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.

Well, I take the point about protecting myself as best I can. I certainly won’t have any more children with him until this is sorted out. I have my own bank account and I told him recently that I’m opening a savings account just in case he dies because (I assume) all the money we have in our joint account will be inaccessible for a time if he died.
The reason he hasn’t got a will is that he hasn’t got around to it yet. I ask him regularly (since long before the baby) as I do worry about us being homeless if anything should happen to him. I do think it’s more to do with procrastination and laziness than malice.
As for leaving, I’ve got nowhere to go!

I've been astounded at some of the beliefs expressed in the thread about bereavement payments. The idea that the children of unmarried parents are less deserving is just shit.

Fatted - how does being married make things “more straightforward”?

People (predominantly women) can put themselves in very precarious positions financially by not being married. It's different if both parties are financially self-sufficient but that is often not the case.

It's not about the quality of the relationship - clearly what you say is right and that married or not makes no difference to the quality of the relationship.

There is one point however OP where you are comprehensively wrong

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 are two things muddled up in that comment. The first is about the stability of the relationship. Married relationships DO last longer than unmarried ones. That is a statistical fact. The second point is that it is not up to men whether or not they leave their wives a dime on divorce. The wives' rights are protected in law. Where cohabiting partners do not get the same degree of financial protection.

The article saying that the divorce rate is the lowest for years is right, but I don't think the PP understood the stats. 9.8 divorces out of 1000 married couples is per year and the same article quotes that 42% of marriages end in divorce. ie nearly 1% of all married couples get divorced every year.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12011714/Divorce-rate-at-lowest-level-in-40-years-after-cohabitation-revolution.html

zsa

The internet is a wonderful place - the information is at your fingertips 24 hours a day. If you don’t understand how marriage makes things more straightforward, I suggest a quick search.

My partner recently had 2 stays in ICU for serious conditions. I was asked by many staff if i was his wife and when i replied no they looked at me and i could see they changed in the way they approached me about his treatment. As if i wasnt as important as his mum and dad. I felt i had to keep explaining i was his carer and partner of 16 years and it would have been better if i just said yes im the wife.

The ridiculous thing is he would never want his parents making any treatment decisions for him and he trusts me 100%. I understand they need to establish who i am but when im down as nok and carer on his file why keep asking. I do everything for him and yet they made me feel i wasnt important or relevant as not married.

‘And for the millionth time, there is no technical legal meaning to next of kin. You have no say over someone’s medical treatment because you are married.’

INCORRECT. You will be asked as next of kin to sign for medical treatment for your spouse. When I worked in the Coroners Office I was unable to give death/post mortem details to the female who lived with the deceased. I had to contact a sibling.
There is no such thing as a ‘common law husband or wife’. If you want to be called husband or wife, you know what to do.

If people make a decision to marry or not marry based on the pros and cons of what the rights and responsibilities afforded by marriage will mean for them - great

But the problem on these threads is when some posters who say they don't think marriage is for them, it's just a piece of paper, what difference would marriage make, then discover that there are a number of consequences that they had no idea about - that they hadn't thought about X or Y, or that they'd been under a different assumption.

And tonnes of threads where women have gone part time to take on more childcare responsibilities, or become SAHM, or given up work to care for a child, and then find they don't have rights they believed they had

The rights and responsibilities of marriage aren't necessarily going to translate into benefits for some, more affluent women

But there are many people who think they have legal rights as cohabiting couples that they don't.

It's also interesting given how many couples opt for cohabitation rather than marriage, that so few people have legal cohabitation agreements in place

Often posters will say marriage is irrelevant to them because they have a multitude of other measures - they own half the house, pensions and wills are in place (although these can be changed and it's much harder to disinherit a spouse than a partner), life insurance etc, under the IHT threshold. But can't recall any poster stating they have a cohabitation agreement in place.

I'm curious why that is? Would be v interested to hear different POV (not goady - genuinely interested!)

The thing is, if you haven't declared by marrying that you want the statuses that come with marriage, you are asking people, often strangers, to make value judgments about your relationship. On what basis should they do that? Is a relationship of two years that has produced a child more significant than a 30-year cohabitation that hasn't?

Lots of MN-ers may be savvy about exactly what rights and responsibilities they do have as cohabitees, and made an informed decision about what's right for them

But at a population level, there's a significant degree of misunderstanding

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42134722

"Resolution carried out a survey which found two-thirds of cohabiting couples wrongly believe "common-law marriage" laws exist when dividing up finances.

Resolution, which represents 6,500 family practitioners, said it had seen an increase in the number of cases involving cohabiting couples.

