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Original poster

To not get why this heterosexual couple are campaigning for civil partnership?

230 replies

Crunchymum · 14/05/2018 19:48

Just that really

I'm tired and haven't read everything about the case but I don't get it?

What are they hoping to acheive?

Gay couples being able to marry, I understand. This I don't.

For disclosure, i'm in a LTR with no intention to marry.

OP posts:
PaulDacreRimsGeese · 15/05/2018 10:58

Although CP itself is not inherently unromantic. The one I went to was a rather lovey dovey affair. Quite a lot of people entering into CPs and those around them did just treat them as weddings, even to the extent of calling them that. The fact that most same sex couples formalising the relationship have chosen to marry rather than have a CP once they had the choice is quite telling in that respect.

Katinkka · 15/05/2018 11:01

I’d rather have a CP

bananafish81 · 15/05/2018 12:50

In France they have this which I always liked the sound of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civill*solidarityty_pactt

A PACS partner doesn’t yet automatically have the same inheritance rights as a marriage partner, for example. Pacsé couples don’t have a married couple’s adoption rights either.

Comparison between PACS and marriagee*

(French but can use Google translate easily enough)

It's basically marriage lite - in the UK a CP is to all intents and purposes equivalent to marriagee* in the eyes of the law

sashh · 15/05/2018 13:23

What do people think a civil partnership brings that a marriage doesn't?

Equality. Marriage was about a women being owned by her father until he gave her away to her new owner ie her husband.

Jaxhog · 15/05/2018 13:35

I don't get it.

A Marriage and a CP are both essentially a legal process. Either can include a large or small wedding. Or no wedding at all. And it's a nonsense to say it means 'a man owning a woman'. It hasn't meant that for a long time.

CP was only introduced until marriage was available to same sex couples. It now is.

Essentially the differences are:

  • Civil partners cannot call themselves “married” for legal purposes.
  • Civil partnership certificates include the names of both parents of the parties. Marriage certificates include the names of only the fathers of the parties.
  • Adultery cannot be used as a reason to dissolve the Civil Partnership. In a marriage, if one party is unfaithful this is grounds for divorce. This isn’t the case in civil partnership dissolution. Adultery isn’t recognised in same-sex partners.

To my mind, that makes marriage slightly better.

kaytee87 · 15/05/2018 13:38

Honestly, I think they're just doing it for attention.

Jaxhog · 15/05/2018 13:39

To my mind, those people who say they won't get married but would do a CP are fooling themselves. They just don't want to make the commitment. Which is fine, provided there are no children involved.

AssassinatedBeauty · 15/05/2018 13:42

@jaxhog being sexually unfaithful is grounds for dissolving a civil partnership. It just isn't named specifically and separately as its own stand alone reason.

Your comment about commitment is wrong. It is not possible for you to know anything about an individual's level of commitment in a relationship.

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 15/05/2018 13:42

And CP othered gay people much more recently than the things you mention sash. I quite understand feeling marriage is inherently unequal because of the historical connotations, even where the legal reality is now very different. But if that's the case, then CP is also unequal because of the much more recent historical connotations. It isn't equality at all.

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 15/05/2018 13:45

Also there must be hundreds if not thousands of people who are specifically not getting married because they want a CP instead. I'm not saying the line about not getting married until everyone can has never been used by any lefty dudebro who just doesn't want to give his female partner security as she goes part time to raise his children. Or similar. But how can you say every single one of the people who say they won't marry but will have a CP are uncommitted? You can't. That's nonsensical.

AssassinatedBeauty · 15/05/2018 13:52

@PaulDacreRimsGeese if CP was made available to opposite-sex couples then it would be equal. The history of when it was a marriage-substitute only for same-sex couples is much much less than the use of marriage to control women. And indeed, marriage is still used that way in other parts of the world.

But as already mentioned, if the history of CP is problematic then a new option could be created that replaces CP whilst retaining the same features.

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 15/05/2018 14:02

It could be equal in terms of what it offers now. We couldn't magic away the unequal, othering history of CP by improving it any more than we have magicked away the patriarchal history of marriage by improving it. CP may have a shorter history but it also has a more recent one, in the UK anyway. I mean, denial of marriage was happening this decade! I've got tights older than the first same sex marriage in the UK.

