Women who have children before marriage

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..but get upset when their partner does not want to/ has not asked to marry them , yet still insist they are too traditional to even contemplate asking their dp to marry them or just discussing it like adults.

I dont get it. Most of the complaining women give the child their partners surname as well which isn’t even traditional if the parents are not married. They live together for years. They are in no way following tradition.
AIBU to not understand why they lie about being “traditional “?

But thats what it does say-you arent worth marrying. My friend is young but loves her dp and has a baby. She would love to be married and he carrot dangles saying one day. But if he loved her enough, he would. They will never marry as if they were going to he would have asked by now. That just shows the child she wasnt good enough to be part of his family. Oh and the baby has his surname in his insistence. Shes just not allowed to have it.

userv

Patriarchy. Women are socialised into thinking they have to be desirable to men and the ultimate goal is to be desirable enough to be marriage material and they need the big showy proposal to prove they made it. Marriage is still a very unbalanced societal institution where women get to be picked by men as being worthy and need that validation from a proposal.

I think this statement is nearly right. Marriage is not inherently unbalanced but women are socialized into taking less than they deserve. Even on this thread women are angrily defending the right to... be financially disadvantaged?

The truth is that relationships are a negotiation and a choice. When women are younger than say 30, there are more men than women in that dating pool. Women are the ones choosing! But many women are socialized into feeling desperate (standards of beauty) and incomplete without a partner and into settling for anything that comes along. They give up their leverage and rights. Women could demand marriage but they feel they don't have the right to.

Both men and women are also encouraged to believe that men don't know their own minds and that women are more family oriented. So when a man says "i don't want to marry", lots of women ignore it because of course men don't want marriage or children. You are meant to drag them kicking and screaming to the aisle or force the issue with an oops pregnancy. It's socialization. Marriage doesn't need to be unbalanced but women are socialized into giving everything up.

Was hard work sorting it all out, would be easier if they had civil partnerships for heterosexual couples who don’t want the negative conatations of being “married” but require the proper legal protections

There is.

You can choose to sign a marriage register in the uk without any of the nonsense attached, it’s easy enough if you like to put your fingers up at tradition.

Or you can pay around £80 for flights and do it in gib where it takes around 4 mins unless you specify that you want otherwise and they do it with the words “the marriage service in giberalta is very short and precise, sign this” then stay one night.

You can do both in shorts and a t shirt no faff and no guests and bingo you have exactly the same legal protections in place as you would if you put on a frock and had a big cake.

As I've said upthread DP and I are getting married later this year only because of IHT and the other points noted by Bananafish81.

However, for me (as one of the "crowing" women who fontofnoknowledge says are irrelevant to this discussion but fuck it, you can have my opinion anyway) it's not a great solution but it's the only one available. I currently own half our house (legally) we have a co-habitation agreement, wills, insurances etc. but IHT is the big one and we can't protect ourselves from that should the worst happen.

When we marry I'll still officially own 75% of the house but should we divorce the start point will be 50% each. I also have a large pension pot which is over tice the size of DP's. Currently mine but post-marriage it will be considered if we divorce. I'm putting those risks against the risk of us losing the house to death taxes should one of us die prematurely.

I disagree that people who have thought about the legalities and logistics of living together are "crowing".

It's pretty much a no-brainer to see that if you are a SAHP of either sex that you gain legal and financial stability from marriage. If you are in a more complicated situation - such as second relationships, children from previous relationships and so on then it's not so cut and dried as to whether it's a good move to get married as there will be pro's and con's. For DP and I the past 15 years the cons of getting married have outweighed the pro's but since we moved and doubled the value of our house we have had to re-evaluate.

Marriage is a legal contract and as with all contracts it will not benefit everyone.

My son lives in a stable and loving family. He doesn't care whether we are married. He has school friends with parents who aren't married and those whose parents are married; some who live with are single parents and some with same sex parents. Children couldn't care less about the marital status of their parents as long as they are loved and cared for.

DS has both our family names. We have always told him that he can chose one or he other, or keep both, or chose a different one entirely when he is old enough. That's his choice.

What always amuses me on these threads is how ‘sure’ everyone is about their futures and future situations.

I entered my relationship with DH in a much ‘better’ financial position. I had inherited, had a better job with better prospects. At one time I was earning double what he was. I still had no qualms about marrying DH.

22 years later the tables have turned 180 degrees. I am living on a disability pension and benefits after pregnancy/childbirth exacerbated an underlying genetic condition. My financial contribution to hte household is minimal compared to DH’s job in the city. He has inherited a significant sum from family.

We are still happily married. Life is very different from how I imagined it would be when we got engaged 24 years ago.

