In thinking marriage is an institution preferred by the middle class

[disorganisedsecretsquirrel]

and based on economics ?

I will tell you the truth. I know absolutely NO One who Is unmarried with children. Middle class mother of 3. Dc now in early 20s and 18. Live in South East. Work full time in the Civil Service on about 40k. DH has a very tricky Mental illness therefore we don't currently live together but he has 5 DC with ex wife. When he works he is a high earner.

I read on MN all the time about couples living together with dc who are not married and wonder why there is such a disparity between my 'world' and the outside world where cohabitation is prevalent .

Based on the fact that I have had 'kids parents ' around for a quarter of a century - that's a LOT of couples ...I am wondering why my world is so different from the norm - and thinking , is it to do with money /property. ? Surely MC women have the same number of accidental slip ups than anyone else as fertility isn't governed by economic prosperity. Or are the well off more ruthless and feel more able to abort if 'the perfect situation isn't in place'

No judgement either way. I have no religious agenda about marriage and kids - just genuinely interested why I have absolutely no 'living together ' friends , even when a first marriage has ended and there are no more kids. Why do all the families i know, re marry when it's not the norm these days. ?

I know three couples who had children and then decided to get married quietly at the registry office just because being married makes all the legal stuff easier. All mid-30s/early 40s, MC to upper MC, lefty bohemian types. No name changing or ring wearing. The more UMC women don’t seem to care about ‘fitting in’ at all.

I know one unmarried couple with children. Also MC, very politically conscious and feminist. They are opposed to marriage as a patriarchal institution.

The friends I have who married younger tend to be slightly more conservative, have changed their names etc.

I think even within a given class, age and education have a lot to do with it, and political leanings as well.

Really interesting thread op.

Nite bet those couples all had the iht realisation 😁

Higher income unmarried couples often get upset / angry when they realise they or rather their kids will be paying thousands in additional tax on death. Most get married

I think this is a factor.

In couples where the woman is the higher earner and came into the marriage having already built up equity in her own home, and intends to continue in her career through the childbearing years there is far less incentive to marry. She risks losing her equity in a divorce.

Lots that co-includes with ‘middle class’ in this scenario.

But later, as they grow older, IF they have enough assets and are still together, IHT becomes more of an issue.

Incidentally, OP, I know you keep pleading for civilised debate, but I find your own approach, calling other people’s choices ‘bizarre’ and concluding (‘therefore’) that your children’s identity is a given to be really narrow minded approach, and not the ‘open’ discussion you want.

I think this is relevant: small c conservative thinking tends towards marriage. My friends are in the main not married.

The cosy MN mantra: “marriage protects women: always marry before having children “ dies not necessarily hold true in my world where women are higher earners, men may be SAHDs, women may have already bought a house that they have equity in.

People need to make their own decisions and come to their own conclusions. Without people calling those conclusions ‘bizarre’ in a discussion. There is no ‘therefore’ about the identity of my mixed race kids.

Whether marriage is the right choice for an individual is hugely subjective. My view is you need to make a conscious decision and be fully aware of the legal and tax implications for you personally.

The scenario that makes me sad is where a woman compromises herself for the benefit of the family and wants the protection of marriage but the man refuses. That situation makes me uncomfortable. The men think they have been so clever. Not so clever when they hear the iht liability they will face...

Hmmm, I found the opposite- I’m 27, and of my friends that are already married most of them are more WC, the more MC ones tend to still be either single or cohabiting without kids.

I’m an “unmarried mother”- DD was an accident and I didn’t fancy getting married while I was pregnant or feeling like my partner was proposing just out of panic (which he nearly did!) We were supposed to be getting married this year but it’s now been pushed back to next year.

The cosy MN mantra: “marriage protects women: always marry before having children “ dies not necessarily hold true in my world where women are higher earners, men may be SAHDs, women may have already bought a house that they have equity in.

Yes and no.

