Why why why do people have kids without marriage

[changedandcantchangeback]

Obviously if you earn more.. have an independent income... so NOT aimed at you..

But WHY after all these years do I see threads from economically improvised women STILL posting how they are so severely compromised ?

So why reproduce with them.

Being married doesn’t always mean you are protected. And no one thinks that the bad stuff will happen to them. I’ve seen, so many times, women get married. They have a good career, but have DC and give it up. Understandable, you want to spend time with your DC, child care is expensive etc…..But they then end up doing everything in the home, including supporting the DH in his career, which progresses quite nicely. Life is good. Until they reach early 50s, when previously lovely DH fucks off with Miss 30 ish perky tits and the wife is left with fuck all. Kids are grown up so no maintenance and the husband has taken legal advice and hidden as much money as he can. He rides off into the sunset and the wife is left with the bare minimum, and very limited career prospects having not working for 20+ years. It gives me the rage and is exactly why I will never depend on anyone for my income

Exactly. It's not marriage that is the protection - it is giving up work and an independent means to an income and the protection this affords.

I refused to marry and have 'wife' on my CV because I think marriage is a crock of patriarchal bullshit and with it comes a range of social expectations including that being a 'good wife' means putting his career first and doing 'wife work'. I refused that shit and put my efforts into maintaining my financial independence instead. Reading post after post on the relationships board where women were conned into thinking that marriage offered them 'protection' when it really didn't has utterly convinced me I did the right thing.

Exactly. It's not marriage that is the protection - it is NOT giving up work and an independent means to an income and the protection this affords.

You don't know what kind of father someone will be in advance. Some men step up, some don't.

Because most people own their houses together as a couple anyway and most women don’t give up their careers when they become a mother these days?

I know a young man who is an undergraduate student doing a long course at a prestigious university. While all his friends share student type flats with their peers, he has a much nicer flat in a good area which he shares with his live in GF, who works in retail.

Although she doesn’t earn a lot, it’s more than a student loan. Of course she does all the housework as he is studying FT on his very important and demanding course. She even pops home at lunchtime to walk his dog.

He has no intention of being with her long term . He tells all his mates he will dump her as she’s not clever enough. He also means that she’s not from the right background but he doesn’t say that.

But she is very pretty and devoted, pays most of the bills and runs “ their “ car , does all the housework and provides sex on demand and doesn’t complain when he has nights out with other students. Because in her job she naturally has to work most weekends. So she’s happy that he’s so “ understanding “.

He plans to dump her as soon as he graduates and he will find a long term partner who he feels is more suitable. But she is facilitating his lifestyle now.

I feel sad when I think of that young woman. Yes of course she’s an adult and a free agent. No doubt she loves him and is happy to support him now because he will be able to support her and and their children later.

If she was on MN she would be telling us that they are a team and she’s investing in “ their future as a family “.

This thread highlights that despite all the challenges women face in society, other women are a huge part of the problem.

Language such as embarrassed and ashamed has been used; judging attitudes including accusations of “low morals”; patronising posts about lack of understanding of common law (whilst some posters simultaneously demonstrate a lack of knowledge on parental responsibility and spread other dubious facts on child maintenance via links they haven’t even read or understood).

There are very few protections marriage offers that cannot be replicated for legal and financial equality, and we’re in the inheritance tax range for those.

The discussion should be women having the expectation, and indeed demanding, equality in partnerships and the workplace bringing huge societal benefits for all.

But no. Instead, some smug marrieds continue to shame and sneer. I hope your DDs break the cycle in the way you are unable to.

Yes but when you meet these guys, you don't think your guy is going to be one of the shitty ones. And we're taught over and over again that if a guy has traits we don't like, we have to fix him, it's our job. Or at the very least understand him. Even on here, a largely woman's website, when someone's bloke is behaving poorly, someone will come on and ask if he's feeling depressed or struggling at work or had a bad childhood.

I got married in 1970, had 3 kids, oldest was 20, I you told me, I would meet a new bloke want another baby and not be married I would have said you were mad! I didnt believe in having children outside marriage, (It hardly ever happened in my generation, anymore than living together. Well I was 40 with many years of gyna problems, Dr. said you had better hurry up. Lost my house and possessions upon divorce, marriage was way down the exepense list. Got married when DD was 8.

Pretty sexist to assume women are always better off by getting married, plenty of women have more assets and earn a higher wage than men- therefore getting married isn't actually beneficial, its likely to cost you. If you mean morally then what a crock of shit.

Totally agree.

TalkingCat is TalkingShit more like.

“no morals and no sense”

Because we are not taught about marriage and relationships as a priority, we go in totally blind, end up with people we can't trust who don't want to marry us, or co-parenting with an ex.

What can we do now except teach our children differently?

Yes let's put women back in their place and teach them that marriage is a priority, finding a man who wants to get married is the most important thing and moving on if the relationship isn't for you is the worst thing ever. Yay progress!

@Efortyjive
Yes let's put women back in their place and teach them that marriage is a priority, finding a man who wants to get married is the most important thing and moving on if the relationship isn't for you is the worst thing ever. Yay progress!

I'm teaching my daughter (and my son) that:

Not getting married is absolutely fine.

Not finding a man or woman is absolutely fine.

Moving on is absolutely fine.

Having children and sacrificing your career (to whatever extent) for a partner without any kind of legal or financial protection is not fine.

