Aibu to think if you want the legal protection of marriage then get married

[Sofabitch]

I was listening to the radio this morning and they were talking about how widows allowance isn't paid to couples that weren't married, even if children are involved.

Aibu to think marriage is essentially the legal joining of people and if you want to be recognised legally and finacially then you should get married.

I guess the supreme court will ultimately decide if I am being unreasonable. But i can't help but think people dont realise the legal security marriage offers and they should.

Why did you have to pretend to be humanists?

We didn't. It was a humanist celebration with a celebrant where we incorporated some Jewish cultural traditions, but it was a secular ceremony with no religious content, no mention of God. We had a Jew-ish humanist wedding.

CuboidalSlipshoddy Were you there when I was enquiring about this? No? Wind your neck in then.

This has become mind-numbingly dull. I have explained why being married comes with legal responsibilities and protections you can’t replicate any other way. I’ve also said why I can’t see the system in the UK changing any time soon. I’ve also expressed my opinion that the system in France seems to work better and give people more options and flexibility. I’m not really interested in people who don’t appear to have sufficient knowledge of both systems to make a comparison telling me my opinion is rubbish.

I don’t really have anything else to add.

We could have said we were pagans or Satanists if we'd wanted. We just wanted space and seating for a ceremony and didn't need a registrar as we'd already be legally married. Not difficult

To be fair loveintokyo, you thought people in the UK weren't able to have a secular ceremony after a legal one until you were told otherwise. I think there's misunderstanding about the differences between the UK and French systems here from both sides. I certainly include myself in that.

But I quite agree, this is not a particularly important point in the grand scheme of things. Not least because the UK introducing a more French style system wouldn't tackle the problems of inertia, ignorance and beliefs about the undesirability of state involvement in relationships.

And as I've said several times now to general agreement, those are the actual issues here. The sort of people who would avail themselves of an alternative, active process or ceremony instead of marriage are going to be the sort of people who've already done that to some extent with solicitors. Another legal option isn't going to magically educate people who think they're already common law spouses.

LoveInTokyo I totally agree that the French method is better. I think signing an actual contract marriage should be no different to registering a birth or death, and people can knock themselves out and do what they want after that. Mainly becuase of the reasons you gave, but also because so-o many people (and there are many examples on this thread) don't actually realise religion has nothing to do with the signing of a legal marriage contract. That's a serious problem.

Unfortunately though, it's a very aspirational thing and would be very difficult to achieve. I also absolutely believe your version of the hotel's reaction, because the chain of events is more or less church-wedding reception in a hotel and so on. Once the hotel hears 'wedding', they just want to charge for a wedding. I still don't see why you couldn't just arrive in wedding clobber though?? The hotel wouldn't have known either way whether you got married in a register office and when.

etcher70 it depends what you actually own legally. One of the main problems is that many men in your DP's situation become completely unreasonable in the event of a relationship breakdown. If your name is not on the house and you have no assets and don't work, then you're potentially in trouble tbh.

I think signing an actual contract marriage should be no different to registering a birth or death, and people can knock themselves out and do what they want after that.

You mean, "go to a registry office, sign a piece of paper, attest to its accuracy, leave?" Does anyone disagree? The claim that the requirement to find two witnesses, who can be staff at the registry office, is a major barrier to marriage is being made in bad faith: no-one actually wanting to marry is stopped by the need to have a couple of signatures on the form to attest that there wasn't a shotgun being pointed at one of the parties' heads.

so-o many people (and there are many examples on this thread) don't actually realise religion has nothing to do with the signing of a legal marriage contract.

Something which clearly isn't true, given two thirds of marriages happen in non-religious premises. It's a miracle that two hundred thousand couples a year can figure that out, really.

because the chain of events is more or less church-wedding reception in a hotel and so on

No, it really isn't. If you phone a hotel up and ask for a wedding ceremony, they will say either "yes, we are an approved place and can organise that" or "no, we can't do that". There is no church involved in the majority - one might even say large majority - of weddings.

If you phone a hotel up and ask for a wedding reception, they will say "yes, how may we empty your wallet?" and they couldn't care less if you got married last month, are going to get married on the day or are just staging an elaborate fancy-dress party. There is no legal significance to a wedding reception, it's just an expensive way to hold a party for your friends and family.

If you wanted a wedding ceremony without a reception, they may or may not oblige. I think, I can't recall, they are obliged to offer that service of part of being an approved place, but I might be mis-remembering; certainly, they won't be happy about having the facility booked out on a summer Saturday if it stops someone who wants the full deal.

Most people who aren't desperately trying to make out that weddings are hard to organise are perfectly well able to tell the difference between a wedding and a wedding reception.

