Apparently I'm "old fashioned and anti-feminist"

[MVDC]

Because I told my friend who's thinking about TTC that she should seriously consider getting married first, even if it's just a register office job.

Apparently that makes me puritanical and woman shaming. Have directed her to the 4 threads I've read so far this morning where women had kids unmarried and are now getting completely screwed by their partners as the relationship breaks down.

I'm really, really angry. Not so much at my friend as at society who's convinced women that "cool girls don't need marriage" and I'm just... My coffee isn't Irish enough.

So you are saying it's quicker to get married whilst your child is in ICU than to go to the town hall and quickly register the birth? I thought when you got married you had to do that notice thing and it takes a few weeks whereas registering would be instant and is a legal requirement anyway when you have a baby?

My reply was for @Onnabugeisha

There is extreme rhetoric on both sides sometimes. But as I said, from what I've seen, the idea that marriage is always the best way, as opposed to better for women as a class or something that should at least be considered, is more argued against than advocated for on here.

wait and see if your career and life changes dramatically

assuming that currently your earnings and savings are equal.

Lol, no...

She's saying get married before the birth if you want the dad to have automatic parental responsibility and to avoid a possible time gap where the baby is born but not registered because the mom is too unwell and dad isn't legally allowed to make medical decisions for baby.

How do you not get that? Are you being purposefully obtuse?

Lol no.. I'm just confused why in that specific scenario the couple had to get married whilst their baby was in ICU so the father could get PR. Or does the PP mean they got married after to prevent it happening for future kids and I've just misread it...?

Absolutely, she is in deep trouble if he decides to leave.

Being married would improve the situation somewhat. However, she is in deep trouble whether she is married or not.

The child was taken from the delivery room to NICU, the parents had other things on their minds, as you would with a seriously ill child.

Babies can be born at any time, not

They were not interested in marriage before but they didn't want the same thing to happen with another child.

@RandomMusings7

Thank you. Got it in one.

I do think people forget unmarried dads don’t have rights until the mum goes to register baby and dad accompanies her.
That gap is irrelevant in many cases but if mum dies or is is unconscious or in hospital for weeks or baby is sent to nicu in a different hospital it matters.
Yes the Dad can go to court to get rights but is that really what you want to be doing as a widowed dad with a newborn.
You can have insurance in place but you still have to have paperwork to access this. Death often brings out the worse in people. So you might have a policy or a will but you need death certificate and possibly probate. If his mum takes over and then drags feet with paperwork you are in limbo and don’t have control.
Likewise the death abroad scenario. If man dies on business trip/stag do abroad and that country will only deal with spouse or parent you have no control. Fine if it’s all amicable in family, potential nightmare if not.
Again if you are wealthy and immediate access to cash isn’t an issue then it’s less of a risk but in many families death of man will cause financial issues especially if bereaved mum isn’t in fit state to work ft and look after traumatised children.
When I married I didn’t have financial need. I earned same as him, same career. But women are more affected by children than men whatever your intentions. I ended up seriously ill with a rare condition triggered by pregnancy and had a disabled child undetected on scans. So a double whammy I didn’t forsee.

Another not so nice story. An acquaintance of mine & my DH had a much wanted baby with her partner. He was killed when the baby was 3 days old. Horrific car crash. She was unable to have him added to the birth certificate which has broken her & his family's heart.

She wishes so much that they had got married (late 20's couple) they just hadn't given it a seconds thought. There's just a blank space where his name should be.

Why do you think civil partnership isn’t more popular for opposite sex couples?
I understand that for many marriage carries negative connotations and people don’t want to marry. But we have a mechanism to officially recognise partners but people aren’t using it.
I suspect part of reason is people mistakenly believe they have ‘common law’ rights but that can’t be all couples.

www.stowefamilylaw.co.uk/blog/2015/09/28/when-an-unmarried-father-dies-before-his-childs-birth-is-registered/

There is a legal mechanism but cost prohibitive (solicitor and barrister costs and court fees) and a lot for a newly widowed woman with a newborn to deal with.
I’d suspect it was done for monetary reasons eg an insurance policy that would pay out to his child on his death.

I think it was only ever something that appealed to quite a specific subset of unmarried couples.