If you're talking about creating something new entirely, to get rid of this homophobic history, that's an different institution and thus a different argument. The new 3rd way would no more be CP than CP is marriage.

But far too many of the pro universal CP comments (and I'm not anti universal CP myself) either ignore the problematic history, eg claim CP is about equality when its history is the precise opposite, or add things to it that don't reflect the lived history of the same sex couples who've engaged in it, like viewing it as a halfway house or a non-romantic occasion.

AssassinatedBeauty · 15/05/2018 14:18

Yes, I'm not suggesting it would be possible to erase the problematic history of CP, only to change it from now onwards.

Is it very common that people who want CP view it as a halfway house or as a non-romantic option? I must admit I've not seen this often given as a reason for wanting an opposite-sex CP.

Jaxhog · 15/05/2018 14:24

But why? I still haven't heard a valid reason why people prefer a CP to a marriage?

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 15/05/2018 14:26

I don't know how common it is, but it's been given as a reason on this thread and quite often comes up in CP discussion. Could just be one or two posters namechanging a lot I guess. There are other qualities sometimes attributed not entirely accurately to CP by straight people who want to be able to do it, and they may well be more common.

AssassinatedBeauty · 15/05/2018 14:27

What you think is a valid reason, you mean.

You're discounting people's feelings about the history (and current use in some parts of the world) of marriage. You're also discounting the current sexism on marriage certificates.

sashh · 15/05/2018 14:32
  • CP othered gay people much more recently than the things you mention sash. I quite understand feeling marriage is inherently unequal because of the historical connotations, even where the legal reality is now very different

Do some research. Do you know when rape within marriage was made illegal? Do you know how recently women were taxed as an appendage to their husband?

Andromeida59 · 15/05/2018 14:33

I'd have a CP if it was available. Certainly do not want to get married because of the misogynistic history and ceremonial nonsense.

SoapOnARoap · 15/05/2018 14:36

I'd have a CP if it was available. Certainly do not want to get married because of the misogynistic history and ceremonial nonsense

This entirely. Well said Andro.

Crispbutty · 15/05/2018 14:36

Having been married and now divorced, I would much prefer to have an Official Civil Partnership with my DP. We are about to buy a house together and have each other as next of kin on all employment stuff etc, and as much as I really am not keen on getting married again, we do want to make it into more than just co-habiting.

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 15/05/2018 14:38

Rape within marriage was made a crime and women stopped being taxed as appendages of their husbands well before the introduction of CP in the UK, let alone same sex marriage. And the legal reality relating to both rape within marriage and taxation of married couples is entirely different to what it was before those changes. So I'd be interested to hear what it is you want me to research on those points sash.

Sunnyshores · 15/05/2018 14:43

It doesnt matter why people dont want to get married or why some people prefer CP - the fact is CPs exist and therefore should be available as an option to all couples of all genders or none.

Jarstastic · 15/05/2018 14:46

Civil partnerships in France are used a lot by hetrosexuals
www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/europe/16france.html

Although "It can be dissolved with just a registered letter"
I guess when they were introduced in the UK, they were trying so hard to make it like marriage for gay people without making it marriage and upsetting the conservative members, the ones in the UK are closer to marriage.

JAPAB · 15/05/2018 14:47

I'd have a CP if it was available. Certainly do not want to get married because of the misogynistic history and ceremonial nonsense.

I read once, and it could be nonsense, that rape laws first originated to protect husbands' marital property from being interfered with by other men, or somesuch. If that was actually true, its what you make of things in the here and now that matters most surely? Or whoknows, maybe some people would refect a CP because they see it as originating from homophobia.

Also think you can get a bare-bones civil marriage with most of the ceremonial stuff stripped away?

But anyway, if people want a CP they should be able to have one, and it is rather odd that this option only be available to same-sex couples.

bananafish81 · 15/05/2018 14:49

@Jarstastic as I posted above, the PACS doesn't confer the same rights as civil marriage.