To think that some married women on here think they are better than unmarried women?

[malificent7]

After reading the thread about legal rights, marriage and birth certificates I was struck by the patronising way in which some married women spoke to those who are cohabiting or not married.
True married women have better rights but it was the way in which the relationships of unmarried women were dismissed as lesser and these women were being sneered at.

Someone told a woman who had been cohabiting that her relationship meant nothing and that if you are not married you are single.
REALLY? I am not married but I am not single. I don't even live with the guy but why is my relationship seen as less valid? Some married people hate each other and don't have the guts to leave. Some of the best love affairs involve people who live miles apart.
I don't like the fact that I have to put single on a form . Why can I not be in a relationship?

Ok, If you are married you have some legal rights and security that the unmarried have but shouldn't we question this? Why should we make vows especially if you don't believe in the laws of marriage? Also, it was originally a religious ceremony..I don't believe in God and I am not a commodity to be given away by my dad to another male.

Does it lead to stability? My dp is divorced. The marriage vows didn't stop things from falling apart.

Marriage can be a great thing but the tone in the last thread was old fashioned and practically berated women for not managing to get a man to marry them. Surely there has to be other options if you don't believe in marriage ? It is a patriarchal tradition after all to do with male prperty rights. Also, many men want pre nuptuals as they are now wise to gold digging wives.

I think you can have some marriages which have less love than some cohabiting relationships. Why is one type of relationship more valid? I find it all very old fashioned.

Judging by the number of men who don't leave their wives a dime on divorce, I am not convinced by the stability argument.

If my DH hadn't wanted to marry me which to me was just declaring in front of people we care about and the law that we are one, I'd be very disappointed

I've never understood why it has to be declared in front of anyone or why anyone wants to be considered 'one' with their partner.
You are two people not one!

Re: the correlation between poverty and unmarried families.

As is evident from this thread and a reading of the law the advantages of marriage that do exist, benefit homeowners and those with assets.

Marriage offers nothing to no income no assets families.

If you are going to live in social housing your whole life it’s better to just have the mums name on the tenancy. Those dcs actually have much more long term security than the dcs of homeowners who have to sell the home to split the assets.

Yeah it was totally legal to rape your wife until the late 90s.

Yeah it was totally legal to rape your wife until the late 90s.

What if the law changed once again? In favour of ownership of wife to the husband?

Just saying.

No it wasn't. If you want to bring that into the discussion, at least get the year right. And really, if rape within marriage ceased to be a crime, do you think the sort of social change that would be needed for this to happen would leave unmarried women unscathed? We would all suffer, married or not.

Plus of course not to be a Debbie Downer, but rape is essentially still legal in this country even now. Particularly if it's someone the rapist has had sex with before. Married or not, if your partner wants to rape you, unless they're stupid enough to beat you up as well (and quite likely even if they are) they'll get away with it.

Marriage offers nothing to no income no assets families.

False. Bereavement Support Payment. The McLaughlin verdict has not changed the law.

Ok, If you are married you have some legal rights and security that the unmarried have but shouldn't we question this? Why should we make vows especially if you don't believe in the laws of marriage?

Because you don't get the legal benefits if you don't.

Why do you think you should get everything that marriage affords without getting married?

Ok, If you are married you have some legal rights and security that the unmarried have but shouldn't we question this? Why should we make vows especially if you don't believe in the laws of marriage?

What do you disagree with?

The laws of marriage are the legal rights and responsibilities that you're saying you want access to?

Are we back, yet again, to the 'branding' issue

On prev threads when going round the logic loop of 'I want to have my partnership legally recognised but I don't want to be married ', it's basically come down to the word 'marriage'. Posters have said that if marriage was renamed anything else - whether civil partnership, legal togetherness, sparkly unicorn union - that would be broadly fine

What laws of marriage don't you agree with, that you want to pick and choose from?

What would your not-marriage marriage look like that would be more palatable?

Two brothers or sisters or cousins living in the family house together. One sadly dies. The remaining person may need to pay inheritance tax and possibly sell the property. If they were a married couple there would be no inheritance tax to pay. There are lots of small laws that benefit people who are married

Equally, there are plenty of unmarried posters on here who do not want the ‘benfits’ of marriage imposed on their relationships. They don’t want their partner to have access to their assets on the event of a separation. They want their assets to pass to their DCs and not their live-in partner on their death. Why should the legal implications of marriage be forced on them just because they’ve cohabited for some arbitrary length of time?

Because some people's desire not to have to make the arduous trek to a registry office is more important sweetsummerchild.

That's assuming everything wasn't in joint names and they had savings and assets to pass on.

Frankly I'd rather my dc focused on getting their own name on a mortgage,avoided debt and made sure they had a decent pension.

For an awful lot of people the financial benefits of marriage are miniscule and there is an awful lot of assumption that marriage equals living in clover after divorce or death. It doesn't if you have no private pension,aren't paying off your mortgage ,have debts and no job to support yourself.

False. Bereavement Support Payment. The McLaughlin verdict has not changed the law

No it is a contribution based benefit you only get if your husband paid enough NI contributions.

It is not a universal benefit.

For an awful lot of people the financial benefits of marriage are miniscule and there is an awful lot of assumption that marriage equals living in clover after divorce or death.

And That's why each person should get to choose wether they want to get married. You should be able to live together and choose to not get married. Nothing should be implied.

I love my Dp. Probably more than I loved my exh. Wether we get married or not will depend on our situation. I don't need protecting. This house is mine. My savings are mine, the deposit was all mine. We don't have and won't have dependent children. So neither having to give up work. Marriage wouldn't work in my favour. But I would also want some security for Dp. If he is paying towards my mortgage and we share a life. So I will look at what happens if I die, what happens if we split etc and make my decision accordingly. I want him to be protected but also my investment protected for my kids.