Marriage is supposed to be "for better, for worse, in sickness and in health", and I think this is the point. Even if you are a high earner or you bring more money into the relationship, things can and do change. Most women will lose at least part of their income during any period of maternity leave and there is not much that can be done about that (unless you go back to work when your baby is really tiny). Women with plenty of money in the bank may have enough of a financial cushion not to need to worry about what they will spend when they aren't earning, but then the issue is that she is self-financing her maternity leave while her husband or partner doesn't have a financial hit at all. On the other hand, if her husband or partner makes a financial contribution in recognition of her lost earnings, there's a sense that she is somehow financially dependent on him. It seems to me that the best situation is one where there is no distinction between "his" money and "her" money, it's all just family money. But that is something which works better within the context of marriage.

We do see a lot of women on Mumsnet posting about their failing or failed relationships. Whenever I read one which completes the unmarried mothers bingo scorecard, with references to "D"P, "I'm a SAHM", "I'm currently PG" etc, usually accompanied by tales of infidelity or financial abuse, my heart sinks. I think it is really no bad thing for the "marriage before children" brigade on Mumsnet to keep saying the same thing. Hopefully it makes other women thinking about trying for a baby or becoming a stay at home mum without being married reconsider whether it is really a wise idea.

But you're right, it mainly protects a specific type of woman with a specific set of circumstances. It is less relevant to richer women with a greater degree of financial independence, and not relevant at all to couples without a pot to piss in, because being married or not married won't make a difference to whether you get a share of assets which don't exist.

Because you clearly don’t mix with enough people! Small World life.

Also I agree with another poster that the MC’s are the most likely to care what people think about them. The rich and the poor, not so much.
I would say in terms of wealth and upbringing I am probably MC but have a WC job and am not married with a child. I generally find MC people neurotic and boring. I prefer the rich or poor. I have more in common with both of those groups the MC’s. I find the steady Eddie middle group dull.

Gtugccbjb LOL, great succinct way of saying what I took lengthy paras to say

In your first post

Marriage is a piece of paper though. It may have government benefits and some people put some social significance on it but in the end it is a piece of paper.

Marriage is fundamentally a legal contract. It's only a piece of paper in the same way as any other contract or legal document that is put to paper is a piece of paper. So this is not a very sensible or useful description.

You could call your will, your birth certificate, your child's birth certificate, your passport, various types of ownership papers a piece of paper, and it's true they all came from trees originally. But that is just about the least important thing about any of those documents. The same is true of marriage, regardless of what subjective views an individual might hold about it (or birth certificates, wills etc). So it's not so much that in the end, it's a piece of paper. Rather that a piece of paper is involved, and this fact is verging on the irrelevant when it comes to assessing what marriage actually is.

This isn't an innately pro marriage point either, because not only does marriage have some government benefits as you point out, it's also actively detrimental to some people. But it's a contract. And should be understood as such.

I’m from a middle class background. I was two when my parents got married (they had been together 13 years by that point). My partner and I have no plans to get married whatsoever and have been together a decade, planning to start a family next year. Most of my friends are still planning on getting married.

@MsTSwift I dare say, yes.

Also I agree with another poster that the MC’s are the most likely to care what people think about them. The rich and the poor, not so much

This is wrong, you can be mc and not have a bean and you can be wc/Lmc and be well off. The latter do have a tendency to worry about what people think.

We need to get rid of this idea that money equates class in the U.K. class structure, it doesn't.

I'm another one here raised mc and seems to have slid down due to divorce, single parent for a while and living in sin. I have been married for donkeys years now but in my youth I certainly didn't hold to the narrative in your op.

Surely MC women have the same number of accidental slip ups than anyone else as fertility isn't governed by economic prosperity
Of course 5hey do but like you, despite having got to meet many women close enoughgh that if they'd got pregnant by accident I would most likely know, yet I don't know one, not one who got pregnant using contraception.

I strongly believe that something like 90% or so of claimed accidents when the woman goes on to have the baby is truly an an accident. I think some were very much planned, others were accidents through convenient carelessness.

This however is a very unpopular views on MN, but then, how many do admit that their child is an accident to those close to them let alone strangers! I don't think I've read one such admission and yet they are bound to exist.

