This idea that women need to get married for financial protection is bizarre

[NewFem]

I’ve encountered this view so many times here and it doesn’t make any amount of sense to me. Can someone please explain this to me how it applies to modern life?

Girls go to school and receive the exact same quality of education that boys do.
Girls, I read outperform boys in SATs, GCSEs and at A-level.
Girls attend university at higher rates than boys do, across most ethnicities in the UK.
Girls outnumber boys in highly paid professions like medicine.
Girls also study science, technology, engineering and maths subjects at university in increasing numbers.

Women are perfectly capable of being educated, having a high salary and making a living for themselves. I know plenty of women who are homeowners by themselves and manage to buy a house individually with no help. So why is there still this idea that we need men for financial security. It doesn’t make sense.

When it comes to children and childbirth, most women don’t give up their careers so protection doesn’t apply to them either. I looked this up, in 2019, 75.1% of mothers in the UK were in work. In 2020, 71.8% of mothers in the UK were in work.

In 2019, only 28.5% of mothers with children below 14 years old reduced their working hours to accommodate childcare. This means most women (71.5%) did not reduce or limit their working hours. So it isn’t true for the majority of mothers that most women give up working after they’ve had children or that a man’s career remains unaffected and a woman’s career declines because of childcare. Therefore we need marriage to have protection.

At least this is my opinion based on data and my own life experiences. Open to hear other points of view though

And lets not forget that for every single mother who's in poverty or making money, there's a father often swanning in and out as he pleases, un-encumbered by all the challenges that the single parent faces.

Sometimes privilege is a lack of obstacles, rather than an obvious benefit.

@Kotatsu

And lets not forget that for every single mother who's in poverty or making money, there's a father often swanning in and out as he pleases, un-encumbered by all the challenges that the single parent faces.

Sometimes privilege is a lack of obstacles, rather than an obvious benefit.

It is indeed. People often struggle to see that, the OP included.

Good point @Kotatsu about the fathers.

@EmpressCixi

Statistically, single mothers are more likely to live in poverty than to have a successful career. So while a single mother can get ahead in her career compared to a married mother, it is not the norm but a minority experience.

That's a totally fair point -- single mothers are statistically much more likely to be living in poverty.

I guess the point I was making is that having a partner in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean you are more likely to be being supported in your career. In fact in quite a lot of cases a partner can be an active hindrance, depending on how much they support with childcare and domestic work and what they perceive your role to be in the family.

Having a partner who slightly increases the family income but who does no childcare or domestic work, expects that to be done for him and is out all the time may actually be a net negative. That's been my experience.

If you can afford it and I realise not everyone can its sometimes cleaner and less confusing to do everything yourself as opposed to having a partner who you assume will help but actually won't and will drain your energy and morale. I realise that's a minority position. But I think women should be careful of assuming that a partner will always enhance the family, financially or otherwise.

I'm late to the thread but I'm not so sure of those figures......out of all my mum friends, and there is a fair few, I am the only one that works full-time.

My sons friends mothers, most do not work full-time and some don't even work at all.

Most of the women at my workplace with children, and even with older children, do not work full-time.

Most women I know have given up or reduced their hours due to having children. Personally I think it's daft and you are very vulnerable. For them getting married means they have access to pensions etc.

I think it’s not necessarily women who should get married for financial protection, but the ‘home-maker’ partner in any couple. Whether you’re female or male, if you give up your career to take care of the kids ( with mutual agreebsvt from your partner ) then getting married is the only way to protect your financial future.

One point for you @NewFem. Your own quoted figures demonstrate a more than 3% drop in female employment in just one year 2019-2020. That's more than a million women gone from the workforce in 2020. Why might that be, do you think?

But I think women should be careful of assuming that a partner will always enhance the family, financially or otherwise.

@thepeopleversuswork. Agree completely. Having a true equal partner, as in doing equal work/childcare/support doesn’t always happen. Even when it does, there are still times where if one partner becomes physically or mentally incapacitated, or long term employed through no fault of their own- the other partner will be carrying extra because of that. Pregnancy and childbirth, while not an illness, is a time of life for couples that do want children, where it is harder to navigate through what is equal. It’s a constant negotiation and renegotiation during maternity leave and for the decades following as the child(ren) grow and their needs change. I don’t want to give impression either that having a partner= happily ever after with no bumps in the road.

