To ask if there is any point in professional women getting married these days?

[CinderellaRockafella]

Slightly tongue in cheek but....

my niece is about to buy a house with her partner. They are both in their 30s and already own (with mortgages) properties.

I know she's wanting to have children soon - bio clock ticking.

The family 'expect' that an engagement and wedding will follow at some point after the house purchase.

But - she's bringing a lot more equity to the purchase, thanks to a family inheritance. She's sensible and setting up a deed of trust.
She's a professional, has a good income.

It just made me question what, if anything, some women with their own solid finances have to gain by marriage.

I went down that route as in my day it was not acceptable to 'live in sin'. I didn't live with DH before we married and the balance was the opposite for me- he was the higher earner and already owned a home.

Other than Inheritance Tax issues in the future, it's made me wonder what benefits marriage has now for women who are already fully independent with their own homes.

I'm not up to date with benefits etc and child maintenance in cases where couples split, so maybe there are advantages to being married?

I think marriage is smart if you are planning to have children as everyone has mentioned because of the likely change in your income/employment as a result. Marriage is like insurance for you because your 'job' is then taking care of your family.

Yes, lots of legal ways to split things agree things blah blah but marriage is much easier.

More importantly though I do think that there's a spiritual element to marriage (not religious necessarily) that I would not have considered before I got married myself. We didn't have a wedding, just signed papers at a court house but the difference it made to our relationship was huge and unquantifiable. It felt like a very special, serious, and life changing thing to do. Bit hard to explain it on mumsnet, but I think it's very beneficial whether you go on to have children or not.

We’re getting married because A- we love each other and B- we want legal rights as a married couple in terms of inheritance, next of kin etc. Having looked into it, cohabiting couples have got absolutely no legal rights and we were both worried about the implications if one of us was to die for example. Sure, we could appoint solicitors and do a ton of legal paperwork but if I’m being honest? We can’t be bothered and planning a wedding is more fun

As I said, next of kin is NOT legally meaningless if the person dies without a will and this is not uncommon....the news is littered with relatively young people dying in car crashes with no will.

That really is NOT common @PlanDeRaccordement Sadly the young people dying in car accidents are often very young males, still living at home. Their assets (which would be not a lot) would go to their parents - they'd be classed as next of kin.

A will is only relevant if you have assets worth sharing.

NOK is pretty meaningless.

POA is what counts.

A lot of the posts here are really about spousal maintenance is the marriage breaks down. It assumes the man earns more and the woman can't support herself without him.

I think marriage is smart if you are planning to have children as everyone has mentioned because of the likely change in your income/employment as a result. Marriage is like insurance for you because your 'job' is then taking care of your family.

Is this not rather outdated?

Many couples BOTH have to work full time now because house prices are so high in some areas.

All my niece's friends from uni are back to work after having had a child.

If you have a larger estate inheritance tax hits an unmarried couple hard. Have known numerous successful couples marry in later life when they figure that one out.

I’m in two minds about this one.
Being a higher earner isn’t always guaranteed. One could fall ill and become unable to work in which case being married gives you rights to shared assets in case of divorce. OTOH if you were the higher earner and had all the assets anyway this changes nothing.
Marrying a lower income earner who goes on to do fuck all is dangerous because then they get a share of the marital assets for free.

Women certainly don’t see marriage as the ‘default’. There are many reason why they’d choose to. And if both are equals generally marriage doesn’t leave anybody ou. Even a 10K salary difference isn’t much compared to say a millionaire and someone on 40K (above the National median wage).

Re gender difference - it’s because women take the hit when bearing children so they’re advised to marry. Even if they were on minimum wage before. Pregnancy is tough on the body. OTOH lower earning men don’t take the same hit and unless they’ve expressly declared that they’re going to be SAHD/part time there’s no reason to marry them.
All depends on the balance of assets, work and personalities.

I think you need to take each circumstance as it comes. Blanket rules don't really help especially if they are just "higher earning women shouldn't marry but lower earning women should" as it expects men to act in the reverse of that which is not really building an equal society.

My partner and I have currently decided not get married at the moment. We are both divorced and have kids from our previous marriages, have our financial independents and our prior experiences of marriage weren't positive! However I wouldn't necessarily advise other women in my position not to remarry and I'm not ruling it out in the future for me either.

We didn't marry for financial reasons because we both had nothing😂 We wanted to marry, iyswim. Neither of us has any family in UK, it's a very practical bonus to be next of kin etc, a ome pps mentioned. It's not just financial, we still keep ours separate.

Surely, for couples where marriage means something important, there is always an advantage to being married. You could equally ask why any man who brings more to the household sees an advantage in marrying these days.

Yes. I earn three times my husband but I’d still have insisted on marriage.

I’m 45 and as professional and non conforming as they come

My wedding was in a ref office with three witnesses (one my mother - e other two my landlord and wife)

Wasn’t the big party or the do but wanted to be married

I married DH because I love him and wanted an extra commitment. Plus, a mortgage is harder to get out of (more messy) than a divorce

I married my wife (well, "civil partner-shipped") because I love her and wanted to make a public, lifelong statement of commitment to her in front of our friends and family. We are both professionals, and there was no financial incentive to do it.

Stuff happens in life. You might get ill, lose your job or have a child with additional needs which means you have to cut back on work. Your partner might turn out to be useless or abusive so you end up parenting on your own while trying to keep your stressful high-paying job. It might end up being impossible to juggle everything.

It's not true that on marriage assets will necessarily be divided 50/50. That will be an important consideration but often the courts will depart from 50/50 to put the needs of any children first. So if you have a disabled child, for instance, you'll get a much larger share of the assets to meet their needs if you're going to be primary carer. Compare that to being unmarried where all you will be entitled to is child maintenance calculated by reference to your ex's income not your DC's needs.

