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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that lots of women will now be able to get financial and legal security

145 replies

PerspicaciaTick · 01/12/2019 03:47

without having to get married.

From tomorrow you can give notice for your opposite sex civil partnership. You can actually form your partnership from January.

No need for a verbal contract or a ceremony (unless you want one). Just sign the bit of paper with your witnesses. No need to spend a fortune - you can do it all for less than £150 (or you can still go the whole hog if you want).

I think it will be really popular - or am I misreading the situation?

OP posts:
ScreamingValenta · 07/12/2019 11:42

Platonic partners could marry, obviously, but might be uncomfortable with the terms 'marriage' 'husband' and 'wife' because they're traditionally associated with a sexual relationship.

ScreamingValenta · 07/12/2019 11:44

Also, it might sit better with a sexual/romantic partner, if the person in a CP had one in addition to their platonic legal partner.

burnoutbabe · 07/12/2019 11:47

You can't be in a cp and a marriage!
Most people in cps I know call their partners their wife or husband and if you married for non love reasons you'd just refer to them as partner anyway, you don't have to tell anyone you are married or refer to them as a particular name in most aspects of life.

ScreamingValenta · 07/12/2019 11:52

You can't be in a cp and a marriage!

Who has said you can?

if you married for non love reasons you'd just refer to them as partner anyway, you don't have to tell anyone you are married or refer to them as a particular name in most aspects of life.

And I'm sure plenty of people do that. But some might feel more comfortable knowing that legally, they were not 'husband and wife'. And while you could be private about your marriage in your social life, your administrative, financial and legal dealings would all be couched in terms of 'wife' 'husband and 'spouse'.

Kpo58 · 07/12/2019 11:57

I never understand why marriage seems to be tarnished. Many things are "tarnished", but we don't just make something similar and give it another name. We just evolve how it is now.

Cotton and sugar is tarnished by the slavery, but we still use both and we have changed it by no longer using slaves. The UK is tarnished by once having a large empire, but we haven't renamed the country to erase this. We have evolved and changed. That is how we should related to marriage. We have evolved and changed it. Marital rape is now illegal and we don't have to obey our partners.

Creating a marriage lite which isn't accepted around the world seems a silly and unnecessary.

Owlsintowels · 07/12/2019 11:57

@deFrinkle it does make a difference to how it feels to me and to my partner. Happy to accept it might not to most other people.

Civil partnerships to me are about the legal binding of two equals. Marriage to me is heavily steeped in the history of bringing together one person to be subservient to the other.

I view myself and my parter as equals, therefore a legal union which explicitly calls itself a partnership appeals to me. There is implied equality.

Marriage to me implies sexism and inequality. When a woman gets married she is expected to change her name. Of course she doesn't have to, but it is the norm.

A civil partnership doesn't have this expectation... That's just one example

easyandy101 · 07/12/2019 12:00

If people want to avoid marriage, they'll probably avoid Civil Partnership too because it means exactly the same apart from you can't divorce under adultery.

This. Got no interest in marriage, marriage by a different name is still marriage

BlaueLagune · 07/12/2019 12:02

*I’ve never really understood why a registry office wedding wasn’t ok(

Me too. All this moaning about civil partnerships not being available to opposite-sex couples seemed massively self-indulgent to me. But on the other hand, it doesn't affect me, so why should I care what other people prefer to do.

Teachermaths · 07/12/2019 12:14

I can't understand people who will get a CP but wouldn't get married. They are literally the same thing apart from you can't dissolve a CP through adultery.

History/misogyny blah blah. A registry office marriage with no ceremony doesn't cost much, doesn't mention religion and there's no giving away or anything.

I can't see CPs leading to a huge rise in couples being married or CPed.

Fraggling · 07/12/2019 12:22

Well you do you and let other people do what they wish.

'blah blah' women used to be literal property and still are explicitly or implicitly all over the world 'blah blah'.

You seem very nice.

Teachermaths · 07/12/2019 12:33

But women aren't legal property anymore. As a PP said, lots of our laws are steeped in misogyny, lots of stuff we use today didn't come from ethical backgrounds.

