“Don’t get married if you’re a financially independent woman”.

[Lucidas]

Is this the advice we should be giving to young women? I have a female friend who is convinced of this - going through a divorce at the moment and she is aggrieved at having to lose a big chunk of her earnings - held down a full time job as a mother, still covered the majority of child rearing, is the higher earner and with a layabout husband.

Women are often told to get married for ‘protection’ but surely it’s no protection to get married to a lower earner, someone with fewer assets, or one of the many cocklodger specimens we come across on MN.

The response could be to say that she simply married the wrong person, but it’s not always apparent how people will change down the line.

A higher % of divorced men remarry than divorced women, and they remarry more quickly than women.

Men must see something in the institution that's appealing...

Not very romantic are you.

Is 'money' the main point of marriage?

@andtheHossyourodeinon

Again, thats the man you chose to marry. I made a better choice, so that's not at all true for me

You seem to be missing a vital bit of very obvious information, which is that people don't knowingly marry people who are going to shaft them, and the shafters keep it hidden until the deed is done.

Don't forget, you could still end up being surprised by your husband. There's been plenty of threads on MN alone about partners unexpectedly leaving and making years and years of supposedly happy marriage seem worthless. You seem complacent.

@Calligraphy572 - or maybe women are more willing to leap at a man with a bad track record in marriage then men are willing to leap at such women...

You seem to be missing a vital bit of very obvious information, which is that people don't knowingly marry people who are going to shaft them, and the shafters keep it hidden until the deed is done

Yeah, this place is full of stories of how the perfect man turned into a lazy abusive layabout, and the women just had no clue at all.....what a load of bollocks. You can guarantee everyone else around them could spot him a mile off from the start.

Don't marry a lay about is good advice.

Marrying someone/having children with someone who is work shy, sits on their arse, is really selfish is a bad idea.

Yet I constantly read about men like this and poster's are somehow "surprised" at how selfish and lazy they are after having children.

It's a rare enough man that is a completely lazy waster who morphs into a pillar of achievement and selflessness.

I've certainly never come across it.

I think we should be taught more about marriage at school. I married 'for love' and to create a family. I hadn't appreciated that marriage isn't a romantic contract, it's a financial one. My ex built up debt in my name, left me to bring up our children without contact or maintenance and then came after me in the divorce for equity in the house (bought in my name pre marriage) and my pension. I would never marry again unless I felt we were on an equal footing financially.

Still in 2020 women tend to be more disadvantaged by having children and doing more of the childcare and missing climbing the career ladder as a result. Which is why the advice is mainly to women to consider whether marriage is the right thing for them financially.

It's perfectly possible to be financially independent and a happily married woman, in that order . Like me.

@StephenBelafonte

Surely you just make sure that you marry your financial equal?

And when they decide to pack in work and spend all their money and live off you?

Totally agree op. I ended up much better off because I didn’t marry my ex. Yet to believe mn, I wasn’t “protected” because I wasn’t married.

What’s sad is so many women think of marriage as a meal ticket. “ Marry a rich man before you have children.” Also the shame poured on never married mothers.

I can provide for myself and glad I also don’t have to provide for my ex.

It’s when children come along you need to watch yourself. Women take maternity leave, are more likely to go back on reduced hours, less likely to want to travel for work, more likely to do term time / school hours / get a phone call when dc are sick. What you earn pre children doesn’t matter, it’s the effect they have on your earning potential afterwards.

@Pyewhacket Your anecdata does not trump actual data. Single parent poverty stats say you are dead wrong.

I think there should be a lot of education about finance and legal matters at school and that should include marriage, divorce, rental contracts, buying property etc.

I think it is very unwise to allow your earning capacity to fall significantly behind or surge significantly ahead of your partner.

It also seems to me that proper provision for children should not be tied to marriage. Why are people not paying adequate child support and why would that be ok if the parents are not married? If women (with agreement from other parent) give up work to look after their children why should her sacrifice be any less worthy because she isn’t married?

In general, yes, if the woman is a significantly higher earner and intends to remain so, or had significantly more assets, marriage does not make sense. If she intends to have children however it may still make sense as she doesn’t know for sure the impact on her career or what choices she will make.

I agree with a pp who said there should be a way to ring fence money that should clearly be separate in case of divorce particularly inheritances, gifts or deposits from previously independently owned properties if they have been inherited/given/sold in the last 5 years, for example. Where marriage seems to not be fair is in the division of those kinds of assets that were not really part of the family finances and clearly intended for one individual.

I think anyone going into marriage has to consider both the long term benefits eg if your career takes a hit after children or one of you dies unexpectedly, against the risk of a divorce at some point. Luckily DH and I earned almost identically at the point we got married plus I knew I wanted children and maybe not to work or take a step back for a few years so it was an easy decision for me.

I totally agree and I have told my girls this

@Notcoolmum

I think we should be taught more about marriage at school. I married 'for love' and to create a family. I hadn't appreciated that marriage isn't a romantic contract, it's a financial one. My ex built up debt in my name, left me to bring up our children without contact or maintenance and then came after me in the divorce for equity in the house (bought in my name pre marriage) and my pension. I would never marry again unless I felt we were on an equal footing financially.

Still in 2020 women tend to be more disadvantaged by having children and doing more of the childcare and missing climbing the career ladder as a result. Which is why the advice is mainly to women to consider whether marriage is the right thing for them financially.

This I definitely agree with. More education about the financial implications of marriage and divorce, and especially things like prenups.

A higher % of divorced men remarry than divorced women, and they remarry more quickly than women.

Men must see something in the institution that's appealing...

Or the single women they meet after divorce do...

I know plenty more women who seek out a high earning man. Some go on sugar daddy sites for gods sake!

The shocking amount of women on this forum - who casually refer to 'DP' and their children .. whilst also making it clear they are either working part time or not at all - absolutely horrified me. There is a staggering lack of legal information made available to BOTH sexes in the last years of school - explaining just how cataclysmic having kids and not being married can have ..

I think if we are going to advise higher earning women that marriage isn't for them, we have to accept that the advice goes both ways. That means more unmarried lower earning or financially dependent mothers at risk of being cut off by their partners.

After being stung and having gone through a difficult divorce, I agree.

@Notcoolmum

I think we should be taught more about marriage at school. I married 'for love' and to create a family. I hadn't appreciated that marriage isn't a romantic contract, it's a financial one. My ex built up debt in my name, left me to bring up our children without contact or maintenance and then came after me in the divorce for equity in the house (bought in my name pre marriage) and my pension. I would never marry again unless I felt we were on an equal footing financially.

Still in 2020 women tend to be more disadvantaged by having children and doing more of the childcare and missing climbing the career ladder as a result. Which is why the advice is mainly to women to consider whether marriage is the right thing for them financially.

Totally agree with this.

I also think society creates so much misinformation about marriage which puts women at a huge disadvantage.

The whole dreadful miasma of romantic, Disney bullshit around marriage has a huge amount to answer for obviously. Otherwise sensible and well-educated women take leave of their senses at the prospect of a "special day" and all the stuff that goes with it.

But it goes way beyond that as well: its the fact that most people still aren't aware that the legal starting point in the event of divorce is a 50/50 asset split. That has huge consequences for either partner in a marriage and yet so many people just don't realise this.

The Church has a sensible approach to this in that people have guidance from their priest beforehand -- I don't know if they cover the financial aspects but it certainly forces people to think beyond the white dress and the table settings.

But for most people the religious side of things is irrelevant nowadays -- which I don't think is a bad thing. But nothing has really come into place to replace this. There's a huge vacuum of education and information around this most important of life decisions.