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majority of people a scenario where your financial security is explicitly tied to your ability to remain monogamous is outdated, unrealistic and punitive.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?

we should be able to walk away from the emotional contract without incurring huge financial disruption
Your attitude is so self-centered and biased its sickning. Can't you see that it does actually incur a huge financial disruption to the higher earner when they have to share their earned money with their cheating wife who decides to go for the new model and he has to hand over half his pension?

Its when I read threads like this that I get very anxious for my DS. I try to have conversation with him to educate him about equality in couples, him accepting equal responsibility for child and house care but pick a wife who doesn't aspire to be home and looked after financially, and now expected to chest in him with no financial loss. Thankfully, he is adamant he doesn't want to share his life already that he doesn't want to share his life with a sahm.

AndNoneForGretchenWieners It sounds like you had a very strong and progressive marriage. I do think that is the optimal scenario and that you were very lucky.

But I do think its very high risk to lump your assets in with someone else. If it works out and the husband is supportive of you and you collectively amass more capital etc, its a win/win for everyone. But anecdotally based on my own friends' experience and what I have read, I feel these marriages are in a minority. I think a very large number of women find that pooling finances ultimately leaves them financially trapped over the long term.

Desiringonlychild

"the thing is people who combine their finances are able to afford more"

Of course. That's why its so seductive and so potentially treacherous. Great if you have the kind of perfect supportive husband some people have said they have had. Not so great if you don't. And this is like playing roulette.

Better in my view to aim for a smaller pool of assets of which you and you alone (and your children) are in control.

But to the extent that you do want to pool assets with someone, making the security of those assets contingent on whether one or the other of you sleeps with someone else just doesn't seem the most sensible way to safeguard this.

Sorry that you must have had such a bad one. But how lovely of you to make judgments about everyone else's marriage and weddings just because yours must have sucked

This is such lazy rhetoric.

I had a great marriage, it lasted as long as we wanted, that doesn't mean to say I can't look dispassionately at the cult surrounding marriage and wonder whether there should be more options.

It is disappointing when women make less conventional choices and they're never given the courage of their convictions, simply that it must be a reaction to a poor experience. Maybe this is why more people feel the societal pressure to be in a relationship.

Most men will pretend to be progressive, loving, willing to do their fair share if they think it will persuade a woman they're in love with at the time
And it goes both ways of we want to talk generalisations. Women who pretend their career is important, that they want to evolve and get promoted, insist they'll go back to work ft after the children are born, then after they start school and in the end are hellbend against getting any job because they like their lifestyle as a sahm even when their husband feel under pressure to be the sole earner.

don'tdisturbmenow

"Your attitude is so self-centered and biased its sickning. Can't you see that it does actually incur a huge financial disruption to the higher earner when they have to share their earned money with their cheating wife who decides to go for the new model and he has to hand over half his pension?"

Why are you assuming that I'm only talking about a cheating wife?

Quite a lot of projection going on here.

"I try to have conversation with him to educate him about equality in couples, him accepting equal responsibility for child and house care but pick a wife who doesn't aspire to be home and looked after financially, and now expected to chest in him with no financial loss."

Not sure how this is relevant to me or my post: I've never been a sahm and I've never depended on anyone else financially. I think you're getting a bit confused.

Marriage isn’t compulsory and the resistance to sex before marriage barely exists anymore, at least in the UK. So why bother with a financial contract?

If you think a contract will ensure child maintenance is paid, think again. People who want to evade it will do so, just the same as they do CMS payments.

I agree with you about marriage and weddings and the ridiculous amount people spend on them. I've been with my partner for 25 years unmarried for that reason. We bothe work and contribute equally financially and domestically (though have different areas of responsibility, he cooks, o do the laundry etc. I wouldn't want an open relationship though, even though there is no marriage contract stopping us.I don't share. Our personal agreement is if anyone wants to be with someone else we end our relationship. I quite like the fact that we are choosing whats righr for us, not going via a contract or marriage certificate (that i see so many, men mainly, trampling over)

Do people realise you can still get married without a huge, expensive wedding? I see a lot of comments avoiding marriage because they don't want a wedding and seems a bit strange considering you don't need a wedding to be married.

I agree, it is really unfair to blame individual women for making "poor choices" when the system makes it really easy for them to be treated badly.

Society does not expect men to behave well / equally in marriage. There are no penalties really, for not doing so. If you pick a man who chooses to do so then well done - but someone is going to marry all those who don't bother, are they all to be blamed for what then happens?

The basic point of the OP I think is that feelings (sexual and emotional) wax and wane and there should be (as once there was) a convention that accepted that after a man has stopped feeling dizzy with joy when you enter the room, he should still behave materially decently towards you and his children. Similarly, if someone else makes him feel dizzy with joy (or you), then wouldn't it be nice if you could indulge those feelings without everyone's practical and material circumstances going down the toilet?

I would advise my daughters to be very careful about marriage too. I left their father in much better circumstances than I would have if we were married. When I got together with him, I knew I was working harder but I was in love. When I split with him, I was burnt out, exhausted and just done. I was lucky that the way that we had bought our house recognised that I had paid for a lot more of it and therefore I was able to keep it. Had we been married, it would not have worked out like that. When we were in love, I didn't care that I was sharing everything I had worked my whole life for with someone who basically lay on the sofa reading. I was an idiot.

I doubt it would make any difference. People would still be just as reluctant to make a financial commitment, and anyone who wants to be unfaithful now - will be - regardless of a marriage contract.

The problem today isn't marriage, it's that so many people don't bother with ANY agreement or contract. A different contract wouldn't change that.

