To think that it's shameful that England (I think Scotland does) won't recognise common law marriage?

[Rainbowhairdontcare]

I've never understood why that's the case. Some States in the US do, the same as Canada and even some Latin American countries. Given the statistics of cohabitation it would only make sense?

England doesn't recognise common law marriage because it doesn't exist. Although I'm amazed at how many intelligent, educated women believe it does. There are managers at my work in a highly skilled and professional role with extensive training and experience in their field who believe they are in a common law marriage. They are not. And in all cases the woman lives with the man in the home in his name.

Rule I think OP means something similar to what's offered in Australia. A recognition of a Defacto relationship.

Relationships where there's been demonstrated commitment on both sides....shared home and budget.

In Australia, if you move in with someone, you're aware that your assets might be at risk....so people don't move in with one another lightly.

I'm glad the UK doesn't do this, and gives people the freedom to allow a partner to move in without utting their assets at risk.

@Rainbowhairdontcare most people and yourself have posted about the financial benefits of being married.

The other thing to think about is 'next of kin'. If your partner or you need medical treatment or are in hospital, there may be problems discussing treatment or treatment options as neither of you are legally next of kin. For example worst case scenario, it would possibly not be you or him who gave consent for switching off life support- it would be your NOK- so parents usually.

As data protection rules become more stringent - as we rely more and more on data for personal things- having a legal tie to someone so you can both access each other's data with their permission - might also be an issue.

One thing to consider- I am much older than you. I've seen friends who didn't marry after being fleeced during a divorce, but when they reached their 60s or older and had a terminal illness, they saw the sense of marriage so their partner (often many decades cohabiting)could be looked after financially.

There is a woman on MN at the moment needing to get her partner out of a house she owns.

It would be so much harder if she was married.

It is really important that people have a choice to get married or not. And don’t find themselves in a commitment imposed by default.

Why don't they just get married then OP? I don't get it.

The people who don't get clued up are the ones peddling crap and wanting the law change because it's inconvenient to confront their own nativity or stupidity.
I also wonder how many men who 'don't believe in marriage' also will not believe in civil partnerships when they become equalised. I suspect if your partner knows you desperately want to get married and fobs you off with 'oh it's just a piece of paper' knows full well that it isn't.

It's really cheap to go to the registry office and marry, if you want to marry, marry! (You don't need an elaborate wedding)

What is a common law marriage anyway?

The original was when a couple wanted to be married but couldn't be for some reason eg a remote village that didn't have a priest/minister/legal person or a remote farm/ranch in Australia or America, or where one person was already married in the days before divorce. Usually there was some sort of ceremony, in some places a husband 'sold' his wife to another man.

I he 1960s and 70s it began to be used for 'living together'.

This book has a lot of interesting history about marriage in the UK www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-Sex-History-Sexual-Revolution/dp/0241955963/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=a+history+of+sex&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1568445643&sr=8-5 going back hundreds of years. I found it really interesting.

Having children sets women back....then if not married, their partner can kick them out of the house and they're entitled to nothing.

If that woman is able to make the decision to have kids and enter a relationship. She has the ability to not have kids or move in with them, before they have their name on assets or married.

These discussion, in my opinion, make women look as though we have no responsibility to look out for ourselves and we are a but rhino and child like.

If you choose to become financially dependent on a partner, without making sure you are as financially secure as you should. That's your choice. Dont have children and become a sahm, while risking your financial future.

If you get pregnant by accident and then move in with him, into his house and risk your financial security that's your choice.

Let's say we become like Australia. Men who have several babies with a woman, become a sahm with a promise of eventual marriage (that they have no intention of actually doing) will do the same. They just wont let the woman move in.

So the woman may have her own home, but earning potential damaged taking on majority care of the kids etc while their partner lives somewhere else.

But where it will end is a lot of women with assets being at risk. And their children being at risk.

So many women post here. Have moved a DP, in after careful consideration and he turned into a cocklodger.

