Child out of wedlock / illegitimate - does it still matter

[Bananabreadandstrawberries]

Does it still matter in any way whether your child was born within a marriage or not? Is there any stigma to being an ‘unwed mother’ or ‘illegitimate child’ (apologies no offence intended). Do you view people differently before of this status? Are there any practical implications?

For those of you who feel it doesn’t matter, would you still prefer your own daughter were married before having children?

I ask as I feel despite most people not minding this about other people, the couples ‘doing better’ in life still tend to marry before having children. I am not sure

AIBU that legitimacy doesn’t matter anymore?
YES = Makes a difference (even though it’s not PC to say so)
NO = Makes no difference about being married before children.

Yes I'd prefer my children to be married before having their own children and yes id be really quite disappointed if they weren't

Would I judge? No not really.

Thank you, I understand that a child born out of wedlock may be considered a ‘mxxxxx’ and has implications for his/her marriageability and social acceptance in the future. Is this still the case?

I’ve had three kids out of wedlock, didn’t realise this was a thing anymore! Never been judged for it, though I’ve been judged for having kids with ASD. I don’t know the marital status of any of my children’s friends parents and frankly couldn’t give a shit about it either. We’re not in the 1950s anymore!

Thank you, I am of the same view point.

Just wanting to find out why people might still prefer marriage for themselves/their own children, when society at large seems to have moved on.

Ditto. I was never married but was with my ex partner for 25 years. In fact our non married relationship lasted longer than many of our friends marriages.

No. My children are definitely not b’stards! Seems like a very strange question to ask in this day and age and there are no prejudices or stigma anymore and everyone knows that so why on earth would you even wonder?

I'm 34. My parents never married and it was something I was conscious of but not a "thing". Now my DD is 7 and she wouldn't have a clue which of her friends had parents who were married. It wouldn't even occur to her.

It makes a big £ difference if one of the parents dies and has sufficient assets to fall above inheritance tax thresholds.

If there is no will, the deceased's kids get everything.

I don't have a particularly large circle of friends, but know at least 4 families where a parent died leaving a parent to bring up pre-teens.

it would be incredibly unusual in my circles to have children without being married. My kids actually didn't have any parents in their primary classes who weren't married. I also don't have any couple friends with kids who weren't married when their children were born.
The only person I know who had children without being married is my partner and I still find it slightly odd in the sense that it's not what I usually see.

I would prefer my children to be married when they have children but obviously if they aren't it's fine.

Children being born outside marriage in obviously doesn’t matter at all in mainstream British society, but it would still be seen as unacceptable in some conservative religious or minority communities.

No difference to me, no difference if my daughter. I would judge someone who judged (!!) as being very out of touch, religious or not
The worst thing would be to be a person who got married because they were pregnant or who married someone they didn't love to have a baby. The people who get married because they are in love and then have a baby later on are super lucky I think.

No.

I didn’t vote because it can make a difference, eg to financial security. But I wouldn’t say there’s any stigma at all.

I’m not traditional at all, for myself. But I’m childfree by choice, earn a lot of money, have assets etc. I do think that people, particularly women, who are choosing to have children need to think about stability for those children and creating a system of protections in the event that their relationship with the child’s father breaks down. And marriage does that better. Too many women seem to go into motherhood with the view that “having children is a way bigger commitment to somebody than having children with them” when it really, really isn’t. And too often the end result of that is women who end up living in poverty and therefore children who live in poverty. Obviously not all the time, but far, far too often. That’s when it makes a huge difference.

are you expecting your daughter to be financially reliant on a husband?

I will be encouraging my daughter to be financially independent, earn her own money, buy her own house.

if she succeeds it’s very likely marriage will “protect” her husband, not her.

Besides, the amount of people I know who got married and are now divorced far exceeds the happily married ones. It seems to mean little beyond a contract really. I suppose it would be smart to not have children with someone you WOULDN'T MARRY ie. Trust to uphold a contract, but actually doing it means nothing in practice.

How do you know who is married or not?
I mean in places where you are with children and other adults (playparks, schools drop offs, waiting outside the door of scouts etc).
Unless you ask how would you know?

It's never been an issue for us-and our first child was born 26 years ago. I think my very Catholic FIL was sad about it, but it didn't t impact on their relationship.

2 illegitimate children 1 legitimate child (same father) here, of course I favour the legitimate child, he's so much cuter...

That's a joke BTW - in general circles it doesn't really matter anymore and is much more acceptable today than even 20 years ago. People don't usually ask or mention it.

I did have comments with the eldest DS1 (14) along the lines of:

• You can't have a child out of wedlock - hmm think you can, it doesn't work that way
• attending a mother and baby group - is he your child? Because your surname is different
• Now DH pre-marriage trying to access some housing support due to homelessness, Council worker upon hearing we had different last names - commented "oh you're one of those families" - err we'd been together 12 years at that point, lived together 11 years and had 2 children 3 & 1. He hadn't experienced people's prejudiced attitudes on this point before until then, even though I'd told him. We got married the following year.

Absolutely makes a big difference to financial security in the event of separation.

Quite a lot of us in my friendship group ages 25-30 have babies now and the only couple married before having a child was myself and DH. I really do not think it matters anymore to be honest, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. We got pregnant not long before our wedding day but unfortunately lost that pregnancy, so we were happy to get pregnant before our wedding.

I do like the fact that me DH and our son have the same surname, but that’s just what I like personally.

Yep. Think people just presumed we were married anyway as we were together so long.
I don’t have a daughter but my advice to anyone would be to choose very carefully the person you have children with. That’s the most important thing, not the piece of paper.

Im probably lucky that I’m on very amicable terms with my ex and we cooperate fully with respect to our DS even now he’s 18. But I don’t think it’s luck, it’s because we choose well

@MRSDoos you can change your surname to match your child’s even if you aren’t married so that’s a bit of a moot point.

Thank you!

I recently found (after having my child) that even in the UK, a father could not pass on British nationality to his child until 2005, if he was not married to the mother.

"Absolutely makes a big difference to financial security in the event of separation."

Only if one party is financially vulnerable eg not working, looking after small children, and only if there are assets within the marriage. Child maintenance doesn't depend on marital status, and spousal maintenance is apparently very rarely awarded in the UK.

My partner and I are in a civil partnership and only because I can find no other way around IHT rules. Until we did this a couple of years ago we were happily unmarried. I don't see how any of my teenage son's friend's parents would ever have known whether we were married or not. Is there a secret sign?

In fact when we got our CP a lot of people commented that they'd always assumed we were married.