You need to read up on the motherhood penalty. The stats of 'women in work' don't show any realistic picture of why some women need marriage for financial security. And you should get the stats on the volume of women left as sole carees of children through separation and divorce.

There are an awful lot of women who for one reason or another, do need to guarantee assets share in the vent of break up, due to the penalty's they suffer through being women and mothers pre and post marriage and motherhood.

I'm late to the thread but I'm not so sure of those figures......out of all my mum friends, and there is a fair few, I am the only one that works full-time.

I might be going way out on a limb here, but I think the information, which comes from the Office of National Statistics, could be considered more accurate than your anecdata.

@Lovelymincepies - I was about to make the same comment. Out of my circle of friends, I'm the only mum working full-time. Out of the mums from my kids school, there are only 3 other mums who also work full-time. The majority of mums either work part-time or are SAHMs.

I am guessing you don't work with data, OP?

DO you really think mothers are mainly rushing back to work days after their birth, and of course all having only one or two children?

Even for women who do return to work, they typically take a maternity leave of something like a year which adds up, it affects the bottom line in lifetime earnings. Many women also, when they return, reduce hours somewhat or choose positions with less pay but more flexibility. And more women than men decide to give up work or to work only pt or casually. Especially if they have more than two children.

So yes, many of these women need their interests protected in the marriage. Also, women who are unlucky enough to divorce or become widows are disadvantaged financially as well, especially if they weren't married.

You've over simplified it. Just because a woman is 'in work' does not mean she's equivalent.
I sacrificed promotion for flexibility for years. Only now that my youngest is 16 have I got back to the earning trajectory I was on at 35. Now it's too late to advance really as that would mean me doing a phd and I don't want to be doing that in my 60s.

I lout-earned my ex-husband for much of our relationship. But I was the one who took maternity leave, and who then decided that I could not give my previous job the commitment it needed to do it properly - so I became a SAHM.

Even when I went back into the workforce (physiotherapy, female-dominated profession, so very easy to get back into), I went back to a part-time junior post - so I could look after our child and still do a good job.

The divorce settlement I got far exceeded what would have happened had we been unmarried, and reflected what I had given up in order to care for our child. Why would it not?

And I had a decent earning potential and a guarantee that I would always be able to find a job. Not all women have that.

Just because women's work (in terms of childcare and in the home) is unpaid does not mean it has no value. The law does not recognise that when people split up, unless they are married - hence marriage generally protects women more than men

75.1% of mothers in the UK were in work. In 2020...this does not say full time work. Zero hours contracts will also count as in work and those people would not have had their hours reduced for childcare so would not follow the statistic.

I lout-earned my ex-husband

sorry, but that's an absolute cracker of a typo @ChristmasFluff

I think it’s not necessarily women who should get married for financial protection, but the ‘home-maker’ partner in any couple. Whether you’re female or male, if you give up your career to take care of the kids ( with mutual agreebsvt from your partner ) then getting married is the only way to protect your financial future.*

I agree with this, though I look around & it is predominantly the women taking this role.

We started out with DP giving up his work, he'd career changed due to redundancy, was doing well, but wasn't really enjoying it & I earned 3 times more than he did & loved my job at the time. So that made most sense & worked well fir a while. We married to protect him, we'd both brought pretty much equal to the table financially, but we knew that one of us would lose out career wise due to having DD & initially that was him. A list of stuff working against us, from a sex discrimination case against my employer of the time, DDs health issues, my worsening health & more lead to my needing to give up work & him going back to work, & he's been the main earner ever since.

It can work both ways, but we as women can still end up doing too much & burning ourselves out if we hit any additional bumps in the road leading to a need to swap or relationship breakdowns if that doesn't happen

@steff13

So it isn’t true for the majority of mothers that most women give up working after they’ve had children or that a man’s career remains unaffected and a woman’s career declines because of childcare.

It's not being said to the majority of women, though, is it? It's usually being said to women who have quit their jobs to care for children, who love with a man in a home he alone owns, and who has very few legal rights if he just decides to kick her out on the street. Marriage affords a woman legal rights to property, spousal support, etc., should the relationship go bad.

This in itself is odd though. If you strip down divorce laws, the only people protected in the modern world are people who can't be bothered either to have or maintain a career of their own.