Saying all that, I don't think all 'accidents' are bad. Sadly many are far from optimum.

"Surely MC women have the same number of accidental slip ups than anyone else as fertility isn't governed by economic prosperity"

Not sure about this.

I think that a lot of "accidents" aren't really accidents. Most of them are down to people just not using contraception properly.

Middle class women are more likely to be on a career path, or have an expensive holiday or wedding booked for next year, or be saving to buy a house in two years' time. I think those people are going to be more careful about not having "accidents" than someone with less at stake.

@PubsClubsMinistryOfSound

Yeah I should have been clearer.
For people in my situation and similar who wouldn't really benefit much at all from being married because of circumstances, at this point it would just be a piece of paper to me- even though I fully understand that it's a legal contract.

@IStressheadI I'm in that category of people for whom getting married was (and still is) pretty financially neutral. I earn a bit more than my husband. We both had significant savings but he inherited €40000 a year after we married which probably balances out the salary difference for a few years. Our families are similar and we probably both stand to inherit sums of money in the future. I honestly couldn't tell you who gained and who lost when we got married, in a financial sense.

But for most couples it is obvious which one has more money. And if nobody got married unless it was in their financial interest then surely most people wouldn't get married because there will always be one person in the couple who is better off and for whom it might not be a wise financial decision.

There are plenty of other reasons for getting married though.

I live and work in an very international place - it’s like the United Nations here (and in fact, the UN is just down the road) and the only people I ever encounter who are bothered by my (or anyone else’s) class status, are middle class Brits.
Same here. Literally the only people rolling eyes at my single and unmarried mother status are middle class Brits and (to a much much lesser extent) for some reason "middle class" Indians. But it is quite ridiculous with British people, they act constantly surprised that I actually read books, recognise classical music pieces, can understand Latin - as if my single mother status should necessarily mean that I must come from a slum and have finished my education at a primary school level. And we are all in advanced degree / doctorate level jobs.

I know quite a few middle class people with plenty of money and children who haven’t married. They’re all younger though and the women are very career driven. I guess to a certain extent it comes down to legal awareness. A lot of people seem to think that England recognises de facto relationships. While it does in some exceptional circumstances the vast majority are treated as extralegal relationships. I would insist on marriage if I were compromising my earnings for my spouse’s financial benefit (for example by being the primary caregiver for children) but wouldn’t want to marry if my partner was expecting financial support from me (unless it was because they were making compromises in which case I would do it out of fairness rather than for my own benefit).

Rather than money / class , could it be cultural ? I’m in late 40’s . In a sort of’ bohemian area’ Well it’s full of yoga studios, art studios, I know musicians, photographers, writers, design based businesses . We’re not married , many people don’t seem to be , although are in long term relationships . My family background is lots everyone has a white wedding . I didn’t go to many weddings of friends , it wasn’t really a thing.

Also worth noting migration issues. International relationships (in which marriage can be very beneficial) seem the be more common in middle class professionals who seem to be quite mobile.

Having looked at your description of your circumstances IStressheadI, the advantage of marriage for you would be to give you and your partner access to the full range of bereavement benefits, if the unthinkable happened. The Supreme Court ruled last year that the current rules are unlawful and the law is supposed to be changing, but fuck knows when that'll happen: we have a government who don't like being told things by the judiciary, Brexit and now a pandemic to focus on. Other than that though it may not make much difference to you as things stand. Sorry to hear things are tough financially at the moment.

Lawyer here. I suspect that's probably a little bit middle class. Been with DP for 25 years. Not married. Can't be arsed with the fuss.

About 50% of our friends remain unmarried, whether kids or not.

I’m late 30s with young children and have been married for 10 years. All of my friends are very similar to me, married in their 20s or early 30s and now have children. We’re all in professional type jobs with degrees and are reasonably well off living in a nice area, but not really expensive private school type rich. I suppose we’re the new middle class rather than the more traditional version. I don’t know whether this is normal or not over the whole country, but it definitely is with my friends and colleagues.