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.

Until pregnancy, breastfeeding and child rearing (done by women in 99% of cases) become obsolete, women will need the legal protections to offset the impact caused by the above. These facts of biology make women extremely vulnerable in every sense, from physical to social. It is stupid to just give up a lot of stuff in your life for zilch in return, I speak as a mother of two children. No way would I have had children outside of wedlock with a bloke who can’t even make his mind up if he wants to be married to me or not. This is the easy bit compared to what that comes with children.

To be honest, I would not have even considered a serious relationship with a guy who did not want to marry me. I want to see commitment first before I start making sacrifices.

If you do not want a family with children in the traditional sense, then a lot of the drivers to be married are not there and if you are prepared to put yourself first each and every time and treat No 1 as priority over anything and anybody else. Any whiff of any caring responsibilities and TBH a woman is a mug to be doing that whilst not married.

Both married and unmarried relationships are capable of not 'counting', depending on the context. An unmarried couple's relationship doesn't count when it comes to IHT. The relationship of a still married couple who haven't talked for years doesn't count when it comes to love and affection. I don't suppose OP objects to anyone stating the latter, even though it's no more or less true than the former.

It's the opposite round my way. The unmarrieds seem to be educated MC professionals.

And as unmarrieds take up half the population I'm guessing there is a huge variety depending on the couple.

People who are well educated and higher income are more likely to be married than those who aren't, but there are exceptions, particularly as marriage is much bigger in certain cultural groups than others. For example, the Somali community in the UK are lower income and have fewer qualifications than the average, but they also don't cohabit much. It's a complex picture, and while income and education level are definitely relevant factors, they're not the only ones.

If you do not want a family with children in the traditional sense, then a lot of the drivers to be married are not there and if you are prepared to put yourself first each and every time and treat No 1 as priority over anything and anybody else. Any whiff of any caring responsibilities and TBH a woman is a mug to be doing that whilst not married.

Not a mug in any way thanks. In fact you could say DP is the mug as he's worked full time for the last 14 years and supported us all while I got my business going.

We were together for 10 years before kids though so I had a decent measure of him

Prima, that’s the whole point. Co-habiting set up is all very well when things are good. The problems start if things stop being good. It’s when co-habiting women find out they have got no rights to the property/ savings accumulated by their partner whilst co-habiting. No right to their partner’s pension etc etc. It may be ok if you haven’t spent 10-15 years prior to the break up providing care to the children/partner/household at the expense of your own career/earning potential/ savings. Often this is what a lot of women fall into as they are the ones to carry the pregnancy/breastfeed/care for a small child, then another one. While the male partner lives the life of Riley with everything sorted at home, steams ahead in his career and puts away a lovely nest egg/ pays off his mortgage (for the property the co-habiting partner has zero claim towards).

Nobody ever thinks about divorcing or breaking up when in love and moving in together. People concentrate on the positive, I.e what a wonderful special relationship they have got. As many PPs said upthread marriage is a legal contract with enforceable rights/responsibilities, it is not there to validate how good the couple’s relationship is.

You may be happy to put yourself in a situation of risk and live in that situation for extended periods of time, that’s your decision. It has panned out for you, but it hasn’t for many other women, sadly. It helps to know the consequences of such an important decision should things go not quite how you planned or hoped.

As long as women are aware they can potentially walk away with very little, especially if a female partner spent her time providing care within the partnership rather than looking after herself, her career and concentrating on building up tangible assets rather than ‘making memories’ with the children. These memories might be the only thing to stay with her.

It’s when co-habiting women find out they have got no rights to the property/ savings accumulated by their partner whilst co-habiting. No right to their partner’s pension etc etc.

But those things are both unnecessary in the first place. WTAF would someone agree to that anyway? If you are in a relationship with someone and put yourself in a daft financial position like that, then getting married to someone who does not value you enough is just worrying. We should be telling women to stay away from those arrangements full stop, not to marry into that nonsense.

You may be happy to put yourself in a situation of risk and live in that situation for extended periods of time, that’s your decision.

I'm not in a position of risk - thanks for the concern though. My name is on the mortgage, and my pension is better than his now. And we don't really have savings because DP fucked up the child benefit 50k thing

WTAF would someone agree to that anyway? If you are in a relationship with someone and put yourself in a daft financial position like that, then getting married to someone who does not value you enough is just worrying.

Of course you ideally wouldn't be in a relationship with a shitbag but that's not the point. The point is, if you do happen to be in a precarious financial position with a bad person, marrying will, more often than not, give you the protection that they wouldn't give you otherwise.

Nobody is suggesting you actively go into a bad relationship but they are suggesting that you protect yourself in case things don't work out. That goes for death as well as breakup.

As for why people agree to put themselves in a terrible financial position without marriage protection, well, as we see billions of times on these threads: because it's "just a piece of paper", because they don't need to prove their love, because it used to be patriarchal, because they don't like the way the word sounds, because being married automatically makes you boring, dull, stupid, weak...

Occasionally because they're common law married so they're protected that way.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.

If you believe yourself to be common law married, I am not sure why you'd object to being statutory law married. Then again, I don't see why so many people are fine with a contract witnessed by a solicitor but not a contract witnessed by a registrar and two others.

And I certainly don't understand why you'd want to be in the exact position that defines marriage yet not be married. It's like saying I want to dye my white dress red, but I never want to have a red dress.

I don't think I'm common law married or any of the above.

You might not, but two-thirds of cohabiting couples do wrongly believe "common-law marriage" laws exist

Yes, clearly that's not directed at any one individual on this thread. It has come up before though. Given that we know how common a misconception it is, and that being actual married does potentially give a person rights whether involved in the purchase or not, there's how it happens.

