I don't know how often people fall in love with people who couldn't settle in the UK without their sponsorship.

It wasn't really 'to' anybody, more that, that situation isn't as typical as women getting corner with no protection.

My experience as a woman with low self-esteem led me to simultaneously panic about my ticking clock and settle for a dick head. I had no choice but to walk away with a rucksack and two dependants a few years later. I know that is the direct result of poor judgement but I think women being left financially screwed without the protection of marriage is not uncommon these days.
In a perfect world women would earn the same as men and I think in educated fields, there is a more structured pay grade but in unskilled fields that are typically female (health care assistants, child care) even though courses and qualifications are now required the work remains less well paid than say driving, delivering etc. (traditionally male but similarly unskilled work).

True badlad and that's what I'd be looking for now, somebody who was equally solvent! I said that to both my kids m/f, marry somebody who is equal to you.

Just to say you don't need to be married for your partner to get your pension when you die - I had to fill out a form when I took it out stipulating who would get it.

It isn't thevirginqueen, no, but it was mentioned as a refutation to a (daft) claim that remaining unmarried means the lawyers won't make a penny out of you. Not the case, alas. Unmarried couples if anything often require more complex legal advice and procedures. With a corresponding cost.

But I very much agree with your points about women being left financially screwed without the protection of marriage. It's one thing if, like a minority of women, you're the one with the assets and/or higher earning potential even when the fertility penalty is taken into account. But that's not the case for the majority of women, therefore not for us as a class. It's no progress at all that so many of us are still doing the exact same thing other women do within marriage but without the (very, very imperfect) legal and financial protections it offers. Fuck all feminist about that.

Oh yeh, we're not disagreeing. My x never married me ( now I am glad! but I've still been through court three times!

IIRC heron generally the newer ones allow the holder to name an unmarried partner as a beneficiary. The problem comes when they're not named. A spouse could get the pension much more easily than a cohabitant in that scenario.

totally agree Virgin queen-unskilled male labouror can work on building sites, driver etc and earn far more than an unskilled female worker who might typically do care work or retail.
Every couple I know the man earns more than the woman and of course once you have children it's normally the woman that sacrifices her job mainly because the woman was earning less in the first place.
The UK is still a very sexist place to be a woman in my opinion although everyone makes out its not.

It is changing. Women under 30 earn more than men. 70% of graduates are female. I always earned more. Men follo their wives careers when wives' jobs take them to new cities. Women continue working full time when children come etc. IHowever I accept particularly for women over 30 they do tend to earn less so can be best to marry before you have a baby if you are in that position. I would certainly not marry again as I'm not paying out to another man on divorce.

That's the thing, once bitten and all that, I've had men do the daily mail sad face at me when I say I won't marry again. Maybe it was technically wrong of me to say unmarried couples will be spared the lawyers bills and more accurate to say, if you have anything worth keeping don't let them over the front door step. My new strategy - if he loves me he can date me forever and that will simply have to do.

A man once said to me on a first date "I'm never getting married again!" and I said "well, not to me you're certainly not!"

Did you see him again Virgin ? I'm not quite so bolshy, I just think it rather than say it out loud 😆

well, I did! I dated him for six months and in some ways he was perfect but he wasn't talkative enough for me. I'd ask him if he ever wondered about something and he'd shrug and say no. When I ended it, he actually came back to me about a week later and asked if I wanted to get married. That was because I'd been kind and I hadn't obviously said ''look, your company is not setting me alight here'' and he thought that the real reason I broke it off must be because I wanted to get married.