can I please shout. Do NOT HAVE CHILDREN WITHOUT GETTING MARRIED FIRST ..

[Patchworkpatty]

Feel so sad to have just read another really sad thread about a lovely woman who is trying to escape a horrendously awful relationship, 3 small children, he earns big bucks, she is SAHM and has NO funds to get out and get a new home. If she was married she could have gone to a lawyer, explained situation and have had a guarantee of a lump sum to restart her life, she may even have got an interim payment to help her. I feel strongly that women do not know the value (legally amongst many other reasons) of marriage. So many women these days agree to having children and accept the ' not ready for marriage ' or 'it's just a piece of paper' lie as acceptable. Imo if you are ready for children, have decided you are both parent material and want babies, then what reasons can there be not to ? unless your OH doesn't feel the same. (with the exception of course of very high earning women who don't take more than a few weeks maternity leave and don't care about state pensions and being next of kin).

I think it's human nature to 'understand' the facts so as to give you what you want.

So, you believe your DP will provide for you and DCs post split.

You believe you don't get pregnant on your first experience of sex.

You believe whatever...... because facing the facts is too uncomfortable. Human nature.

slightlyconfused85 - Sometimes children come along by surprise before marriage

Yes, that's my concern about the focus on marriage as the sole way of providing a parent with legal and financial protection. In an ideal world people would make a conscious decision to get married first if they want to, and then have children, but in the real world things have a habit of taking you by surprise.

As I said before, it's all too easy to imagine a scenario where a woman is in an abusive or becoming-abusive relationship, falls pregnant, gets promised marriage and then that marriage never actually happens because her partner refuses it. A focus purely on marriage doesn't help these women.

The stats are very interesting, pink. Though it is somewhat unsurprising that a foundation called the Marriage Foundation came up with figures that supported marriage

They didn't come up with the figures- they analysed figures provided by the ONS which anyone- you or I- could find on their website.

^The report, which analyses figures from the Office for National Statistics, found that 93 per cent of couples whose relationships are still intact by the time their child is a teenager are married.
It calculated that out of a typical group of 100 16-year-olds, 45 of them would have experienced a family split, while 55 would still be living with both parents.
But only four of the 100 teenagers would have unmarried parents who are still together by the time they are 16.^

The report is 2 years old. You won't get anything much more recent than that when looking at stats comparing life choices and large numbers.

Please- before you jump to conclusions, read the whole article and not just the first few lines :)

If the man has a standard job, where's the lump sum going to come from?

Spousal maintenance is rare and only applies if the women had to give up her high flying job as the man needed her too for his. The reality is many either didn't work before or didn't want to work after.

Rather than simply state marriage gives financial protection, it's far better to teach girls to ensure they maintain their work so that they always have their own income to rely on.

What did the figures from the ONS say? What data set are they? What date ranges? Where did they come from? What was the sampling size?

Beware of any self-appointed group who 'analyse' a set of figures without publishing the data sets. The Marriage Foundation was founded by a judge not a statistician.

A group of 100 in a population of ~60m is statistically useless.

You do know there are millions of single parents successfully raising and providing for their children single handedly OP?
You really shouldn't lump all women together in your bold statement when you're actually talking about women who have either chosen to give up work or not seek a career of any kind in the first place. You don't have to be super intelligent or have a degree to make a half decent living. I have never in my life been supported by a man, have stupidly supported a few though.

www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn107.pdf

Take a look at the above link, hereandthere. It uses the millennium cohort study figures.

Like you the IFS would far rather that there wasn't a connection between cohabitation and increased rates of splitting up but they do acknowledge that that is exactly what the statistics say.

I'd say the OP has a valid point. Having declared an interest as both a lawyer (not family law) and a divorcee, the reality is that children, more often than not, lead to one parent as principal carer, usually the woman, over time having reduced career prospects and reduced earning ability.

I think it is long overdue for a change in the law which recognises that having children is a seismic change in a relationship which creates a family whether married or not (and indeed whether one party chooses to do a runner or not) and treats finances in any relationship where there are children in the same way as marriage does now i.e. recognises the contribution of the principal carer.

At the moment SAHP are significantly and unfairly prejudiced on the breakdown of the relationship where the parents are not married.

The average income in the UK is 26K, the average cost of a full-time nursery place is 10k a year, the average rental cost for a family home is about 10K.

Only a small fraction of single parents will earn enough to comfortably afford childcare/a home/a reasonable lifestyle.

I appreciate that many women on mn are high-flyers with stonking great salaries and fantastic, affordable childcare, but there are many of us who don't fall into this category.