Some 98% of Resolution members report having worked with a couple who they say they could not help due to the lack of legal protection."

https://www.economist.com/international/2016/01/16/the-common-law-marriage-myth

"Despite an information campaign, over half of unmarried English couples living together in 2006—when the campaign had been running for three years—believed that their legal position was the same as that of married couples. Half the general population did, too."

I think the OP has conflated lots of different aspects of marriage into one post. As most posters have pointed out the previous thread was about LEGAL aspects of marriage. There are clear advantages/disadvantages of marriage depending on the circumstances of the couple involved.

In terms of the history of marriage it has always been a SOCIAL contract and marriage has existed in all societies with or without religious beliefs. For example, societies in Europe practiced marriage before they converted to Christianity. Before Capitalism and before concepts of “property” marriage has existed to publically and socially recognize a couple (although marriage has taken different forms, there is usually one couple at a time being recognized) and the children of the couple as a unit, usually permanently but societies throughout history have developed ways a couple could divorce or separate. This recognized who was publicly acknowledged as the parents of the children within that marriage and who was responsible for them.

It’s true that marriage as we know it in the West did take on a PATRIARCHAL meaning and unfortunately society is still unbalanced enough that for example a mother with young children (especially too young for school) can be very vulnerable if she is not earning enough to support himself and is not married to her partner. A poster mentioned encouraging everyone to be financially independent, realistically that can’t happen until men takes as much responsibility for childcare as women do and don’t leave it to their partner or other women.

Of course all relationships including marriages can have problems and break down, can be happy and unhappy, successful and unsuccessful. The reasons people get married can be many and varied, even within this thread people have given different reason for choosing marriage.

As for the tone of the thread, I have not read it but on MN any discussion can have certain posters who take a smug or self-righteous attitude about almost any topic. I think that just says more about human nature than anything else, there will usually be plenty of other posters with very helpful, interesting and valid POV. That’s what keeps MN in business, free speech and hearing lots of (usually) female voices which I at least, often don’t hear much of IRL.

This thread is interesting. I'm in a far superior financial situation to my partner as I own property etc so other than the financial benefits are there any other benefits to marriage? If dad is on birth cert he has parental responsibility, right? I guess there's tax relief maybe?

Celebelly this sets out the key differences - obvs depends on your personal situation if any of the rights afforded by marriage represent benefits or not

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

I wouldn't have had a child with someone who showed an unwillingness to marry me. A child is a far bigger commitment than marriage. So get married first. Prove yourself serious about the confidence you have in your future as a couple. It's more than a piece of paper folks. (Although I know that's a common excuse for not committing.)
Then have a child. Because that's the biggest commitment anybody ever makes. If you balk at committing to getting wed then you should think thrice about having a child.

I lived with my partner for 6 years before we discussed having children. The first thing we did in preparation for having a family was to get married. He asked me, as it happened, but if he hadn't I would have asked him.

And if he'd said he didn't want to marry me I wouldn't have had children with him.

Much more stable than being dependent on the government to provide finances for an absent dad ah yes because let's not forget women can't possibly earn enough money to support their family. It must come from a man or the government.

Water - yes women can earn but having children reduces most women’s earning power. Very few people even if they had good jobs before can go back to those jobs or progress the career ladder upwards easily in the year or two after having children. There’s not many women (or men) who can afford to have kids by themselves

I hear you! I hear this in every day life too.

I don't want to get married as I'm now single 'legally' but have a boyfriend, but have kids from a previous relationship. I'm solvent and financially independent and realise marriages go wrong. If I marry I risk my children's home, inheritance etc.

I don't ever want to marry for security. I never gave up my career to have kids, but it's been a struggle to do that. All Childcare arrangements, school, Nusery drops and pickups fall to me 100% of the time, perhaps because I have breasts?!

I do feel some married women have a smugness about their position vs mine. I see it on MN and hear it in every day life via sympathy that I don't need! I do feel envious of some people's situations, I'd love for someone to look after me maybe just once, but I always know I can only let myself down, I won't be blindsighted by a cheating husband squirrelling away assests and money. That's obviously extreme but maybe many of the smug I've encountered may see this one day as I did, but luckily I was independent to financially deal with it, though the emotional side is hard whatever the situation.

In the UK they do have a hierarchy of next of kin in an instance whereby you haven't appointed anyone or can't appoint anyone maybe because you're in a comma or drunk or going through extreme mental health issues etc

1. Your Spouse
2. Your Child (if over 18)
3. Your parents
4. Your siblings
5. Your grandparentd,
6. Your grandchild
7. Your uncle/aunts
8. Your nephew/nieces

If you're not married your children will have power over you..including inheritance if your other half was to die.
Boyfriend and girlfriend relationship have a higher rate of breakups compared to marriages it's common sense considering most people have had a few bf/gf relationships before marriage and younger teenagers are at it aswell having a new bf/gf frequently at that age as they're not emotionally stable yet.