PrimalLass

Do you really think that shitbags are always shit bags?

I had been with dh 14 years when he started abusing me. Because he became insecure and decided the best way to make sure I never left him was to control me and make me feel like shit.

I had been with him 17 years when it was obvious his counselling hadn't worked and he attacked me and raped me. I was financially protected. I didnt marry a shithead. He fucking changed.

It's great that it's worked out for you and dp. However, it doesnt workout that way for a lot of people. A lot of people's Dp don't turn into a nobhead until the relationship is on its way out. Then allot a students every man for himself as it were.

Women who have children, find their careers damaged. It accounts for part of the pay gap between men and women. On an individual basis, some us aren't impacted at this. But as a group, women do suffer financial loss for having children. So it makes sense to be protected. Wether that's through marriage or not. If you manage to protect yourself without marriage, great. Lets not pretend that's the case for most women.

If you are in a relationship with someone and put yourself in a daft financial position like that, then getting married to someone who does not value you enough is just worrying.

Unless you have a crystal ball, you can't predict if you might have to give up work due to disability, or to care for a child with a disability - thus becoming substantially less financially independent. If the relationship breaks down, you might have assets in your name, but unless you have a cohabitation agreement in place, there's no right for spousal maintenance.

Circumstances may change, the whole point of any insurance policy is to provide protection for the worst case scenario. People don't usually settle down with arseholes - but often when relationships break down, the lovely person they fell in love with may now be behaving like an utter arsehole

You might have critical illness and income protection insurance in place to mitigate against the financial impact of unforeseen situations like redundancy, disability etc . Others may not be in a financial position to do so, and a cohabitation agreement or legal marriage may offer protection in the event that their best laid plans go awry, due to circumstances beyond their control

Do you really think that shitbags are always shit bags?

Don't be ridiculous.

I'm really sorry about what happened to you.

The thing is, what I was trying to say is that it isn't better in every situation to be married. It's a case by case thing.

Right now we are both here because we choose to be. If that doesn't continue then it will be far easier to extricate ourselves. If my career has been damaged then that was a choice I made - not under duress. Perhaps we should really focus on helping women understand the financial implications of cutting back on work.

As a 'child of divorce' twice, I'm not seeing it as an attractive option for me.

Don't be ridiculous.

I don't know, Primal, you lost me a bit when you asked "WTAF would someone agree to that anyway?", with respect to why anyone would put themselves in a delicate financial position. As can be seen all over the country and all over this very forum, there are bajillions of women (and some men) who do exactly this, without taking the legal protections. Why? Because, as we ascertained, they think it's not necessary, they don't understand what it is, or they just don't like the word for it.

I hate the word "tampon" but that doesn't stop me using one when I need it.

Even if we did try to "update" the marriage laws, we would still need something to define when a relationship becomes a relationship. There are always going to be people who don't do it, for whatever reason, and then complain that they aren't protected.

I'm going to get roasted for this, but after seeing the same thread time after time, I can't escape this conclusion. Some posters have got excellent reasons why marriage wouldn't protect them; great. Good thing it can't be sneaked onto them. Some do realise that marriage would protect them but they still don't want to do it because reasons; fine. They're grown ups. Again, it can't be sneaked onto them.

For a huge proportion of unmarried posters on these threads, I'm afraid that it really does look as though they actually do want to be married but their partners refuse, and so they regurgitate the shitty reasons they've been given to try to convince us and themselves that this is exactly how they feel as well. (OP herself has said that she wants to marry eventually, just not yet. That is fine, OP, really it is.) Certainly I get that impression when they start defining me by my marriage as if there's nothing else to me, calling me thick, a gold digger, boring, superior, bound to get divorced and a whole host of other things they can't possibly know just from the fact that my husband and I legalised our relationship. Why are they so anxious to convince themselves of that?

it isn't better in every situation to be married. It's a case by case thing.

Absolutely no poster on here has said otherwise. The very reason it needs to stay opt in is precisely so that you can stay cohabiting forever if that's your preference.

Perhaps we should really focus on helping women understand the financial implications of cutting back on work.

Given that for a lot of women (probably most), there is no other option once they have kids, I would rather focus on helping them to understand the financial implications of doing this while not married or having any other legal protections in place.

Very few people think it always is, and it's been stated on this thread numerous times that it isn't. That's not quite a strawman, but it's getting towards that general direction.

However, because of the structural factors listed, structural factors you cannot simply assume you're going to be able to opt out of, it's better for women as a cohort to be married. If we were all married, we as a group would be better off than we would be if we were all cohabiting. And no, clearly neither of these things is ever going to happen. Obviously, individual women may have other reasons that outweigh the existence of these structural factors, or they may genuinely be in a position where they'd be unaffected (although it's a rare enough thing to be able to opt out- you can't even avoid the maternity penalty by not having kids!).

Perhaps we should really focus on helping women understand the financial implications of cutting back on work.

That's what most people are saying. That and if you make the choice that leaves you vulnerable and it fucks up, that's shit, but tough. You made your choice. Don't start whining the law should be changed to make common law (Or giving long term unmarried couples more rights) a thing because you made choices that made you vulnerable.

I have never seen anyone on mumsnet (or real life) say everyone should be married. No one has ever claimed all its right 100% of the time.

I don't know, Primal, you lost me a bit when you asked "WTAF would someone agree to that anyway?", with respect to why anyone would put themselves in a delicate financial position.

I just meant the mortgage situation. I wouldn't agree to that married or not. So I do still think WTAF.

Anyway I should not have jumped into this again as it's the same old shit but a different thread.