Someone else mentioned working class women on council estates but they don't get very well protected by current divorce laws at all. If their partners have no assets, splits of financial assets that give them a bigger share are completely irrelevant, there's nothing to split. As for the income, the way universal credit drops £ for £ with spousal maintenance there is no point in them pursuing their mid to low earning ex-spouses for support. If they're getting £800 a month in universal credit and their ex takes home about, say, £1.8k a month net no judge in the land is going to order spousal in excess of £800 to make that woman any better off. The only thing they can rely on is child maintenance which the self employed payers can still game.

At the other end are women who are deemed to earn enough and would not be placed in a position of undue hardship without support. They might do well out of an asset split occasionally and they might get a couple of years spousal to adjust if they have to return to work to do more hours, but the divorce laws aren't very generous to them either.

The people (men and women) who do well out of divorce are those who avoided having a career of their own. The typical life of a middle class millennial these days is university, building career in 20s and no children until 30s. Those who decided they couldn't be bothered to build a career in their 20s and therefore ended up on a lower income than their ex are the ones who end up with the house and - in the worst cases - spousal maintenance.

@RoomOfRequirement

Men get paid more than women, and women are more likely to give up careers/take long maternity leaves/go part time/have pension contributions reduced/take years out/take parental leave for childcare reasons.

If this is not the case, and the woman has not sacrificed a single thing to raise children that the man has not, the advice wouldn't apply. However time and time again on MN we see unmarried women give everything up and be left with nothing. The advice is for them.

This

"Those who decided they couldn't be bothered to build a career in their 20s and therefore ended up on a lower income than their ex"

Wow, judgmental much? It actually is pretty common that mothers take a lower earning pathway after having children because childcare, it turns out, is work. Also, infants and toddlers have this weird thing where they legally have to be cared for by an adult 24/7/365. Not all of that can be outsourced. Look how many mothers on this forum get little help with childcare from the father of the children, because he's focused on his career, his hobbies, etc. There are lots of statistics that show that women's income drops after they have children and that mothers' time spent caring for children directly is greater than fathers'.

An economic model of marriage that treats the paid labor of mothers and fathers as unconnected to each other, places mothers and fathers in competition with each other for time to work. That is, it incentivises each party to spend as little time as possible caring for their children so that they can, instead, maximise their individual earning potential. That would not be good for children. Instead, the model that we have, allows mothers to spend the needed time on childcare (safe in the knowledge that even if the husband doesn't do his share of childcare, the wife will at least get a share of the financial takings of the marriage), and prevents fathers from getting away scot free with being selfish gits towards their wife and children.

@aloris

"Those who decided they couldn't be bothered to build a career in their 20s and therefore ended up on a lower income than their ex"

Wow, judgmental much? It actually is pretty common that mothers take a lower earning pathway after having children because childcare, it turns out, is work. Also, infants and toddlers have this weird thing where they legally have to be cared for by an adult 24/7/365. Not all of that can be outsourced. Look how many mothers on this forum get little help with childcare from the father of the children, because he's focused on his career, his hobbies, etc. There are lots of statistics that show that women's income drops after they have children and that mothers' time spent caring for children directly is greater than fathers'.

An economic model of marriage that treats the paid labor of mothers and fathers as unconnected to each other, places mothers and fathers in competition with each other for time to work. That is, it incentivises each party to spend as little time as possible caring for their children so that they can, instead, maximise their individual earning potential. That would not be good for children. Instead, the model that we have, allows mothers to spend the needed time on childcare (safe in the knowledge that even if the husband doesn't do his share of childcare, the wife will at least get a share of the financial takings of the marriage), and prevents fathers from getting away scot free with being selfish gits towards their wife and children.

The women who choose a lower earning pathway after children will be treated in one of two ways depending on their age:

1. If they are well into their 50s and in most cases kids are older or grown up, they'll get a roughly 50/50 split, some spousal maintenance (provided ex earns enough) until ex retires and a decent pension share;

2. If they're young enough they'll be told to go back to their better paying career within a reasonable time frame and at best get spousal for about 2 years whilst they adjust. If they're lucky the assets will split around 60/40 in their favour. They're barely protected at all.

The women who get "protected" are the ones who chose not to have a career before marriage and before children. They're the ones who have a pitiful earning capacity in both the short and long term and therefore get the lion's share of assets and potentially spousal maintenance for a long time because their needs to avoid undue hardship are by far the greatest.