A marriage and CP are legally the same thing.

I'm happy to live and let live. I just don't think there will be a huge increase in people being legally joined due to CPs.

Fraggling · 07/12/2019 12:35

So women should ignore history and their feelings and the ongoing position of women around the world because you think it's silly

OK then Grin

IWorkAtTheCheesecakeFactory · 07/12/2019 12:37

Nothing will change. It’s the same legal situation as marriage. The people who won’t commit to marriage won’t commit to this either. The women who you imagine will gain protections from this won’t, because their partners do not want to give them that protection.

Unless you think men don’t understand what civil partnership is and will just agree to it Hmm

BadLad · 07/12/2019 12:38

marriage by a different name is still marriage

Every time people get excited by civil partnerships I'm reminded of Alan here.

to think that lots of women will now be able to get financial and legal security
AnchorDownDeepBreath · 07/12/2019 12:39

@Svalberg I get married next Spring and the registrar told us we should be just in time to be able to have our mothers details listed as well as our fathers if we want.

BadLad · 07/12/2019 12:42

Didn't attach?

to think that lots of women will now be able to get financial and legal security
IWorkAtTheCheesecakeFactory · 07/12/2019 12:43

Worked for me badlad

leghairdontcare · 07/12/2019 12:47

I think the take up of this will be very low after the initial interest of it being 'new'.

Notforanewsarticle · 07/12/2019 12:58

I'm very interested in this. Off for a Google.
Where we live a registry office wedding is £500 at the cheapest. That's just for the legal bit. In a destination town that international tourists love. In the U.K.

Wow. I thought there would be a standard price. Some friends of mine had s registry office wedding last year in an ugly 1970s council building. They just wore normal clothes and there were about 12 guests. I'm sure she told me it was about £140

Skinnychip · 07/12/2019 13:08

I haven't really understood before why heterosexual couples would choose CP over a non religious registry office wedding.

I have noticed a lot on MN that there is an assumption that it's expensive to get married. A registry office marriage is pretty cheap but everything associated (but not compulsory) with a wedding (dresses, flowers, cars, party, venue etc) is usually expensive.

JacobReesClunge · 07/12/2019 14:10

Being financially reliant on someone else isn't the same as being reliant on them continuing to earn at the same level though screamingvalenta and you acknowledge this yourself with your mention of being asset rich. Why, if the assets are sufficiently large, is an income in one's own name required to back that up? Depending on the asset/s, CP alone might be sufficient to obtain a beneficial interest in some of them even if the couple do nothing else.

I can see that having additional income and/or assets on top of this would be better, but that isn't what you were arguing.

rosiejaune · 07/12/2019 14:35

@JacobReesClunge

"Out of interest owls have you given much thought to the unpleasant historic baggage of CP?"

It's a much shorter history, rather than millennia of marriage and its associated issues. And possibly a necessary part of getting to equal marriage, because there were more people who were anti same sex marriage at the time, so the compromise of CP helped with the social transition.

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 07/12/2019 14:55

It's a much shorter history, rather than millennia of marriage and its associated issues. And possibly a necessary part of getting to equal marriage, because there were more people who were anti same sex marriage at the time, so the compromise of CP helped with the social transition.

But civil partnerships are based on marriage. They are exactly the same legally (except being able to dissolve for cheating). Add in a load of homophobia and there you have it - civil partnerships.

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 07/12/2019 14:57

The answer isnt new forms of marriage (CP) and especially isn't making defacto relationships legally binding. The answer is a long standing, widespread, well funded, public education programme - to properly inform all prospective SAHP (mostly women) of their respective legal rights (and otherwise) under different relationship arrangements - when he walks out and withholds money or changes the locks on what turns out not to be the family home, but his house, alone.

This whole "it's just a piece of paper" business needs to be crushed. Men already know what marriage really means ... it's why some avoid it so diligently.

This is absolutely what I think.

LillyLeaf · 07/12/2019 15:02

We've been together 16 years and waited so long for this. We'll do ours early next year. Very long overdue.

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