I still don't see why you couldn't just arrive in wedding clobber though??

As happens at every wedding reception, ever. No-one is in the slightest bit confused, aside it would appear from some people posting here, by the fact that a wedding reception at a hotel - even pre-1998, or whenever it was, when it became possible to marry other than in a church or a registry office - may feature someone arriving in a wedding dress. There's also nothing stopping you from booking a Saturday sales conference for your MLM in order to get a cheaper rate, and then turning up and celebrating your nuptials.

Except when we tried to do inthe UK what you can easily do in France and was met with blank stares and confusion

The confusion was clearly all yours. You can't actually expect us to believe that you found multiple UK hotels that had no concept of a party that is not a wedding? Because that is all you essentially wanted to book. At that party you can have any type of ceremony or celebration you choose to, something that hotels cater for every single day.

Yes the idea that the witnesses are some huge deal or barrier to organise is not one rooted in reality. Registry office staff acting as witnesses, which they will, is not much different to people who work at a solicitor's practice witnessing wills. As a trainee I was always being borrowed for 5 minutes by someone or other.

That said, I do actually think we have a problem with some people wrongly thinking weddings are a religious thing. Either that or it's the same poster namechanging a lot and not listening to advice, because it comes up with surprising regularity on here. It's beyond me how this can happen, since the UK has allowed non-religious weddings for two centuries and it's been decades since religious weddings weren't in a minority, but there it is. People find ways to be ignorant.

but also because so-o many people (and there are many examples on this thread) don't actually realise religion has nothing to do with the signing of a legal marriage contract. That's a serious problem

Your argument is that everyone should be forced to marry one particular way because people in the UK are too stupid to understand what a legal marriage is?

Cuboidal you have a very patronising tone and it's hard to separate out your sarcasm from something factual you might be trying to put across.

I'm not really sold on trying to convert anyone to my opinion. I was just saying that the French system is a very clean one and it appeals to me personally. I completely understand why others mightn't find it so, and I did allude to how difficult it would be to implement.

I would say the four or five posters on the thread who didn't get that there is a complete separation between religion and the marriage contract is quite a high figure of the total number of posters on the thread.

Your argument is that everyone should be forced to marry one particular way because people in the UK are too stupid to understand what a legal marriage is?

I didn't make an argument. I expressed an opinion that the clarity of the French system very much appeals to me, and may also make this situation much clearer for either people who are holding off on getting married in the mistaken belief that they have to hold a big ceremony, or people who don't understand that religion and the marriage contract are separate. Just an opinion on an opinion forum

But it makes no sense. Why would making something that is now an option compulsory instead help with anyones mistaken beliefs about marriage?

I was just saying that the French system is a very clean

Yes, I don't disagree. But a certain intellectual tidiness is not a reason to cast aside many hundreds of years of established practice to impose a new system which doesn't actually benefit anyone, other than being being "very clean". Is it anomalous that you can marry in several places with slightly different rules? Yes. If we had just had a bloody revolution involving a complete social upheaval including re-naming all the months in the year, is the current system of marriages one we would invent from scratch? No. Is it therefore worth changing? No.

I would say the four or five posters on the thread who didn't get that there is a complete separation between religion and the marriage contract is quite a high figure of the total number of posters on the thread.

They're people who have decided to not get married, for good or bad reasons, and are cherry-picking things they present as facts in order to justify their decision to themselves. Yes, they could probably benefit from being told the facts. That needs a little pamphlet and fifteen minutes is the PSHE syllabus, not primary legislation and a fight with the established church.

Technically the hotel couldn’t provide everything that’s needed for a non legal/ceremonial wedding. They probably wouldn’t provide someone to perform the ceremony.

If it’s an “actual” wedding this is done by registrars from the local office.

If you were already married and wanted a ceremony, you’d have to get someone - be that a humanist minister or whoever to do fulfill that role but I wouldn’t have thought that was too difficult. Given there would be no legal function of the ceremony literally anybody could do it.

Is it therefore worth changing? No.

I didn't say it was worth changing. I did mention that it would be extremely difficult to change. That doesn't stop it as a system having great appeal for me. People can think differently to you, you do realise that, right?

If you were already married and wanted a ceremony, you’d have to get someone - be that a humanist minister or whoever to do fulfill that role

I would have thought the whole reason you'd be doing it would be to have a particular person you already have in mind doing it. Phoning up a hotel saying "could you get someone who happens to be around to do something vaguely wedding-y, not an actual wedding, but you, wedding-ish, I'm not too bothered, see if the duty manager is free?" would be quite odd. Surely, if you want a wedding service which can't/doesn't actually marry you, because its content is important to you (and I absolutely understand that) then surely you'd know what that content is and who is best placed to deliver it?

