To think we would alleviate a lot of misery and some poverty if we phased out marriage in favour of a straight financial contract without a monogamy requirement?

[thepeopleversuswork]

So my view is that its unrealistic to expect people to be monogamous for life.

There will be a small number of people who genuinely remain happily monogamous for decades, yes, but for the overwhelming majority of people a scenario where your financial security is explicitly tied to your ability to remain monogamous is outdated, unrealistic and punitive.

It pushes people to remain with someone long after the relationship has passed its sell-by date and often leaves them trapped with someone they no longer love or even like very much because they don't want to upset the children or disentangle finances.

Could we reimagine a kind of financial contract that essentially requires the financially stronger partner (usually, though not always, the man) to guarantee a certain level of financial support to the weaker partner for the duration of the time the children are at home or potentially later potentially renegotiable in the event that financial capacity changes -- but without the absurd requirement for monogamy?

Haven't thought this through in great detail so bear with me but to me the main reason why divorce is often so rancorous and damaging is because of the "cheating" and the recriminations as to how that should impact on the finances (ie you left me for your secretary, I'm going to take you to the cleaners).

If people were free to renegotiate their emotional commitment to one another without having to redraw the boundaries on the financial commitments linked to child-rearing, or vice versa, it would remove a lot of the most emotionally difficult elements of marriage breakdown, and the stigma.

Children would become more comfortable with the idea of their parents as a financial partnership who love and are committed to them but without the expectation that they have to remain together in perpetuity.

I have observed so many times that the thing that damages children in divorce is not so much the separation of their parents in itself, but the behaviour of their parents either in relation to new partners or in relation to money and the division of spoils.

If the financial element were clearer and not tied to sexual fidelity, and the stigma was removed around people dissolving relationships, would that not make it somewhat easier for children to accept this change in a non-damaging way?

Finally, getting rid of marriage would get rid of the loathsome cult of the wedding and all the toxic effect it has on generations of young women.

Anyone with me?

namenic I think your divorce insurance idea is a really clever one: could that be developed a bit? With a no claims bonus for people who don’t break their vows

Just to clarify as a lot of responders here seem to be assuming I am looking for a cheaters charter: I am not polyamorous and not intending to be. I am perfectly happy with my monogamous relationship and the optimal scenario for me would be to remain in this relationship, monogamously, for life.

But I think love, sex and notions of fidelity are way too insecure to build a financial future designed for a lifetime.

No. I guess what I'm saying is that the financial/domestic "contract" around child-rearing could be decoupled from the emotional "contract" of two people in a sexually faithful relationship. Obviously the ideal is when those two come together. But when the emotional side comes unstuck, that there could be a prearranged financial commitment which allows the emotional side to be renegotiated without upsetting the whole applecart.

So, a prenup?

shimy that would help. I think prenups should be standard practice. I think the stigma around them is yet another example of “romance” being used as a figleaf to paper over women getting a raw deal.

But prenups normally protect men not women.

I don't understand why you have made monogamy the villain of the story. As long as there is any kind of close relationship between two people (best friends, lovers, husband and wife), there is the potential for bitterness and anger when it fails, for whatever reason. There is no clever clause in a contract that will lessen the pain and make people behave rationally.

I think you should be looking at clearer financial agreements at the outset, better financial support for working parents and better education and opportunities to change (particularly women's) aspirations.

You also have to accept that partership is about maximising shared assets. If you go it alone, you will be disadvantaged , whether you've been monogamous or not.

CarlottaValdez historically its true that prenups tend to protect men more than women although with women earning more I would guess women might be inclined to look more favourably at them.

Aweebawbee

"I think you should be looking at clearer financial agreements at the outset, better financial support for working parents and better education and opportunities to change (particularly women's) aspirations."

I would agree with all of this.

"You also have to accept that partership is about maximising shared assets. If you go it alone, you will be disadvantaged , whether you've been monogamous or not."

But I would disagree with this. I think increasingly working women are better off going it alone and should be encouraged to do so. You keep all of your assets -- there may be less of them but you don't have to share them out or risk losing them all. You get to raise your children as you see fit without interference. And you do only your share on the domestic front, rather than running around cleaning up after an entitled man who doesn't see it as his job.

I think the optimum is for women to raise their children alone but with proper, subsidised childcare and support from employers and extended family. If they do decide to pool assets with a man there should be very clear-cut financial parameters built into whatever they define as the "contract". But basing it on monogamy seems very high risk to me.

Women and children are already protected from financial abuse by the law.
If we can't uphold existing laws and force absent parents to pay what they owe, why is adding the misery of legal infidelity any better?

TheInebriati I’m not necessarily talking about “legal infidelity”. I’m talking about decoupling the whole principle of emotional or sexual fidelity from the financial contract of providing for a family.

I don’t think infidelity is a particularly optimal state for anyone raising children. I just think making women’s and children’s financial security contingent on it is a fairly unhelpful way to structure things.

I agree with most of what you're saying. Though as a single mum, and I expect many would agree with me, raising dc alone doesn't feel very "optimum". Better for me would be to pool assets by living in a group of women. I doubt this'll ever become normal though because the romantic dream is still alive and kicking (even in me after all I've been through).