In Australia if you've been going out with someone for 2 years then you have the same legal rights as husband and wife. I love that.

I don't need to be patiently waiting 'is he going to propose to me', I just know if I've devoted 2 years to a relationship then we have legal obligations to each other.

I'm a professional woman with a dc. I chose not to marry.

Today I own our home, have an ok pension pot & 35 years NI paid. My lifestyle is not at risk from a partner getting into debt or finding himself a younger model. Me & DS have a secure, happy home, a good life in a nice place.

My life is the exact opposite of my DM's, I've spent 40 years making sure of that.

BUT, when ds heads off to his own life and I retire in a few years, will I be lonely? I don't know. I don't think so. I might meet someone when I'm no longer focused on work but I won't marry. I'll never make myself vulnerable. No man is worth that.

@luckyJasmin

In Australia if you've been going out with someone for 2 years then you have the same legal rights as husband and wife. I love that.

I don't need to be patiently waiting 'is he going to propose to me', I just know if I've devoted 2 years to a relationship then we have legal obligations to each other.

So you only have to date someone, for 2 years, to have legal obligations to them? Casually dating? Exclusively dating?

Not sure that's correct. But that sounds awful. I definitely wouldn't want my finances tied to someone I had been with only 2 years. Certainly wouldn't want to be legally tied to them.

Also, you do realise women don't have to sit around and wonder 'hmmmm will he propose'. You are an active participant in your own life.

If you want to marry your partner and he has proposed, have a conversation.

@PlanDeRaccordement - op is asking about a situation where the woman is the much wealthier party. As you say assets aren’t split for unmarried couples do she would likely be better off if not married (of course depends on what happens in the future finance wise for both parties. But if she’s married and she could end up having to sell up her house to downsize etc to meet his housing needs on divorce, even if she is the main carer of any children. She could be forced to give him half her pension too or at least a portion of it.

I don’t agree with the mn “marriage is always protection for women”. I didn’t marry and because of that was able to keep my assets on my breakup with dp. Now I can make a much better life for dds than if I had been married and look forward to a better retirement. Marriage doesn’t benefit all women.

@PlanDeRaccordement - next of kin is legally meaningless. Yes there are intestacy rules if you don’t have a will but these people are not “next of kin”. Also if you don’t want intestacy rules to apply, you can make a will.

In any event you may wish the people who would inherit on intestacy to get your assets- in my case dds rather than ex partner (who is their father).

I don't know if it's just society's impact and millennia of misogyny and my own youthful insecurities which shaped my feelings on the topic - but personally, I was so happy to get married to the man I love.

I didn't even think about money or contracts or legalities. It was decades ago, we were both young, broke students so didn't have a grand wedding or anything like that. But it get magical. It finally felt like we really belonged to someone; that we were taking on life together as equal partners. It's been lovely and I wouldn't change a thing.

No, I didn't "need" marriage practically, I'd have survived without it (and probably done better financially, because he ended up ill and unemployed at one stage and we ate up our savings). But there are all sorts of things you don't "need" to survive that can make you feel happier and more secure. Maybe it's almost that spirituality point a pp made?

Anyway, long post short, for me personally and talking about my life in particular, it hasn't been some worthless document that could have been replicated in other ways.

@luckyJasmin

In Australia if you've been going out with someone for 2 years then you have the same legal rights as husband and wife. I love that.

I don't need to be patiently waiting 'is he going to propose to me', I just know if I've devoted 2 years to a relationship then we have legal obligations to each other.

Really? I thought the whole campaign for same-sex marriage over there was because those legal right weren't recognised. I guess my sister and her longterm girlfriend must have mis-informed me then.

Well the same could be said for any relationship where one person earns more and has more equity whether that person is a man or woman. 🙄

@CinderellaRockafella

I think marriage is smart if you are planning to have children as everyone has mentioned because of the likely change in your income/employment as a result. Marriage is like insurance for you because your 'job' is then taking care of your family.

Is this not rather outdated?

Many couples BOTH have to work full time now because house prices are so high in some areas.

All my niece's friends from uni are back to work after having had a child.

I don't think so, it's certainly my situation. I don't think you can predict how you will feel when you have children. I've worked full time my whole life in a job I loved, but now it's really important to me to parent full time until I feel like I want to go back to work in a few years and when I do it will be part time, if at all! Who knows! You can plan, but life is not predictable.

That may not be her choice at all, but it's a good option to have and marriage provides security for her.

Professional high earning woman here. I married my DH because I love him [shrug]

Yes obviously if it's financially necessary to go back to work then you have no choice, but it is also very possible that if/when your daughter goes back to work after children she might then earn less than husband because maybe she wants to go part time or reduce her hours.

@Owleti

I don't know if it's just society's impact and millennia of misogyny and my own youthful insecurities which shaped my feelings on the topic - but personally, I was so happy to get married to the man I love.

I didn't even think about money or contracts or legalities. It was decades ago, we were both young, broke students so didn't have a grand wedding or anything like that. But it get magical. It finally felt like we really belonged to someone; that we were taking on life together as equal partners. It's been lovely and I wouldn't change a thing.

No, I didn't "need" marriage practically, I'd have survived without it (and probably done better financially, because he ended up ill and unemployed at one stage and we ate up our savings). But there are all sorts of things you don't "need" to survive that can make you feel happier and more secure. Maybe it's almost that spirituality point a pp made?

Anyway, long post short, for me personally and talking about my life in particular, it hasn't been some worthless document that could have been replicated in other ways.

:) Exactly. Marriage is much more than a contract. Hope you have a lovely long life together!