Marriage can also put some women in a precarious position.

Before I got married, I already had my own house, with a huge amount of equity. I was a higher warmer than my husband and got 2 promotions (with big pay rises) while we were together. Also had our DS in between.

I was always determined not to end up in the same position as my DM - when her and my DF divorced she had no bank account of her own and no job. She really struggled to get on her feet financially, house and care for me and my siblings.

When I divorced, my solicitor kept referring to my house (that I had bought and paid for, including all the furniture, decorating and improvements) as the family home and telling me I had to start at a 50/50 split. Bollocks to that - it was my house and my sons home.

I was lucky that my ex-H didn't want anything from the house. In return I decorated his flat and furnished our sons bedroom.

At mediation I was told that I may have to pay spousal maintenance too! He was happy to stay in a low paid, manual job, while I strived for promotions and better jobs. I paid 80% of the childcare fees, as I was the higher earner (he wasn't a SAHP).

I still had to pay over £200 to sit in front of a judge for 5 minutes so he could agree with my Ex-H that he didn't want any of the equity from the house.

Would I ever get married again? Absolutely not! I wouldn't risk everything I have worked hard for nor would I risk my sons home or inheritance.

Higher earner - not warmer (flipping auto-correct£

Whilst I think discussion of marriage should obviously encompass the legal and therefore financial rights it confers to both parties, I find it a bit sad when the higher earning partner states that there are no "advantages" to them marrying. Looking at it from a completely individualistic financial perspective then of course they're right, but for me they miss the whole point of marriage which is about merging two lives (and therefore two sets of assets) together to form a single, shared entity.

What people contribute to the entity may be different and some may bring more money with them or earn more over their lifetimes, others might be SAHPS to DC and others may provide love, companionship, support etc it doesn't really matter, but the point is we can enrich our spouses lives in so many other ways than just financially. Perhaps the most obvious example is how at the end of our lives so many people care and nurse their sick spouses at a great physical and mental cost to themselves Of course you can also do this without being married but if it all goes horribly wrong then the partner with the money can simply walkaway with their assets whilst the one who for example devoted years to the children can't exactly do the same with their contribution. This to me is the benefit of marriage, it recognises that the financial assets earned by each partner do not necessarily represent the contribution that each partner has put into the relationship/family.

I guess this could be seen as a freeloaders loophole but I would suggest that people should be very careful about who they marry and stay married to in order to avoid this. Conversely I think that many unmarried higher earners are willing to freeload off their DP's efforts through getting them to take on the majority of the responsibility for shared children and letting them take the career hit, knowing full well that if the relationship was to break down they would be able to protect their financial assets. I think this is incredibly unethical and quite frankly shouldn't really be tolerated.

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

What are you talking about, OP? Are you confusing a divorce with a will?

It’s a divorce. The terms of the divorce aren’t up to ‘the man’ (nice assumption that he’s the one with the money, by the way). It’s settled in court.

Yanbu

It wasn't just that thread,the thread re widow's allowance was just as bad- living in sin was mentioned,the fact that cohabiting couples make up 47% of the population, is rising and set to overtake married couples was described as nothing to be proud of.

The dismissive attitude towards bereaved children who form a big percentage of the population being shut out of support when they need it most,support their parents have contributed to with NI just the same was sickening.

My 30 year relationship was dismissed as meaning nothing with a patronising "love" added on the end.

I have never come across such nasty outdated attitudes in RL. I have been a MNer for 15 years and quite frankly I'm shocked at the level of nastiness.

The views of some who feel getting a ring on their finger should be the aim of all,that women who don't want to get married should ignore those feelings and do it anyway,that married relationships are somehow superior,that if you're an unmarried mother you can be looked down on,pitied,patronised,lectured to by MNers..... I find it quite disturbing.

And Manor how dare you.

Cohabiting couples are not single families. My kids would not be doing better if we were married. We are in an incredibly stable relationship, a relationship that is longer than many marriages. My dc have friends with divorced parents, not really getting how they'll be better off than my dc.

I totally agree with you OP. I have 1 DC with my partner, we jointly own our home and everything in it, joint bank account, cars, etc. Several healthcare professionals have assumed my DC is from a previous relationship which stings slightly. Marriage just isn’t for some people, myself included, but that doesn’t make my relationship less valid than those who have chosen to get married.