If that means getting married, with some sort of protection on my money, that's fine. I will make sure he is protected too. It's for both of us, as a partnership to work our which way is best for us.

SweetSummerchild
I agree. People should be free to get into the legal arrangement of marriage or not depending on what is right for them.

If I met someone later in life and we both had adult children i would probably not marry as if want to ensure my assets went to my children, not to a new husband and his adult kids. I should be free to choose to cohabit without having the law imposed on me.

People need to make informed choices on what's best for them. It's not be world's fault if they don't like the consequences of their choice.

It’s an interesting question OP.

My take on it would be that the difference is the legal stuff - and I have seen several friends utterly shafted by partners who didn’t marry them and one who sadly died before they got married which caused all sorts of legal issues.

I think a stable secure environment IS important for children, but that doesn’t always equate to a Mum/dad married set up. Cohabitation can and generally is as stable and loving as marriage.

The main difference is the legal shit. Is marriage right for every couple? Probably not. Everyone’s circumstances are unique. But it’s the simplest way of protecting the financially weaker partner in the relationship - and as we are still not an equal society that partner is generally the woman, so marriage, in general, protects women.

I was never too fussed about getting hitched- never wanted a big wedding or anything and I was somewhatvopposed to marriage on the grounds of its history as perpetuating chattel etc - but by the time I met DH in my late thirties I’d seen enough divorces (and deaths) to make the choice that for me marriage was a must before kids.

Your mileage may vary, and no one is personally inferior or superior just on their marriage status.

But it’s the simplest way of protecting the financially weaker partner in the relationship - and as we are still not an equal society that partner is generally the woman, so marriage, in general, protects women.

Exactly.

The problem is in all these threads the women on both sides are either sneered at by married women for not ‘protecting’ themselves, or sneered at by unmarried women for allowing themselves to become financially vulnerable - regardless of the circumstances.

Add onto this that, in the vast majority of cases, it is the woman who is left ‘holding the baby’ in the event of relationship breakdown and the woman becomes additionally disadvantages when it comes to changing her financial circumstances.

I don't think considering any history would change my mind, that way of thinking would put me off my hot chocolate and cocoa!

Absolutely no sneering from me - I agree with you that as long as women are generally left holding the baby and generally the ones who have sacrificed careers etc then marriage is generally protective.

Of course it’s individual- on these threads you always get women who have specific situations (independent money, high incomes etc) which mean that marriage would be financially NOT in their advantage but in general its the easiest way of protecting yourself and your kids.

And frankly it works both ways - if the father is giving up his career to care for children he should be protected too. The fact that that’s rarer is an indictment on the shit levels of equality we have.

OP anyone sneering at you is a dick, but marriage per se is often protective of women. I think the big issue is that a lot of people are not aware that there’s no such thing as common law marriage in England and don’t take a dispassionate look at their individual situation - the financials and wills and paperwork isn’t romantic, but it is important

Completely agree brokenharbour. I find it depressing how many women see their career and financial independence as disposable. I understand people’s circumstances may be prohibitive but in the absence of any illness/disabilities etc I think everyone should aim to be financially independent on their own terms, and getting married is not a reason to give that up. Equal parental leave and subsidised childcare/childcare on site at work would go a long way to achieving this.

But no, the laws of marriage should absolutely not be imposed on unmarried cohabiting couples. I don’t want to get married for the very reason that I don’t want to legally join my assets with someone else! If you’re unmarried then find yourself destitute when the relationship breaks down because you didn’t prioritise your own financial independence, well, you’re a bit dim.

Pitapizzapie is right. I got married having been told it was the right thing to do etc. My "d"h has crapped all over me and our marriage and I will now be left worse off than if we'd just lived together. I really feel that exceptionally bad behaviour should affect divorce settlements.

If you're a higher earner, as a woman, you'd be a fool to marry.

Can you explain this?

Because you’d lose your home and part of your pension.

DrCoconut don't you think it was your responsibility to check that out for yourself. You got married because other people said you should?

No it is a contribution based benefit you only get if your husband paid enough NI contributions.

It is not a universal benefit.

Spouse or civil partner, not just husband. You can get it if your wife or civil partner has died.

It's not available if you're literally no income, no, I had read that as low income, but then there's no reason to limit examination of people without assets and income to that cohort alone. Actually, a more useful reading is to consider those inbetween the two extremes. If you're low income but working, the benefit I mentioned plus the transferrable tax allowance are benefits that could be very useful to you and that you won't get if unmarried.

It's certainly possible to draw up a group of low income people for whom the benefits of marriage won't apply, but that's not the same thing as them not being applicable to those who don't have assets and own homes per se.

If you're a higher earner, as a woman, you'd be a fool to marry.

An oversimplification. Depends on what you want and prioritise. If, for example, you're more concerned about you or your partner having to pay IHT on the family home when the first dies, it makes more sense to marry. It is of course more common for marriage to end with death than divorce. If you're more concerned about assets in the event of divorce, you might prefer not to marry. And men are more likely to die first I suppose!

Would a man with a higher income be a fool to marry? At least if he values assets more than his IHT?

i'm on the other thread - and i still believe that if you want the protections offered by marriage - get fucking married

its not and shouldnt come in by stealth (as in after X years living together)

if your DP wont marry, then think before becoming a SAHP and giving up your career, because why wont they marry? dont they think the relationship will last? then dont have DC

do what you want, i really don't care or think i am superior ( i am the high earner in my marriage with a SAHP) just dont whinge when you find yourself on your own with nothing as so often happens - my relationship has no bearing on yours and vice versa

(harsh i know, but seriously)