Those women may have to sell their house to give to someone e they never chose to enter a legal agreement with.

If you want to I close the law in your relationship, you can choose to. If you want that, but your partner is putting it off. Dont move in with them. Dont have kids. Do t give up work

But, yet again, op doesn't actually want it like Australia. She entered into a legal partnership with her ex husband. She choose that. Because it benefitted her at the time (she got to stay in the country). She is fucked off that she entered it without exploring the full extent of what it meant. Just wanted the benefits that suited her at the time.

If we operated like australia. Ops dp, would now be entitled to a share of her assets of they split. She doesnt want that. She wants them both to just have a few of the perks. Specifically the perks that suit her.

She doesnt want to marry to protect her assets. She doesnt want it like australia, to protect her assets. But she does want to call him her husband and just have a few of the benefits of marriage.

So Australias rules isnt what the OP wants at all.

She wanted to benefit from her marriage, but not any of the responsibilities that come with it.

Basically, she is a bit selfish ans just wants rules that suit her only.

I also wonder how many men who 'don't believe in marriage' also will not believe in civil partnerships when they become equalised. I suspect if your partner knows you desperately want to get married and fobs you off with 'oh it's just a piece of paper' knows full well that it isn't.

I agree with this.

I do believe that lots if women who put themseleves in this vulnerable position, also know it and know deep down they are vulnerable. They just ignore it

I think if you are up front about not getting married (so not talking about the ones who say 'one day). And someone continues a relationship with you and outs themseleves in that shitty situation, then the consquences of that are entirely your responsibility.

So many women post here loaning that their dp has said they wont get married. Then moan that, shockingly, they still don't want to get married. So many women seem to believe that the men will change their mind. If marriage is important to you, why would you be with someone who has been clear, they don't.

I’d rather women take more responsibility and parents inform their children about the vulnerability than change the law to common law marriage.

Don’t listen to the promises of future marriage if it will make you vulnerable.

England doesn't recognise common law marriage because it doesn't exist. Although I'm amazed at how many intelligent, educated women believe it does. There are managers at my work in a highly skilled and professional role with extensive training and experience in their field who believe they are in a common law marriage. They are not. And in all cases the woman lives with the man in the home in his name.

This is really amazing to me. I remember a thread by a woman in her 50s. Lives with her partner, he was rush so she gave up work. He told her he wouldnt ever get married. She gave up work anyway. Lived with him for about 20 years and then he dumped her and asked her to move out.

Ahe got legal advice that told her age sidnt have a chance especially since she hadnt contributed any finances to the house. Gave up work entirely through choice. Not to raise their kids. She was told she could try to beinf a case but it was cost a fortune and almost certainly unsuccessful.

But shevhad been with coffee with hee friends, who by all accounts were intelligent women, who told her the that the legal advice was wrong and age 'common law' was definitely a thing and she could take half his house, pension and get spousal support

She was clearly gutted when she realises her friend was chatting shit.

JinglingHellsBells there isn't a formal next of kin concept in UK law and the move over the last few years has been towards including unmarried partners in care, decisions etc in the same way a spouse would be.

That being said, I'd been working on the assumption that the move towards inclusion of cohabiting partners was a trend that would continue but it's an interesting point about data protection and legal ties. I think if I weren't married to my partner I would want some kind of affidavit signed for this kind of things, and everyone should have Power of Attorneys sorted anyway. Married or not.

I think it's very unclear what OP wants. For a partner to have no claims of shared ownership at all then suddenly automatically become heir at death is not common law marriage- it's asking the state to read your mind.

Well there's nothing in theory to prevent us having the same laws for cohabitants as we do now wrt property split on separation but also allowing the same IHT exemptions if you can show evidence of, say, living with the deceased in jointly owned or tenanted property at the time of their death/pre-death hospitalisation.