But I don't think you can put all the onus on a (young) woman to have to screen a man at age 20 or 30 for suitability for a lifelong partnership. It's just not always possible to tell if a man is serious about wanting to honour the lifelong commitment or if he genuinely believes in a progressive marriage or is just paying lip service to it.

No, that's true. What I should have added was much the same, but aimed at raising young men to do the same - know who you are, and what you want, and that having a partner who is a genuine match for those qualities is your greatest chance for a successful life.

The more information young people have on making valid choices for them the better.

The worst pains are experienced by those trying to fit another human being into the mould you've made for them - provider, dependent, etc etc

But I don't think that men are honest (with themselves, as much as with others) about what they want. They think they want equality and so on. Actually they are very unhappy when they are not being looked after, to a very unequal degree, by a woman. this often shows after children have come along when the mother is just too exhausted to serve him like she used to, out of love, and also out of a much bigger pool of energy with lots more to spare than she has now she's got babies. they only miss it, and realise that their whole sense of what a marriage is, is based on it, when it's gone. then they say things like "the spark has gone" "she's not the woman she used to be and I'm just not feeling it" because for the first time they are being expected to pull their weight and are not being greeted by someone who has the time and energy to turn to their man every night at 8pm with glowing eyes, full attention, wit and charm and sexiness, and all the practical shit taken care of. There's no point in asking a man, "will you still love me when I can't put you and your feelings and your convenience first, every single day, because we have children and I am exhausted, or for any other reason?" because he hasn't even noticed that you do that now.

There is no point in even asking yourself whether this man will still love you when, etc etc, because you can't find out when you can't stop yourself from doing it. I can't stop myself from doing it now ffs and the only way I can have a hope of keeping my own shit on track is by limiting the actual time I expose myself to my boyfriend

The marital contract isn’t the issue.

There are many other issues that lead to difficult situations for women - good parental guidance, good relationship modelling, high cost of childcare, prevalence away from maths / high earning / equality in workplace.

Society does not expect men to behave well / equally in marriage

It doesn't? That's strange as it's not the experience I've had. Myself and others in my circle have always considered any man who cheats to be scum. We have also expected men to pull their weight with housework and family life equally and those who don't often are judged harshly.

@senselessubiquity I just read that four times over thinking "so true, so perfectly described"

@Jaxhog

The problem today isn't marriage, it's that so many people don't bother with ANY agreement or contract. A different contract wouldn't change that.

Yes, I think this is the more substantial problem facing us. People who aren't married or CPs and who also haven't got anything else in place. There's nothing wrong with choosing solicitor over registrar, but unfortunately lots do neither.

SenselessUbiquity

Spot on on the point about men not being honest with themselves.

Most men nowadays think at a rational level they want an equal partnership, at least when they are choosing a sexual partner.

At a subconscious level a large amount will default to wanting what their family set up was when it comes to child-rearing. Which for men of this generation was a fairly traditional 1950s set up with the woman doing the lions share of the domestic labour and childcare. Why wouldn’t they? In the event that you have a supportive wife and things don’t break up it’s the best option.

The problem is that it’s a raw deal for a working woman.

Marriage was great in the era when we died at 40.

Another thing I've noticed on MN and in real life is that shockingly few people plan their lives.

Obviously there are things beyond your control, and things change, but my husband and I have a 'meeting' every time we do something significant. We go to the pub with a notebook and our smartphones, and sit there hashing out the dimensions of the problem using resources like Money Savings Expert to give us an indication of costs.

Then we work through what we each want out of the situation, and come up with a fair compromise for achieving it. At the very minimum, each person's wants and feelings get a fair hearing, and if we feel uncomfortable or unhappy with arrangements, we work it out.

I've been called 'cold' for doing that, but my husband and I have never had a single argument about money. It's never come remotely near, because even though our spending habits are different, the core costs are covered and safeguarded (almost like a tax).

We apply the same process to practical and lifestyle decisions too.

I'm not arguing that no one should expect fidelity. I expect fidelity in my (monogamous, non-cohabiting) relationship. But if and when my current partner and I get to the stage where we no longer remain faithful we should be able to walk away from the emotional contract without incurring huge financial disruption.

So you want to be able to cheat when you get bored, but your husband not be able to withdraw financial support. Or you want your husband to have to provide financial support for life, even if he's emotionally left the marriage and moved on with another woman.

That wouldn't work. The main reason the finances have to be split is so the couple can stop living together. The home may have to be sold so money is freed up for a home each. Saving have to be split because the couple no longer have shared wants.

You can't just force a man to carry on paying your mortgage and bills, even when you both have new partners and no longer live together.

You have always been able to do this. Nobody is stopping you.

Interesting point about the solicitor contract for cohabiting couples. I can see the value for people who do that where one is a SAHP (and still inexplicably seem to believe that "common-law spouse" is actually a thing) but in more equal relationships what would it provide that is not already there? If everything is in joint names (mortgage, bank accounts), equal contributions etc wouldn't it just come down to the one leaving still having to provide for the children - which would be covered (however badly) under existing processes anyway without a marriage wouldn't it?

@NewNewt

Interesting point about the solicitor contract for cohabiting couples. I can see the value for people who do that where one is a SAHP (and still inexplicably seem to believe that "common-law spouse" is actually a thing) but in more equal relationships what would it provide that is not already there? If everything is in joint names (mortgage, bank accounts), equal contributions etc wouldn't it just come down to the one leaving still having to provide for the children - which would be covered (however badly) under existing processes anyway without a marriage wouldn't it?

Wills, inheritance tax planning if applicable, power of attorney. Everyone should do all of them anyway but the first two are sort of covered by the intestacy provisions for a lot of married couples. So a lot of married couples or CPs who are crap at sorting that kind of thing have the marriage/CP contract as a sort of safety net that in death, often does what they want anyway.