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

Rather depressingly, considering you’re right about the academic attainment of girls, you have massively overlooked the fact that men tend to earn more, often get a career boost in their mid 30s (especially if a family comes along), whilst women are made to wait either because they’ve had babies or are having babies. As long as women continue to be predominantly primary carers for young children there will always be pay inequality.

@YerAWizardHarry

I went back to work full time after maternity however I was so far from being financially independent it was laughable. EVERY SINGLE PENNY I earned went on nursery fees

That’s not good, what happened?

The advice is always that nursery fees is not a woman’s sole responsibility, they should come out of both salaries.

@TurquoiseBaubles
I don't know a single couple where, on separation, the mother doesn't take on the majority of the child care.

And I don't know of a single couple where this hasn't been the mothers CHOICE and fought tooth and nail for majority childcare .

@tallduckandhandsome of course it wasn’t “good” but short term pain, long term gain and all that. My sons father paid the bills and fed us, my point was that “on paper” statistically I worked full time as the OP stated but that it didn’t actually mean I would be able to sustain myself without a partner

Having been in these shoes and left the problem is that the same type of man who thinks childcare is women's work and wont pick up or drop off is also the type to protect his income and assets from you, like you are gold digging from him. My x gold dug time and freedom and lost esrnings from me so he was the digger but he is far too stupid to understand that.
All these guys who wont marry their "dp" they think like my x.
So sitting them down and having a chat with them will get u nowhere

@Bouledeneige

I agree. What protection exactly is it that a man provides?

It's the marriage providing protection

@YerAWizardHarry but you would have got help with paying child care fees if you were a single parent.

Were you really spending your salary on childcare?

@tallduckandhandsome I was a Band 2 with a training supplement being deducted from my wages in the NHS. On payday I transferred all of my wages to our childcare provider.

@Fernintheforest

What are the legal and financial protections marriage provides?

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Knock yourself out

It’s said to some women on here - the unmarried ones doing the majority of childcare, and either working PT or SAHMs because it is true. They eat less, have less savings, have smaller pensions because they believe they are in a ‘partnership’ for life.
It’s not said to the women who have gone and set up legal protections for themselves to make sure they as a couple have the same rights as married couples. And it’s not said to the women who are well off through family money, have houses in their own name, or are high earners whose circumstances haven’t changed from having children.
In fact, if there was a SAHD in the same position then he would be the financially precarious one.
There’s a young woman I know, unmarried, 3 kids, partner is 20 years older ( they’re all his) who is a SAHM, they aren’t married, only his name is on the house. She has no income and he gives her some money each month. She’s not particularly happy any more but what IS she supposed to do it they split? She’s trapped, for now at least.
Should she have made better decisions? Maybe, but she was head over heels and pregnant at 21 and thought he was amazing.

I think there is no one rule for all. But for some women, who are financially self sufficient no they don’t need to marry for protection. For other women, who are not, marriage does offer a level of protection. Same If the genders are reversed.

I don’t understand the point of the post. There is no one rule for all.

How many kids do you have OP?

As has been said, in reality it gives financial security to whichever is earning less, which just so happens to usually be the woman, especially after having children. Anyone who reduces their hours or leaves work to stay at home without being married is putting themselves in a really precarious financial position, and absolutely would never recommend. Similarly, if the dad became a stay at home dad the concept would be the same.

OP you have misunderstood the stats completely. I’ve just checked the ONS and the majority of mothers at least reduce their hours.

But even if this wasn’t the case and all mothers went back to work full time, just the pregnancy and maternity leave alone has the potential to damage a woman’s career, lower pension contributions etc especially if repeated multiple times.

In 2019, only 28.5% of mothers with children below 14 years old reduced their working hours to accommodate childcare

That's surprising, just anecdotally but I don't know anyone who went back full time, I did and often others would look at me like I had 2 heads.

Yabu.
You've only said 'work'.
Quite forgetting that 'work' before children is often a high level career role. And 'work' after children is a part time minimum wage role.
It's absolute obvious really, and you've targeted completely the wrong audience in your attempt to be goady.

In my circles, it's astonishing how many women used to be eg 'head of IT for Tesco' and are now 'school office admin'. Or similar! It's such a waste and a travesty really.