This is probably just a sequence of general observations on a few of the posts but I thought I would weigh in anyway. A lot of posters seem to be leaning heavily on issues around religion, patriarchy and ceremony as their primary reasons for not getting married. I’m sympathetic to that view, as someone who identifies as both an atheist and a feminist and came of age in the time of radical feminism. However, I decided to marry my partner a few years ago as it seemed to make sense to formalise our relationship and so ensure that we had the legal protections afforded and felt that it was possible to get around these objections. In terms of illness, pensions and inheritance the protection in our case goes both ways. Surely it does in a number of cases? A lot of women I know have returned to work after periods as a sahm and built up pensions etc and have equal shares in property. And surely there are men who would be demolished if cut off from their partners when it comes to medical or other health decisions?
RE: Ceremony - We co-opted two local people as witnesses from a local group one of us belonged to. They neither of them knew or are ever likely to meet any of our friends or family. We booked a registry office slot – just make sure you remember your partner’s date of birth for the interview. We turned up during the week, had a short ceremony, no rings, no special garments, no special vows, not a whiff of religion, one of the witnesses took a picture I think. We treated them later to a pint and went home. I did not change my surname or title, and, several years later, we’ve still barely told anyone. So, the whole ceremony issue can definitely be avoided. I think personally the fee is a little steep in that a couple on benefits would struggle to find it out of their weekly allowance which seems a little exclusionary.

RE: Patriarchy – now that marriage is no longer solely for heterosexuals surely it can no longer be factually defined as patriarchal? Couldn’t the fact that some people still view it as such be a cultural hangover from the recent past? An example of mainstream culture not yet giving full recognition to the opening up of marriage as an institution? Although I suppose in some cases homophobia may play a part in people’s refusal to acknowledge that fundamental change. Perhaps I should add that I was not happy to marry until I knew that ‘gay’ marriage was definitely going to happen. I didn’t want to get married when gay couples couldn’t and felt that as long as marriage was strictly for heteros it was too open to interpretation as a homophobic celebration of patriarchy.

In terms of granting rights to co-habiting couples I thought DoctorWhatTheFuck’s examples were an excellent illustration of the issues raised by that - it's not a judgement on married versus unmarried couples. I don’t think the issues are entirely gendered either I have turned down marriage proposals in the past, and lived with people I would definitely not want to be tied to in any formal way, it’s not just men who have issues with commitment.

Also, men can suffer from not being married when relationships break down. I have a close friend whose ex refused to allow him access to his children once they split up and being unmarried he found that he had very few rights as far as visitation went. He was quite devastated by that. Equally I know women who have lost out by not being married, some in ways they could not possibly have anticipated. A friend had a child with a guy and lived in a flat he owned. After a bout of severe post-partum depression, she was briefly committed. He kept the child and the flat, she ended up homeless and in a custody battle. Her liberal and loving partner turned out to be less than that when faced with a severely depressed partner.

Marriage is a contract which gives couples gay or straight protections of various kinds under the law, it may not be ideal but it’s the best and most concise that is currently on offer. Yes, ideally all committed relationships should be recognised but earlier posters have made it clear that under the law defining what is and isn’t a committed relationship for the purposes of inheritance/benefits is really not that straightforward. Since examples can be helpful, here’s another one. I have a friend who lives with a partner and an ex, they share a house, split expenses and have their own bedrooms. To close friends she would say that she is in a relationship with one and a friend with the other. To people who she doesn’t know she simply says they’re all housemates, as she doesn’t want to explain the reasons why they share the house. If she were to die and non-contractual relationships had the same status as contractual ones, which one would inherit? Which witnesses to the relationship would count as giving the full facts? Similarly, I knew someone who was married and has a relationship with someone else, he spent part of the week with his spouse and part with his lover. In that case if anything were to happen to him I know which of his partners I would feel safer being. If he were married to neither of them, things could potentially be disastrous for the wife who is also the one with the kids.