Canyou..

From the first page of th IFS report:

'Our findings suggest that while it is true that cohabiting parents are more likely to split up than married ones, there is very little evidence to suggest that this is due to a causal effect of marriage. Instead, it seems simply that different sorts of people choose to get married
and have children, rather than to have children as a
cohabiting couple, and that those relationships with the best prospects
of lasting are the ones that are most likely to lead to marriage. Our analysis suggests, therefore, that if more cohabiting parents decide to get married, it is very unlikely that a significant number would become more likely to stay together.'

They state that its unlikely that getting married will change the outcome.

"A number of recent UK papers have documented the association between
marriage and relationship stability. Using the Millennium Cohort Study (the same data source that we employ in our own work), Benson (2009) finds that around 27% of couples that were cohabiting when their child was born have separated by the time the child is aged 5, compared with 9% of couples that were married when their child was born.5"

I think that's pretty striking.

From the study mentioned linked to by Canyouforgiveher

Also, I would like to see the data for different income/social groups.

There's a large sub-class in the UK who getted knocked up and change partners a lot. Remove those from the figures and you might be suprised.

"I think it is long overdue for a change in the law which recognises that having children is a seismic change in a relationship which creates a family whether married or not (and indeed whether one party chooses to do a runner or not) and treats finances in any relationship where there are children in the same way as marriage does now i.e. recognises the contribution of the principal carer."

I think you put that very well.

The 4% is a daft statistic!

What about the DCs born from one night stands, where mum doesn't know who the dad is,where dad disappears before/after birth, rape, dad dies, ther are so many good reasons why 'unmarried' parents won't be together 15 year later.

This thread also skips over the fact hat lots of men don't want to get married. There are frequent threads on here by 30something women who want marriage & kids but. Their DP of several years won't commit. What are they supposed to do? If they leave to start again they risk never having DCs. It's a terrible dilemma to be in!

The op's basic premise that lots of women don't know their rights is true and is something we should try to raise awareness of.

But that doesn't mean all women should get married. Why don't we push the government to properly enforce the csa legislation that is in place? They have never bothered to pursue my eldest DC's 'father'.

In the end though the best way for a women to protect herself financially, married or not, is to always work full time. Having a DP who supports that is more crucial than a ring.

Beloved- single mum on £26k. Paying £10k in childcare and £10k in rent will get a hell of a lot of tax credits and housing benefit.

I got £9k pa tax credits when I was a single mum working ft. (No HB as had a mortgage)

hereandtherex Thu 26-Mar-15 17:37:26
Also, I would like to see the data for different income/social groups.

well why don't you go to the ONS website and look for yourself? it will all be there if you can be bothered to find it.

There's a large sub-class in the UK who getted knocked up and change partners a lot.

For someone who seems to be condemning generalisations and likes stats to show everything, this comment is appalling.

Cohabers can achieve the same legally+financially as a marriage but it requires extra legal effort

Not only extra effort, but extra costs too, a lot extra.

Even then you'll not have all the advantages that tax and law gives a married couple.

But isn't part of this about personal responsibility? Women can't predict that men will not turn nasty and they can't always predict pregnancy. BUT the law takes account for that through CSA and through the benefits system.

The law currently allows for people to opt into the highest level of financial commitment, rather than it default to that option. By making "marital protection" default, men who still want to get out it will do so AND people will feel falsely protected.

At what point do women have to consciously take control of their financial future, rather than be infantilised?

Yes hereandnnow, the IFS explanation (there are other possible explanations) is that the kind of people who split up are unlikely to marry anyway. Whatever the explanation, it doesn't support your claim that couples who cohabit are less likely to split up.

Love the subclass getting knocked up and changing partners and the village in Yorkshire that never discovered marriage.

^

That comment was in response to beloved and other suggesting the law should be changed.

Isn't part of this argument we're all having (myself included) hugely self-defeating?

There's no point getting dragged into and distracted by debates with women who have consciously chosen not to get married for one reason or another in the full knowledge of their legal position. Getting carried away with debates and arguments about whether they are more or less likely to stay together, or might have an issue registering their partner's death, for example, is so minor in the wider scheme of things.

The OP has a hugely valid point, and I'll happily admit I've been distracted by all the other arguments. And that valid point is that so many women either believe in common law marriage, or are unable get married, and that's where the focus should be.

Stop arguing over minor quibbles. Start thinking about how to make sure all women begin to understand the implications of becoming financially reliable on someone without marriage.