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.

There's nothing wrong with not getting it, but meanwhile people still do it, and ignorance about the legal distinction between marriage and cohabitation is sometimes part of the reason why. Those people would benefit from more of the sort of discussion OP objects to, not less.

Am I weird in that having legal protection was not on my mind at all when I got married? 🤔 Nor was it a factor in us getting married.

No, I think that's common enough.

In Scotland it appears that we may have a little more protection, and there was a form of common law marriage until 2006 (that may still apply if you cohabited since before then).

www.drummondmiller.co.uk/news/2018/03/cohabitation-an-overview/

What is needed is education. Not simply at school but repeated time and time again.

Too many people think/hope that somehow it will all be okay. Many people start living together quite casually at first. It start as a kind of grownup sleepover. It evolves into a living together arrangement but still nothing changed re tenancy/deeds because, you know, it's casual, you arent ready to get all formal yet.

Then life gets in the way.

There is an unplanned pregnancy, one of you loses your job. Now it is getting very real. Suddenly all that informality leaves one of you very vulnerable.

Education is the only way. Sex ed with better, more accurate and realistic information about the actual effectiveness of different contraception methods. Hard conversations with young people about responsibilities not just rights.

This needs to be repeated with adults through whatever medium will work whether these august pages or via drama. The information needs to be out there early and often.

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.

@AynRand

I totally agree. I don’t believe most married women think they’re better than unmarried, but I do think a lot of unmarried women are insecure about it.

It’s surprising how many women who ‘don’t want to get married’ are suddenly inviting 30 people to their Spanish weekend hen do and plastering it all over Facebook because DP decided to pop the question!

I’ve witnessed 3 self righteous ‘I wouldn't ever get married because of ....’ women get engaged this summer alone 🙈😂 they had banged on for years about why they were better than those ‘conformist old fashioned girls’ and now wonder why they only get 20 likes on their engagement posts!!!

The Scottish union of repute is really interesting. It has lots of caveats, you apparently have to have been referring to each other as married. I don't practice in Scotland so I've never seen one in real life but I'd like to!

Marriage rights in Scotland are different to those in England and Wales too, it's easier to keep things like inheritance and pre-wedding assets separate. In England and Wales that's potentially all in the pot if needed to house the kids. Harder to reserve assets. That model might better suit some people who are south of the border and don't want to marry.

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

Right, but people do. Your protected. Great for you. Many women aren't and don't think about it until it's too late. That's why on these threads lots if mners ask about the situation, ask about marriage and are shocked that (yet again) a woman has walked into a situation where she has reduced her earning power, had kids and has no protection. Not even the slightest bit.

Then mners generally get a bit arsey when these women suggest the equivalent to common law should be a thing. Simply because they made bad, uninformed decisions.

In your situation, if these women had their way, your Dp could turn into prick and cheat. He could then take some of that pension that's bigger than his.

They want it that way because they believe they hold no responsibility. No one on mn thinks all women should get married and if you do, you will be perfectly fine in the event of a split. Just that women needto think about these things nd take responsibility for the choices they make. It's advice they are giving and trying make women aware of the consquences of their choices.

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

It's quite apparent from MN and society in general that women frequently get themselves into financially vulnerable positions without protecting themselves, be that by marriage or some alternative. You seem astonished by that, well, some people are astonished that a woman would have a man's children and give up her earning power to care for them without him protecting her share of the resulting assets in law. When it's justified by "don't need to prove our love" or "don't need to show off to our friends", do you see now why it does make some of us want to scream?

Unfortunately, it is impossible on these threads to explain why marriage does actually make a palpable legal difference without being accused of all sorts. On another recent thread, I remember one young woman asking if she should get married before having her first child. I and a couple of other married posters said yes, and explained why. Cue a flurry of posts about how we were "smug", "I'm alright Jack", outdated and the rest of it. ("Alright Jack" and outdated? If what I've done has benefits for me now, how can it be outdated? Oh hell, why do we even bother.)

One of the most egregious examples I remember was a young woman, pregnant with her first child. She admitted that she would have preferred to marry her partner, but he didn't want to. It was all right, though, because he would still permit her to take his name, and they didn't need a piece of paper to prove their love. She even finished with a little smile.

I bet she thought it was envy making us all scream at our laptops...

I am financially literate. Perhaps it goes with the territory being a chartered accountant. Or perhaps I became a chartered accountant seeing my very well educated (other than in matters financial) parents come a cropper because they didn't understand the first thing about money.