Historically marriage was not meant to be a ‘love’ institution or a ‘religious’ institution, it was about inheritance and property, Jane Austen’s work is interesting in that sense as it is set at a time when the shift from the purely contractual nature of marriage to its being a cultural acknowledgment of ‘love’ was being negotiated. Personally, I think separating 'love' from marriage and ‘weddings’ and/or 'religion' from marriage might help some of the debaters here. Or maybe it’s something else? Many people put off making wills because they would have to face thoughts about death; maybe many of us find it hard to think about marriage in legal/financial terms because to realise that marriage is a contract reminds us that contracts can be broken or people we love can suddenly disappear? I love my partner - unmarried or not - but entering into a marriage contract provides legal/financial safeguards that benefit both of us. I don’t see it as a celebration of love or anything else, it’s a set of safeguards, which I or he may need. If others know that they don’t have or need those safeguards, fine. I have experienced what it’s like not to have them, I lived with someone many years ago, he died suddenly, it was his flat. I was young and broke and grieving and I didn’t even get to keep my coffee-maker, let alone anything else.

“But it makes no sense. Why would making something that is now an option compulsory instead help with anyones mistaken beliefs about marriage?”

Apart from anything else, the French system offers better protection for the kind of people Annie mentioned in her very relevant post (which most people seemed to ignore).

In France you are far less likely to have Muslim women thinking they are legally married when they aren’t, because 1) the average child could tell you that you have to get married at the Mairie, and 2) ministers of worship and other celebrants are not allowed to perform anything resembling a marriage ceremony unless the couple can produce their legal marriage certificate from the Mairie.

So if you are a French Muslim woman who decides to leave her “husband” and finds out that the ceremony they had at the local mosque wasn’t actually legally binding, the person who performed the ceremony is in big trouble.

In France you are far less likely to have Muslim women thinking they are legally married when they aren’t, because 1) the average child could tell you that you have to get married at the Mairie

The problem in the UK with fake marriages which aren't actually marriages is almost entirely amongst first generation immigrants who didn't go through the UK school system, and amongst children whose parents have placed them in schools which are, shall we say, "odd" in their curriculum (and it's not just, or even primarily, Muslims: it's a huge problem in parts of the Jewish community as well).

So what the average child can tell you is irrelevant: the victims of this were never average children.

As ever, the problem with comparing social issues between countries is that they rapidly throw up all the other differences, in this case including (a) loose control of primary immigration from Commonwealth states in the 1960s and 1970s - as Amber Rudd is finding this very afternoon - and (b) a peculiarly British attitude to home/private education which means that the concept of a core curriculum is simply not there. It used to be said that the French Education Minister could look at his watch and know what was being taught in every classroom in the country; whether that was true in France in reality I don't know, but it certainly isn't true here.

If your contention is that a significant number of children educated in mainstream schools in England do not realise that a marriage contracted by an Imam or a Rabbi isn't legal, then I believe you are wrong. You are right to say illegal marriages are a problem: you are looking at the wrong solution.

And the idea that someone conducting, say, a handfasting for a bunch of hippies at Glastonbury should have to inspect a certificate before doing so is a typically French "fill in this form, and this form, and this form" solution to a non-problem. I posted a parcel in a French post office last week: Christ, the paperwork.

I’m well aware of all that (jeez ) but the fact that conducting a “marriage ceremony” without the legal paperwork is a criminal offence here acts as a pretty serious deterrent to people who might otherwise perform such ceremonies.

Also, “non-problem”?!

I think people believing they are legally married and then finding out they are not when the relationship has broken down is a fairly big problem for those people.

The problem in the UK with fake marriages which aren't actually marriages is almost entirely amongst first generation immigrants who didn't go through the UK school system, and amongst children whose parents have placed them in schools which are, shall we say, "odd" in their curriculum (and it's not just, or even primarily, Muslims: it's a huge problem in parts of the Jewish community as well).

I think the problem is more widespread than that. The study done for a documentary last autumn suggested that 61% of women in Islamic marriages had not also had a legal civil ceremony. They can't all be first gen. It isn't just a question of ignorance; there is also a cultural element of women being reassured that a civil ceremony is necessary because the community will look after them.

This might be a bit of a stretch but I can imagine that if you live in a predominantly Muslim area it's probably not an unreasonable assumption that clerics of the second largest religion in the UK would be able to conduct legally recognised marriages. It is an anomaly that Jewish and Quaker ceremonies can be legally recognised but other religions' can't.

Anecdotally I know a highly educated white British woman who married her Muslim husband in the UK in a nikah but who has never got around to getting a civil marriage formalised.

Sorry, that a civil ceremony is NOT necessary.

So if you are a French Muslim woman who decides to leave her “husband” and finds out that the ceremony they had at the local mosque wasn’t actually legally binding, the person who performed the ceremony is in big trouble

Doesn't help the woman involved, and there are absolutely muslim weddings in France that are not legal, same as there are in the UK.

I think people believing they are legally married and then finding out they are not when the relationship has broken down is a fairly big problem for those people.

I think people having handfastings at Glastonbury and later finding out they aren't really married is a non-problem.