Never, ever try to predict your future position based on where you are headed today. Life has a habit of throwing curve-balls at you.

It does not say that you aren’t worth marrying. It says that one of the pair does not want to get married - generally, at all or specifically, to that person. As is their right. It does not deplete a woman’s worth if she is unmarried. She is not less worthy if she chooses a different surname for her children - wherever that came from.

I am female, my partner is male, he would love to be married, I wouldn’t. He has asked, I have said no. I have tried and tried to want the thing that he wants, but I do not. If we split or I died I am certain he would marry someone else (and good luck to him) Not because they are better or more worthy, but because marriage is something he wants, a wedding is a day he feels is important, and he has decided I am worthy of the sacrifice.

So if I died tomorrow and all my assets were inherited by him, instead of my children, and he met someone else a few year later, and married them, when would my assets go?

It’s relevant.

@chavtasticfirebanger - The child won't give a shit as long as they are loved by both parents.

And there is nothing stopping your friend changing her name by deed poll her partner cannot stop her and there are women who have so.

The real problem is her partner doesn't see marriage as necessary and he probably told her clearly before she got pregnant but she decided not to hear him.

I know a couple of men who clearly told the mothers of their child they were not going to marry them, instead of dumping the guy the women still got pregnant. The fathers are happy to have the child and pay for them but are no longer in a relationship with their mother.

@PurpleTraitor we are the outliers though as we are the higher earner in the partnership and female.

So if I died tomorrow and all my assets were inherited by him, instead of my children, and he met someone else a few year later, and married them, when would my assets go?

This is one reason why I don't want to get married. My partner has a child from a previous relationship so everything he gets he would to share 50-50. However this child has her own mother she can inherit from therefore to ensure my assets are past to my own child I won't get married until I'm elderly. If I die before then, then tough he gets nothing. Oh and before I was pregnant my assets were going to various family members due to my close relationship with them.

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it does not say that you aren’t worth marrying. It says that one of the pair does not want to get married - generally, at all or specifically, to that person. As is their right. It does not deplete a woman’s worth if she is unmarried. She is not less worthy if she chooses a different surname for her children - wherever that came from

But it does, not on a social level but on a individual basis.
The person who does not wish to offer you the legal protections afforded by marriage is saying precisely that you to them are not worth those legal protections and they do not wish you to provide you with them.

Of course that may be a sensible choice but it is a choice that is being made

DP and I chose children before marriage, largely due to DH's age, my own fertility and finances. It's cheaper to have a baby than it is to get married. Also, the desire to pro-create is very natural, no other mammal gets married beforehand!
So, why not?
This aside, DP and I still want to get married and we will eventually. I have spoken about proposing to him but it's actually DH who wants to propose to me for the sake of tradition. He wants the romantic proposal more than I do and he's the one who looks at venues and suggests we go to wedding fayres etc.
My children also have his surname.
Surely all of us are traditional in some ways and not others? Everyone's value systems are different, there is no right or wrong way of doing anything.

A will can offer the same legal protection as marriage along with a good insurance policy.

I agree NeedsAsockamnesty. Only last week there was a thread pondering why women didn't change their names post-divorce and there was much humphing about a middle aged single woman DARING to answer to "Mrs". There are threads all the time about how "proud" women are to get married as if it's somehow an achievement. this is clearly socialisation. She is not "less worthy" by not getting married but society still pushes this ideology and the law is there backing it up.

Not being married is a good move for some but by no means by all. Individual couples need to work out what is best for them. It would be helpful to have a different type of partnership contract which offers some legal protections and recognition but still allows that a person can retain that which they bring into the relationship financially and ring-fence it to them/their children. This would aid second marriages particularly I think.

No, we cannot lament and refrain on this conversation about how most people do not understand the rights and protections assigned to them by marriage and then claim that the men who do not want to be married are in fact fully aware and denying this to their partners as some type of Machiavellian life plan designed to ruin the other. We also cannot assume no any way that it is a choice to deprive the other of ‘protection’ - as we have covered there are many, many scenarios in which marriage is not protective to one or both parties.

If you are beginning to say things like - on an individual basis, you can’t then go on to generalise about women’s worth. Someone saying they do not wish to marry is not saying the person in front of them is not worthy of their legal protections. Those two things are NOT the same. Let’s take for example all the people who have not made a will. Do you think they have all failed to act on that score because they don’t think their children are worthy of legal protections and they do not wish to provide them with any?

@Aranchini At least 3 of my friends', some of my family and many acquaintances have got married at registry offices in the middle of the week. This in some cases was to save money on visas. A child costs much more in the first year.