You have potential to cause yourselves a huge amount of hardship if you don't learn about money. I have taught my children to manage money. And managing money includes protecting yourself if you give up work to do the caring thing.

No-one on this thread is saying that married women are better. Everyone on this thread advocating marriage is saying that marriage affords (primarily but not exclusively) women a degree of financial protection.

It's plain daft exposing yourself to financial penury. Don't do it.

Personally I don't get arsey when people who've made bad decisions through ignorance get shafted and say they want reform, I get sad. I have some sympathy there: they didn't come up with the idea that common law marriage is real by themselves. It's the ones who have some idea of the law, but just think other people should lose rights because they can't possibly be expected to go to a registry office or rustle up two witnesses that get the eyes rolling.

I remember the surname one. Head bang bang.

Fucking hell, how depressing

@MeteorGarden

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.

Yeah this.

As a married woman, I have had way more unmarried women be bitchy to me (and witnessed it aimed at other married women) than I have the other way around. They seem to have a real bee in their bonnet about how they absolutely do NOT want to get married, and how they wouldn't want to be trapped/or owned by a man/or change their surname yada yada..... But when you scratch the surface a bit, it emerges that they want nothing MORE than marriage, but their man won't marry them.

I have yet to meet a co-habiting couple/unmarried couple where it's the WOMAN who doesn't want to get married.

I know a number of couples who are not married, (about ten couples,) and in seven of the couples, it's the man who wants to stay unmarried. In the other three couples, it's both of them. I don't know one couple where it's the man wanting to get married, and the woman doesn't.

And as I said, some women in relationships with men who won't marry them, are very catty and bitchy towards married women. Pure jealousy and bitterness.

I also think it's foolhardy for women to not get married, because of all the protection it brings for them. I would certainly not stay in a relationship with a man who refused to get married. IMO, a refusal to get married makes it clear that you are good enough to shag, and shack up with, but not good enough to marry.

I would also never have children with a man I was not married to. Apart from the fact you and your children are not protected legally, (like you are when you're married,) it's sending a message to your children that their father didn't think their mother was good enough to marry.

As for the post by @AynRandTheObjectivist (4 posts up... ^)

Excellent post.

There are also a lot of other good ones!

I am married. I have not changed my name. I did not get married for financial security because my financial security is me.

I earn around 5x what my husband - a solicitor in public practice does. i didn't marry him out of financial necessity to protect myself. I married him because I wanted to.

This does not deter me from advising other people to marry in order to protect themselves. Most people are a bit uninformed when it comes to protecting themselves.

You might want to think about it in terms of protecting your DC. Perhaps that's an easier way of thinking about the issue.

It's the ones who have some idea of the law, but just think other people should lose rights because they can't possibly be expected to go to a registry office or rustle up two witnesses that get the eyes rolling.

Yeah. I don't understand why a contract dealt with by a solicitor is fine but a contract dealt with by a registrar and two witnesses is so objectionable. I've also got absolutely no patience with people whose sole objection is that they don't like the word (and I have been surprised lately at how many of those there seem to be).

Though judging by the response to bananafish's questions about cohabitation agreements, it seems a lot of people don't have those in place either. Obviously nobody was obliged to answer her question about it, but if all these people really have got good legal protections in place without marriage, the silence on the issue is strange.

Fun fact: the word "wife" is derived from an Old English/Germanic word that simply means "woman". "Husband" is from the Old Norse "hus" (house) and "bondi" (occupier and tiller of soil). So despite the fact that there is an otherwise intelligent poster out there who refuses to marry solely because she doesn't like the connotations of the word "wife", that's actually the word that has nothing to do with being married and originally meant merely "woman". It's men, apparently, who become defined by property when they marry.

YANBU, pointing out the legal rights is one thing. Telling someone they are an idiot three years after the baby horse has bolted is a bit pointless.

So despite the fact that there is an otherwise intelligent poster out there who refuses to marry solely because she doesn't like the connotations of the word "wife", that's actually the word that has nothing to do with being married and originally meant merely "woman". It's men, apparently, who become defined by property when they marry.

I don't know which poster you are referring to as you haven't quoted but most likely she is offended by the connotations that "wife"* has carried for the past several hundred years rather than it's old german roots?

*given to one's husband by their father. literal property. The cleaner of the house. The shiner of her husband's shoes, the one literally left holding the baby.