LightenUpSummer I think a group of women pooling assets to raise children would be by far the best way to raise children full stop. I'm a single mother and in a heterosexual and in a committed (and monogamous) relationship with a man (not my daughter's father) who I intend to say with for as long as possible, but hell would freeze over before I'd pool assets with him. Whereas I would happily pool assets with another single mother.

I agree that, sadly, it's unlikely to become normal, at least in my lifetime. But I think it should be strongly encouraged. Maybe its a whole other thread though.

What the OP is proposing sounds horrific. I literally don't know anyone who thinks their marriage would be improved by their spouse sleeping with other people whenever they feel like it. Ugh.

@thepeopleversuswork

Have a read x

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kingdom-of-women-the-tibetan-tribe-where-a-man-is-never-the-boss

bridgetreilly I have said this multiple times but I will say it again: I am not saying marriage would be improved by spouses having multiple sexual partners. You’re taking what I have said and twisting it.

I am saying the principle of fidelity between partners should be taken out of the equation of two people agreeing a financial contract for child-rearing.

How about we just have a child maintenance service that’s fit for purpose so children are not left in poverty. And couples can marry or not and or be monogamous if they choose.

CayrolBaaaskin well I certainly support that.

I'm done with marriage, it's very outdated. I prefer to keep my money and child all for myself i don't want to share it, if I wanted sex I could have it whenever with whoever, I don't have any romantic ideals.
Shame I didn't feel that when I was younger and waste so much time with crap, expensive husbands.

Desiringonlychild very interesting: I had heard about this but this is a good read. It doesn’t sound optimal either but I love the idea of the community responsibility for children and the matriarchal society.

madcatladyforever I hear you!

"I'm a single mother and in a heterosexual and in a committed (and monogamous) relationship with a man (not my daughter's father) who I intend to say with for as long as possible, but hell would freeze over before I'd pool assets with him. Whereas I would happily pool assets with another single mother."

This is interesting. Why the distinction? I am not challenging it - I am very similar. I'd just like to hear some thoughts from you about unpicking it.
I am a single parent of two children and I have a happy relationship with a non live in boyfriend (a silly word for people in the second half of their 40s but I can't call him a partner because the practicalities of our lives are separate). We are happily monogamous (I was not before I met him, I am monogamous by choice not convention). I trust him, I talk to him every day, I love him.
He has never met my children, nor I his. There are about 10 people I would ask to borrow money off before him, at a pinch - family or friends, all women. We live separately and do not have keys to each others' houses. We take each other out to dinner alternately (roughly counted, pretty sure it's fair) and have never become more financially entangled than that.
I am happy with this and in principle I'd be happy to continue this way for ever. Far into the very very far off future, when all our children are grown up and we are retired, if we still love each other I can envisage talking about entering into a marriage-like contract for the purposes of being administratively useful to each other in extremis, as death approaches. That has just entered my head for the first time this minute - it is literally the first time I have thought of such a thing. On the other hand perhaps it is not appropriate or possible as my will leaves my estate to my children and his presumably to his, and we would both want to keep it that way.

If my children were smaller and I felt the need of shared household with an adult it is so obvious that I would choose another woman, rather than a man, even this man, whom I love, the best man I know.

Why is that?

Are all men - even the best ones - just a bit shit?

Or is it that when women are involved with men, circumstances (conditioning etc) just conspire so that women always end up worse off - and we instinctively know that?

Yanbu. I think it's great that some people have a monogamous relationship for life. But the fact is that doesnt work for most people, lots divorce or have affairs, some multiple short or long term relationships.

I dont think monogamy is realistic for most people, it would be better to have a more practical arrangement.

SenselessUbiquity

"This is interesting. Why the distinction? I am not challenging it - I am very similar. I'd just like to hear some thoughts from you about unpicking it."

This goes right to the heart of what I'm getting at. I think children are generally better provided for if a sexual relationship is explicitly removed from the foundation of their financial security.

Sexual and romantic relationships come and go: they can last in a healthy way for life but its not a given and it cannot be counted upon. I think pinning the financial security of yourself and your children to a romantic relationship is to put yourself in a highly vulnerable position.

"Are all me even the best ones just a bit shit?"

I wouldn't necessarily say they are a bit shit. Men can be wonderful and in many ways they are more advanced than us. I just think they are generally not emotionally adapted in a way which is best suited to providing the kind of security children need, particularly when a relatively autonomous woman is involved - the vast majority of them aren't deep down comfortable with female autonomy.

It may be that this is just a generational thing and as more sons of feminists are born and grow up that will change, but for now too many of them are too regressive and seek too much control.There are exceptions of course, but there are not proportionally enough of them to make it worth yoking yourself to them financially -- its just too big a gamble.

I think generally speaking, as long as they are reasonably financially stable, women are much better off raising children alone or with other women. Of course there are some men who make wonderful fathers and of course a lot of women have to compromise for financial reasons. But I am lucky enough not to have to compromise financially and for me its just too risky.

I love the loving alive flame of my monogamous marriage. I feel safe, free, encouraged, trusted, and aligned with a wonderful person till death do us part.

Marriage is precisely the financial contract (plus social) designed to protect women, create stable family units (by making it hard to leave) and modern society. Men have the natural incentive and proclivity to spread their seeds far and wide for healthy germination, but women are vulnerable for 9 months and bound to each offspring for a further 18 years or more.

If you want a financial contract, you can draw up one in any shape you like prior to marriage. If you don't want to get married, don't.