The state would just have to be sufficiently invested in it to throw money at it (very likely in these straitened times...) because it would be a pain to administer. And we'd just have to accept that some people would successfully claim those benefits without having been in a partner relationship with the deceased (tbf some people do advocate for that anyway).

These all seem like quite substantial disincentives to me, but then states sometimes do come up with rather complex and inefficient systems.

HennyPenny What you’re talking about seems to be exactly what the OP is against. She wants common law marriage to be one where no assets are at risk.

She agreed with this earlier:
Or do you mean you want the freedom to split and not share anything but the protection of his inheriting everything should you die and are still together.

This exactly ^^
(That’s her saying ‘exactly’ - hard to do double quotes).
So... a women would still be left with nothing and no protection for her children in the type of common law marriage OP wants.

I don't believe common law marriage should be a thing. But there should be better education about the consequences of not being married. It isn't just down to whether your partner inherits automatically. It has other consequences such as the fact that if your assets exceed the inheritance tax threshold your partner will have to pay inheritance tax if you have left your assets to them.

I think there should be a simple legal form to sign in a solicitor's office without the traditional element being part of it all.

Just a form.

That would stop people saying "Oh he won't marry yet...he wants a big wedding and we can't afford it"

Or whatever.

But people who want a big ceremony can have it.

Why does marriage have to be done in the ceremonial fashion?

I think there should be a simple legal form to sign in a solicitor's office without the traditional element being part of it all

That exists. It's called marriage.

You dont have to have a 'wedding day'.

That doesnt stop lots of people ot wanting to do it. If someone says they wont get married until they can afford a big expensive wedding. They wont enter a legal contract which the same as marriage at a solicitors office.

And again, op doesnt want that.

Speaking as a solicitor, I'm not sure we'd be up for that. The marriage process involves giving notice, and potentially checks being made. The information resources of the state are used to do this. Solicitors don't have access to these resources.

I'm quite happy to witness wills, contracts, certify documents etc. Because that doesn't involve me confirming anything I cant confirm. But part of the marriage process involves the registrar being satisfied the pair are free to marry. As a solicitor you couldn't do that. Unless the couple had already got all the checks done and got confirmation from the state that they were free to marry already and we were just doing the words and signing. But the law allows for that already, I think? As in, a solicitors office could be a premises to conduct marriage under the same rules as a stately home can if they both had the appropriate permission and paperwork.

I think there should be a simple legal form to sign in a solicitor's office without the traditional element being part of it all.

... Like a registry office.

r do you mean you want the freedom to split and not share anything but the protection of his inheriting everything should you die and are still together.

This exactly ^^

I’ve lived in a couple of places with common law marriage, and in none of them did you get to pick and choose the rights and benefits you gained on an individual basis like this. If you gained property rights, you gained them at the point the common law marriage was considered to have come into existence, not “when it suited you, but not when it didn’t” - how would that even work, how would you sort out disputes between partners?

What OP actually wants is the ability to choose separation of assets within marriage. Although that wouldn’t give automatic inheritance to the spouse in most jurisdictions unless she made a will.

Something needs to change.

Women are up against it. They have a narrower timeframe in which to have children. They face tough decisions. If everything doesn't fall in to love place within a team, economic unit/family, then they're left bearing the huge sacrifice for parenthood alone.

Society just stands back and watches as mothers make a much much bigger sacrifice for parenthood than fathers do.

And if the mother isn't married then she is particularly screwed. Disclaimer, if you earn more than your partner and could afford childcare then this doesn't apply to you obviously.

Haven't kept up with civil partnerships, not relevant to me. Are these available to every couple yet, regardless of sexuality? Isn’t that the solution if people don’t want to marry?

31RueCambon75001 the OP is arguing the exact opposite - she thinks married couples get too much protection in the event of a split, and she wants a legallly-recognised relationship where spouses keep their own assets and have no obligation to support their exes in the event of a split. But with all the pension, tax and inheritance benefits of marriage.