Anybody reading this thinking, wish I could leave, do it. I left when they were 4 and 1
He wouldnt do a pick up or a drop off so i was completely cornered outof the workplace trapped minding his kids (and mine) with no income, savings, freedom, respect. So i left and it was tough but at least from then on i was feathering my own future, if not nest.that came later.
He was outraged that i thought i could have a better life as a single parent.

I am going to try to point put gently that in a lot of posts on MN I think you've misunderstood why people give that advice. Although in fairness I am sure sometimes people do think marriage has a magical protection veil.

For a women who is a SAHM or has reduced her career options for children (you have rather skated over the societal expectation that women are the main caregiver which still exists and has a hell of an emotional guilt trip attached) and there are assets such as a bought house then marriage is sensible.

There are legal protections in that scenario. The reality of the lived experience is not reasonably recorded in statistics. I earn more than both my Exdh and my DP. I will probably also command pro rata a higher salary than both of them. I am a good example of your statistics. I am by far more educated than both of them.

However the reality of my DC does not fit within theory. When home schooling hit last year they struggled (one is SEN) , and I took the financial hit because frankly they needed me. The truth was they needed me not DP or Exdh because they were frightened , unsure and worried.

Dp is incredibly hands on and the least sexist person you'll meet. But the absolute rtruth is decades of embedded behaviours mean that I am and always will be the primary caregiver to my DC and whilst that shouldn't always be the case it's very common. Most of the parents at DC school who took the hit on their jobs to accommodate home schooling, changing school times over the last year.

For me marriage isn't a protection, I am lucky enough that my skillset means I can more or less walk back into jobs when I need to. Its specific and marketable but I am extremely lucky. Many women when they step out for DC needs , which is incredibly common can't return easily.

I don't disagree with your statistics or your theory but I am going to gently assume this is not your lived experience and you are forgetting the intricacies of human response. Whether rightly or wrongly the issue is far more complex than you can define by cerebral analysis. No marriage is not a protection for all but it is an essential protection for some in certain circumstances and there are a lot more women in those circumstances than you think.

It only applies in some situations - obviously in situations where the woman is a high earner, is financially independent and hasn’t given anything up to care for her children, it’s irrelevant.

It’s applicable wherever a woman gives up paid work to do unpaid work for her family instead. If she’s married, the financial value of the contribution she’s made to the family and the benefit that’s provided to her husband’s career should be taken into account on divorce. If she isn’t married, it isn’t.

In other words, don’t work for anyone without a contract in place. Seems like pretty sound advice to me.

I'd eer on the side of caution where it becomes a default to never consider staying at home at least part time with the child you brought into the world.
It's madness to assume that two years out will ruin someone's entire career and life and leave them in financial punuery.
Even part time is better than being on a good salary and choosing to put a baby into a nursery from first thing in the morning to last thing at night five days a week.
For me that shoud be a last resort! For people who have no choice.
It has surprised me from the some nct mums just how regular it's become to do that even when the mum has v good jibu, income and the man does and they are very ££ as a family.

Getting married is sensible as it means if he leaves you with the kids, you can stay in the home until the youngest is a certain age. Also half the house belongs to you. If he dies, you're entitled to his pension, and vice versa.

@Anordinarymum

Glad you have it all sewn up. Real life has a habit of kicking you right up the arse in so many ways. Just read some of the stories on here and apply your logic to them, which is dead in the water

This. Thousands of times I made financial and life sacrifices that put my partner and my family 1st. It was second nature, I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I also didn’t realise that he wasn’t making anywhere near the same amount of sacrifice. Because he did a bit of housework I thought we were equals. We weren’t.

The only thing he did that saved me when we broke up was put my name on the mortgage, and let me and the kids stay in the house until we sell it. That has saved me an awful lot of worry. But I’ve had to put up with him whining about it, and how ‘poor’ he is at every opportunity.

I’m still pretty glad not to have spent huge amounts on a ceremony, or have his name though.

One lady said for instance how upset she was going back to work after maternity leave but had had massive kitchen renovation done and was constantly going on about those hot water taps and Wolfe appliances and which one to get?
She kept repeating how she had to work and yet Wolfe appliances cost a fortune? It felt so odd to me.

I don't know anyone where the mother doesn't do the majority of the childcare and so hasnt had their earnings effected.

Your figures are too superficial and you're not looking at the deeper picture.

Had enough that's very sadly true.

We are conditioned to behave like that.