AIBU to think if you want marital rights then you should get married?

[KitKat1985]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42134722

According to this BBC article, 2/3rds of cohabiting couples wrongly believe 'common-law marriage' laws exist when dividing up finances, and there are calls now to introduce some form of legal financial protection for 'common-law marriages'. AIBU to not get this? Surely if people choose not to get married (or have a civil partnership for same sex couples) then they do so knowing that they don't have the same legal protection as married couples. It was one of the reasons me and DH decided to get married after co-habiting for a couple of years. Surely if you choose not to take on the legal and financial commitments of getting married, then you can't expect to have the same rights if you break up / your partner passes away? And surely for some couples the whole reason they don't want to get married is so they can just walk away from things if the relationship fails, without having to have the legal and financial complications involved in getting divorced? Is it really fair to then force those people to have to support their partner if they break up even if they actively choose never to make that commitment in the first place?

The argument seems to be that women (and very occasionally men) are sacrificing their earning potential to bring up a couple's children. Accordingly, its equitable that women should be granted a share of their partners assets when a cohabitation or marriage breaks down.

I dont see how its any different if the couple have never lived together or been married - people should pay for their children and it seems to me that men (and some women) are often not contributing anything like a fair amount to the costs and work of raising their children.

If both parties have contributed equally to their children and have not sacrificed anything financially, I don't see why in a modern society a couple (whether married or not) should have a claim on each others assets. The days of pride and prejudice and women having to make a good marriage should be well over.

I think we need more married people being so "smug", actually, because there appear to be hordes of people who think they have marital rights when they HAVEN'T. Somewhere, a very important message is not getting through.

That's a good point actually.

I mean, there's at least one person posting on this thread who appears to have had legal advice, and yet still doesn't understand that the voluntary arrangements she's entered into wrt passing her property to her DP represent a lesser legal commitment than marriage. And there's a post pretty much every week from someone asking if they should get married, what provisions should they put in place outside marriage etc. Whatever the message is, it's evidently not got through sufficiently.

And you did sound a bit of a silly tit with that Brexit nonsense littlekiwi. You can't be au fait with your stereotypes, otherwise you'd know that it's precisely the sort of middle class, metropolitan liberals you're railing against here who are pro EU Against The Will Of The People. Whereas the salt of the earth, working class types are all Leavers. Like, erm, Boris. And Nige.

Also yeah, not ideal to link to the DM on here. It's a shitty rag that almost invariably will weaken not strengthen your argument. A lot of us are boycotting so also best to give a warning/apology if you're going to.

Whereas the salt of the earth, working class types are all Leavers. Like, erm, Boris. And Nige.

Off topic, but that has to be the first time Boris has ever been described as a salt of the earth working class type!

I don't think there should be any sort of financial grabbing of assets just because people have lived together for a year or two. The lawyers would have a field day with the fallout from this. If you want the protection of marriage then get married. But I think civil partnerships could be extended to people that don't want 'marriage'.

He does have quite a lot of relationships outside marriage though coco...

How about those of us who perfectly rationally don't want to have any part in an out dated institution which has its roots in patriarchy and misogyny? Or do you just dismiss this because you don't understand it?

Of course I understand you have your viewpoint, even though I don't agree with you. But please make this choice knowing that you won't have legal protection if you split up. If you read my previous post, you'll also see why I don't believe giving rights co-habitees makes any sense.

I am married but our laws don't recognise it.

What sort of marriage do you have Evil?

We had a pagan handfasting.

Evil do you realise you can have a legally recognised pagan handfasting in Scotland? Just in case you wanted the legal bit.

Scottish rules are much more diverse - folks always question of our humanist wedding was a "proper" marriage because they aren't legal in England.

Is it not possible for a registrar to do a civil wedding that also involves a pagan handfasting?

Thanks lala and Assassinated, we'll look into both those options. 😆

Scotland's always been more open to other ideas of marriage I think. Bet it was beautiful Evil.

In a Scotland it’s the person ( the celebrant ) who is licensed to conduct legal marriages and not the place. So if you have a pagan celebrant or a humanist who is happy for you to have a hand fasting then that’s fine.

So you get married wherever you want eg your back garden, the top of a mountain

In many countries, couples just pop down to the regustry office, have the legal marriage , get the paperwork and hold the big religious or other ceremony the next day.

Expect a rise in middle-aged men realising they can get mostly what they need from a combination of friends for company and prostitutes for sex instead of an actual real-life girlfriend/lover .

Arguably, men who think and act like this shouldn't be having children or being in a relationship with a woman anyway. So that would be no great loss.

It was Graphista. It was part of the summer solstice ritual, DH and I got to play the Mabon and the Modron in the ritual as well.

Oh wonderful!

@bananafish81 you’d only ever need to prove the relationship existed in retrospect so it’s quite simple - evidence to meet the required criteria could include joint tenancy agreements, photographs of the two of you together, emails/ whatsapp etc., bills, children’s birth certificates etc.

People seem to want the rights but not the responsibilities.

OP here. Been a hectic couple of days so just catching up with this thread. I've read a lot of interesting points but on the balance of everything I would still prefer marital rights to remain with married couples for the following reasons:

1. It would be a hugely 'grey' area to say you can have legal rights / access to your partner's finances in the event of death / break-up depending on the circumstances of your relationship. How would that work in the case of couples who have 'off/on' type relationships, or who are in a long-term relationship but don't live together. Or couples that only live together at the weekend because one partner works elsewhere during the week? And what if (presuming the criteria was something along the lines of you having rights to a person's finances if you have lived together for at least 2 years) a person has had previously 2 or 3 (or more) long-term cohabiting relationships? Would they be entitled to money from all their previous partners? There's also huge potential for abuse in the system with people potentially being able to claim that they were entitled to financial support from flatmates if they have lived together for some time, as it's incredibly difficult to prove legally whether you were in a 'relationship' or not with someone you were cohabiting with. The whole system would just be far too complicated to manage with, I suspect, many hundreds of legal challenges each year quibbling the nature of the relationship and whether they were co-habiting or not.

2. I don't believe you should be able to effectively force someone into a financial commitment to another person just be virtue of them living together. There are many people on this thread who have expressly said they don't want their assets passing to their cohabiting partner in the event of their break-up or death, and would rather they passed to their children from their first relationship or similar. A 'common-law' marriage ruling would take that choice away from them.

3. If a woman chooses to live with a man and give up her work etc to live with him / raise children without being married, then that is her choice. I think it's a very risky choice, but it's her choice.

My thoughts have nothing to do with marital 'smugness', just a sense that practically it would be very difficult to manage a 'common-law marriage' ruling, and that the system should be 'opt in' and allow people freedom of choice.

However I do agree that:

1. Child maintenance payments should be better managed so men can't get away with not properly financially supporting their kids in the event of a relationship breakdown.

2. Women (and men!) need to be better educated as to the lack of legal protection they have if they don't get married.

Oh, and I voted remain. Though I fail to see what the hell that has to do with anything.

You can't use reason against someone who will dismiss everything you say as being "smug" or who thinks this has got anything to do with Brexit.