What I see around me is so many women raising children on their own, without any/much financial or other support from their useless partner or ex, who has contributed fuck all apart from some jizz and his surname. That's not progress. That's a brilliant con trick on the part of the patriarchy.

@Efortyjive
Pretty sexist to assume women are always better off by getting married, plenty of women have more assets and earn a higher wage than men- therefore getting married isn't actually beneficial, its likely to cost you.

Have you heard of the Gender Pay Gap?
www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/uk-gender-pay-gap-women-paid-90p-for-1-earned-by-men

Nope, never heard of it 🙄

Not sure what point you are trying to make, yes there are discrepancies in pay for some women doing the same job as men- female dominated sectors also have ridiculously low pay. That doesn't mean that there aren't women who have jobs that pay more than men, do you really think that's the case? Pretty sad if so!

@AProperStinging rather than marriage as a blanket though, surely teaching daughters to remain financially independent and to not rely on men is far better than to teach them about marriage.

Because far too many are so obsessed with having children they don't really consider what their partner is really like.

Weddings are expensive. Some couples I have known have had children because they want them, and have seen the change in status as a sign of their commitment. The wedding, four years or so later, and when they can afford it, has been the icing on the cake, and a mark of how well they are doing financially.

Also, there are historical precedents for this and attitudes around the status of partners which have boded well for the longevity and seriousness of a non-matrimonial union. I have been reading Henry Mayhew's ' London Labour and the London Poor'. It was written in the 1840s. He notes that most costermongers of the time do not get married, but that their unions are regarded as solemn and binding and their children are not viewed by married costermongers as any less legitimate. They stayed with their partners, often for life. If it is in the family going back, and seen as morally respectable, and then in the mid 20th Century, couples maybe married, sometimes after the children are born, then there will be a sense of security and doing the accepted thing - perhaps. If you know you have supportive parents to help you out or go to live with, then a split maybe holds less fear. Perhaps it depends on whether you are buying property, it being the case that marriage secures property rights.

Some people like the freedom of being unmarried, and they think if it doesn't work out down the line it'll be easier to separate without having to go through a divorce at the same time. Or they worry about the cost of divorce. Or they mistakenly believe living together is practically the same as marriage. Or they just don't consider marriage as an option because it's the norm now to go without or to have kids with partners. Or they're getting older and want kids and think they're better off having them and hoping to marry later than splitting and finding someone who wants to marry them and then TTC. Or they believe with a baby on the scene they're more likely to be proposed to.

Personally, I get it. I got pregnant at 31, engaged and married during the pregnancy. We always planned to get married at that age regardless of whether we'd been successful at trying or not. I didn't want to waste any time delaying TTC due to health issues and would rather have gambled and had a baby unmarried than not at all. I suppose I could have gotten pregnant and then my partner make excuses and not proposed after all, it happens, but I was willing to take that chance.

Marriage to me is far more important before buying a house, there's a range of legal protections buying as a married couple that you don't have buying as partners, so being married was a prerequisite for me to buying a home with DH.

To be fair to those who are saying weddings are expensive: that's an absolute choice if you want to make your wedding an expensive one. We got married a few years back and it cost £400 including the rings, dress, ceremony. You can spent as much or as little as you like but if you want to actually be married and that's your goal you can do it for a couple hundred, just check out register office fees.

It's a shame people don't realise that getting married can be affordable, we were put off getting married because of the cost until we looked into it and it clicked that actually what makes a wedding expensive is the unnecessary trappings. A register office ceremony is a couple hundred and you're just as married at the end of it.

Some good partners turn into utter wankers

This.

When your relationship is good and the man is good and considerate and helpful, many women simply cannot imagine that this man, with whom they are soulmates and best friends, will utterly do them over. I think most women don't realise that a lot of men's decency to them is dependent on them actually liking you and liking having you in their life. Once they no longer like you, or want you in their life, they are looking after themselves.

So when things are good, they mistake the man's decency to them as him being a decent man.

And lets face it, few of us are fair and good to people will do not like.

But all that seems unimaginable at the time when you are best mates in love.

And whilst this is a familiar pattern to those who hang out on Mumsnet boards, it not necessarily common knowledge to other people, who may never have known a single person this has happened to. I'm 50 and don't know anyone in real life this has happened to! So it just won't be a real and present danger to most women, especially when they are at the age of starting families, as everyone they know will also be at the start of their family life, not the age of disintegration of families.

Also, people still believe in common law marriage.

Some people can’t afford to get married. I don’t mean a big fancy pants wedding with bells on, I just mean the basic fees from actually legally marrying. Some people simply can’t afford that and perhaps their children were unplanned. I’d imagine most women trust and love their partner’s too so don’t think they will shit on them.

We got married a few years back and it cost £400

£400 is a lot of money to many people who struggle to feed their children.

I also don't see the point in marriage. It is entirely financial benefit to the lower earner and I aren't subsidising somebody else's lifestyle. Half of marriages fail, I think I have 4 planned for this year yet I know two on average will lie to a room full of people about promising to be together through sickness and health and as long as they both shall live. And when they do separate the one that breaks the promise/contract will get no penalty like any other contract (where penalty/exit costs are outlined).

And I wonder how many of these children were a surprise or the man agreed to or were 'accidental' contraceptive failure. I bet children being born out of wedlock would reduce massively if the sexist provision of contraceptive was sorted (the female contraceptive is free on the nhs) and there is a variety of choice men don't have any choice it's condoms (they have to pay for) or nothing as no hormonal contraceptives are available.