A will can offer the same legal protection as marriage along with a good insurance policy.

Aranchini This is fundamentally inaccurate

Wills can be changed, legally it's easier to disinherit an unmarried partner

As I've posted above, there are a tonne of legal financial rights, responsibilities and obligations that simply cannot be accessed by cohabitees, and only by couples who are legally married or in a civil partnership. Many couples may not WANT these rights, responsibilities and obligations, and that's fine. But it is simply untrue to say that you can replicate the legal protection of marriage without getting legally married

It's cheaper to have a baby than it is to get married.
Again, completely not true
Our civil marriage cost £120. It's significantly cheaper than having a baby. You're confusing a marriage with a wedding

A cohabitation agreement to make legal provision where the law permits costs several hundred pounds to be drawn up by a solicitor (Co-Op legal services offer this for £750 for example)

A civil marriage is significantly cheaper.

Well sure, they are both contracts. I do not want to be a wife or make a promise to take someone as my husband when I do not actually want to take them a husband. It seems to defeat the whole point - I would be lying. (if it is relevant to the posts above, I have been raised with huge negativity attached to the titles. I think lots of people ‘against marriage’ have been raised that way, either expressly, as I was, warned against marriage, or children of messy divorces - which I also was)

Witnesses are required to make sure you are not being or coerced into signing the contract. Problem is I am being forced and coerced into signing the contract - by the law as it stands. Is it my biggest problem in life, no, but it would be not a free decision, if I did it. As I said above, my family would be fined after my death if I did not sign.

So if the wording of the ceremony removed the word 'husband' and 'wife', if the legal institution remained identical, but you could swap the wording in the ceremony for 'legal partner' (or 'chosen partner in crime', or 'sparkly unicorn', or anything that wasn't 'husband' and 'wife") would that be more palatable?

What would the differences be between the current marriage contract, and one you would not feel forced and coerced into? Is it simply the words 'husband' and 'wife'?. Or 'divorce' (instead of 'dissolution')

People on this thread are advocating for extension of CPs to opposite sex couples - bearing in mind the law around CPs 'others' same sex couples with specific differences between marriage and CPs around issues like STIs, is this a contract that's more palatable than one that uses the terms 'husband' and 'wife'?

Also, I would not want to have children realising (later in their childhood) that their father thought their mother was not good enough to marry

But what about those women who are asked but say no who are quite happy co habiting with children

No, I do not want to be a sparkly unicorn either. I do not want to sign a contract binding my sexual choices for life. I do want to protect my childrens’ inheritance. Those two things should not be related.

It's cheaper to have a baby than it is to get married.

We're getting married on a Tuesday in September. The legal fees/ceremony is costing us less than £200. How is having baby cheaper than that?!

Of all the ridiculous things I've read in my life "It's cheaper to have a baby than get married" has to be in the top five.

It's cheaper to have a baby than it is to get married. Also, the desire to pro-create is very natural, no other mammal gets married beforehand!

Can someone please shut down the internet. I feel we are officially through the looking glass where up is down and down is up. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Nobody i know has gotten married before their thirties, twenties would be too young, and once you hit thirties you also have to consider time left to have kids. So it makes sense practically to have kids first then marry, and marriage doesn't have an expiration date and having children does. Add into that only meeting your partner in your late twenties or thirties and you basically have to go for kids first unless you want to rush a proposal and wedding and delay your fertility even further.

That's not my experience at all

The vast majority of my friends got married before having children

Many like us only got married after years of cohabiting in order to start TTC. We were together for 12 years before marrying, because we wouldn't consider having children without being married (turns out we can't have children, but that's not to do with my age, but because my womb doesn't work).

I know a very small number of unmarried couples who have children, I don't know their reasons for cohabitation rather than marriage

But most people within my friendship group wouldn't start TTC without being married first.

Nobody i know has gotten married before their thirties, twenties would be too young, and once you hit thirties you also have to consider time left to have kids. So it makes sense practically to have kids first then marry, and marriage doesn't have an expiration date and having children does. Add into that only meeting your partner in your late twenties or thirties and you basically have to go for kids first unless you want to rush a proposal and wedding and delay your fertility even further.

Nope that's only a consideration once you hit your 40s unless you come from a family with a history of early menopause.

It's still not clear from this thread what these amazing matrimonial benefits actually are? Unless you're going to be a full time house wife your entire life and who does that these days?

I've been told to google it and the only tangible benefit there is, is a small tax break.

A wedding is generally a lovely excuse to have a party which is fine. Great. I love going to them and toasting the happy couple.

However, some silly people seem to think it gives their relationship some kind of moral superiority or general status above cohabitating couples. No idea why.