At present, CP is only going to be chosen by people who want legal recognition of their partnership by the state, have some reason to actively prefer CP which isn't without it's own negative connotations, are fine with CP having less recognition abroad than marriage and have been able to get their shit together enough to organise it. That's not actually a huge number of people, particularly not when there's a built in cohort who'll prefer marriage for religious and/or traditional reasons.

It doesn't do anything for couples who stay cohabiting because they don't want their partner to have a claim on their assets if they separate, who believe in common law, who just haven't thought about it or who haven't got round to sorting out a CP for the same reason they never got round to sorting a marriage. That group was inevitably going to be bigger.

Yes all good reasons. I suspect lots don’t know it exists. I remember a bit of publicity for first couple and an article when Allister Campbell did it but that’s it.

Yes, I think even for those who could theoretically pick one or the other, ie who don't have an ideological or practical reason why one suits them more, marriage has remained the default. There would probably have to be a critical mass of people visibly engaging in CP for that to change.

Additionally, I have a hunch that a higher percentage of CPs than marriages are being engaged in by the sort of couple who don't actually tell anyone about it. Ie people who just see it as a slightly more complex trip to the solicitor, an admin matter. There've long been people like that, but now there's a choice, they're probably more likely than the average couple to want a CP instead. By definition they're not people who'll be visible about it any more than they would be about their wills or life insurance.

@rickandmorts
there is a period between when the baby is born and the mother and father are able to register the birth where the unmarried father does not have PR

sadly some dads discover this when the nicu doctor is explaining to them that they can’t sign the consent form for their child to have the operation because legally they do not have PR. It is understandably upsetting for them at this point. Their baby is v sick (and maybe the mum is very sick) and some doctor they have never met before is telling them they don’t have any legal relationship to their newborn. Imo it should be covered in some sort of public relations campaign or at least be covered in the antenatal spiel done by the midwives.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/civilpartnershipsinenglandandwales/2020

Yes according to latest stats I could find average age for opposite sex civil partnership is late 50s so probably prompted by health scare or inheritance tax planning.
It definitely doesn’t carry connotations of you got married and didn’t tell us.

I wonder why the couple don't want to get married and whether they have a mutual agreement on this? I think this information would help guide us better.

It's very difficult, you never know what will happen when you have a child and the support from a partner is necessary. I know career driven women who didn't expect to become SAHM's but had children with disabilities and decided to commit to caring for them. Motherhood changes you.

That's interesting.

But if opposite sex CP can serve a societal function for couples who want state recognition of their union only because they're getting on in years and would've worried about difficulties in the family if they got married, great. It's only in existence because the government wanted a halfway house between marriage and nothing for gay people as a sop, and then when the law required the state to either abolish CP or extend it to everyone they decided on the latter, so it could've turned into nothing but a historical curiosity. Feels like a better use of the time and resources involved if it can be useful.

The issue is it’s hard to separate the legal from the emotive. I can imagine the threads on here - midwife told me to get married it’s not the 1950s how dare she.
The bereaved unmarried woman in article I linked wanted info given by registrar when unmarried couple register a baby. Again that could be taken as them drumming up business.
My dc had half a phse lesson briefly touching on legal position in yr 10 that’s it.

29% 65 plus. Does seem it’s being quietly used by some couples at same time as doing tax planning/wills/powers of attorney etc.

We almost had a registry office CP (it was booked and everything!) as a young heterosexual couple because as a feminist I felt slightly uncomfortable with the "baggage" of marriage.

To be honest I'm not completely sure why we didn't. Complexity of having to explain to family, wanting to be able to call him my spouse/husband, much better date availability at short notice (registry office was only midweek and we had family travelling), concern as to whether CP would be fully recognised in other countries (likely to move for work) etc

I do think that probably most heterosexual couples doing CP are likely to be older and together longer and doing it as "life admin" rather than a relationship milestone but I might be wrong

The issue is it’s hard to separate the legal from the emotive

Yes, and also it's about things that are inherently unpleasant. Because the distinctions between being married/CP and not usually don't kick in when things are going well. It becomes relevant when bad things happen.

If you've a partner, unless you die simultaneously which is rare, the relationship is going to end through either separation or bereavement. That's an unpleasant reality, and humans don't do very well with those. We don't like to think of our own mortality or that of people around us, especially when death seems a very long way off. So it can be hard to process that when these awful things happen, and they inevitably do, the status of the relationship potentially makes a huge difference to your position. Especially when you're happy in the now.

It is if there’s a perfectly legal way of minimising them.