I don't know which poster you are referring to as you haven't quoted but most likely she is offended by the connotations that "wife" has carried for the past several hundred years rather than it's old german roots?*

It was some months ago and I can't remember the username. She may have changed it by now or left MN. I do remember reading that post, though, and thinking "that's weird, I seem to recall your other posts are intelligent".

given to one's husband by their father. literal property. The cleaner of the house. The shiner of her husband's shoes, the one literally left holding the baby.

This is not what "wife" means. It is a legal term for a married woman. You can load it with expectations from history but that does not make it correct now.

That poster is entitled not to protect herself because of what she imagines the word once to have suggested, but that does not make it a sound or intelligent decision.

You can load it with expectations from history but that does not make it correct now.

You can willfully ignore all the history up to and including now, such as the fact that most women do change their names (and are expected to by their male partners) but that doesn't make you correct now.

You can willfully ignore all the history up to and including now, such as the fact that most women do change their names (and are expected to by their male partners) but that doesn't make you correct now.

It is entirely legal and possible to become a wife without changing your name, doing any cleaning or shining any shoes. Did you truly believe it wasn't?

And whilst it is sadly true that women generally do a disproportionate amount of shitwork, not being married doesn't seem to be any protection against this.

You're making up a load of fallacious "points" based on nothing at best, and things that aren't true at worst. It's funny that marriage is so often described as outdated by people who are using archaic connotations for the words to defend their own choices.

If you don't want to marry, that's your right. If you don't want to marry because the word "wife" makes you think of shoe polish, that's your right, but it's not smart. I don't much like the word "tampon" but I'd still be an idiot to go swimming without one.

I find the cohabitation agreement question interesting.

Across all the various threads on this topic, there seems to be broadly three groups

1. Don't want the legal rights - because they wouldn't financially benefit from doing so.

1. Do want the legal rights, would be happy to opt into a legal partnership, as long as it's not called marriage. Aka 'the branding issue'.

1. Do want the legal rights, but without needing to formally opt in to a legal contract to do so. Aka the common law marriage issue

In group 1, a cohabitation agreement doesn't make much sense, given it's a vehicle to try to replicate some of the financial rights and responsibilities of marriage (which these posters state they actively do not want!)

Group 3 is likely to represent the majority of unmarried couples in the UK - given two thirds of cohabiting couples are unaware that they don't have these rights already. Including those women who do want to get married, but whose partners refuse to do so. In these cases it's pretty unlikely a man who won't get married will agree to a cohabitation agreement either.

But as cohabitation agreements are specifically designed for couples in group 2, to offer them the legal protection they want without having to get married - I'm really curious (and a bit baffled) as to why there seems to be so little take-up. Just genuinely interested as to why this might be.

We don't have a cohabitation agreement simply because we don't need them. Our biggest assets are our properties, we're both joint tenants. We have single bank accounts but a joint billing account. Honestly, if he wanted to change the beneficiary of his pensions/insurance, that's up to him just as it would be for me.

Why is is that it’s the women who are getting called stupid naive uneducated here for being unmarried mums when it’s usually the men who are refusing to marry?

Who is calling them out for leaving the mothers of their children in destitution because of their wilful life choices?

1 in 4 pregnancies is unplanned so given that no one here is advocating pre martial celibacy lots of women are going to find themselves pregnant and unmarried at some point in their lives.

What should a women be advised in that situation?

Abort if he won’t marry by 12 weeks?

Believe him when he says they’ll get married in a couple of years?

Break up with him and say to your dc ‘you have no dad because he wouldn’t marry me’?

Women are left with very few choices if they are pregnant by a man who refuses to marry.

Yes she should stay financially independent but the tax credits system treatsunmarried and married couples equally so she wouldn’t get the working tax credits at the level to pay childcare as if she was a single mum even if the dp refuses to contribute to childcare costs. So what should she do if her wage won’t cover childcare. Put it up for adoption?

It’s easy to see how so many (millions?) of women sleepwalk into being financially dependent unmarried mothers.

It’s hard enough for them let’s not berate them more!

1 in 4 pregnancies is unplanned

That’s astonishing! Maybe premarital celibacy in that case isn’t such an awful idea.

@DieAnt

Theres a huge difference between unplanned and ‘unplanned’!

Let’s remember that the failure rate of most ‘good’ contraception is between 0.1-2%

Something about those figures just doesn’t add up x