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).

Just for the record, any source that makes statements about "UK Law" is automatically suspect. There is no such thing. The law of England and Wales is completely discrete and very different in many areas to that of Scotland. Different courts, judges, legislation and caselaw. You might as well say "the law of Australia and New Zealand".

No clue what the law is around next of kin, personally.

sleep I think we just have a different perspective...I believe people need to take responsibility for their own actions and that the State should be a last port of call. Whilst it would be nice in theory for the law to 'help people out', the reality is that too much state interference is oppressive and, IMO creates a culture of helplessness and dependency.

I'm not necessarily saying you are wrong and I am right, we just see the same issue differently.

The advice my mum gave me is the same I give my dds - Always be financially independent - have your own career and your own money.

And if they have a disabled child, who relies on them completely to remain functional? What then?

Rather than saying that women should get married for protection, shouldn't we be campaigning for mothers to have the right to be supported (in excess of what CSA levels currently supply) regardless of marital status?

People should have a good CIC policy in place prior to having children, this is what I mean by taking responsibility for yourself.

...the better ones pay out in the event that a child is born with a disability or is diagnosed with a critical illness before the age of 18

Battery just as with the Cohabiting Agreements that's a really narrow and UK centric situation. Let me assure you the Next of Kin is very much relevant to any healthcare systems we have dealt with.

For example in New York I was carefully questioned (look quite young) and I could have sworn the lady had a look at my hand for my wedding band.

I would advise people to consider the wider issue of your partnership. There are a lot of posts on here about breaking up, divorce and being financially independent but let's assume you actually want to stay with your partner there are lots of good reasons to get married, like pensions, wills, ill health etc etc etc.

Battery, I think the last port of call would be exactly my argument here, to be honest, but I hear what you say about different perspectives. And there would be injustice possible the other way, too, of course. In Australia (where the states vary in their legal positions, but have de facto marriage law for cohabitants) there have been cases of relatively short relationships where the poorer party has benefited to what seems to me an unfair degree, and I wouldn't want that to happen, either. I just feel like a threshold of entitlement should exist to protect those with children, especially.

I may add that I'm very happily married, with life insurance on DH's life in my own name (so would remain beneficiary no matter what happened between us) and good wills. So I've done all you presumably think a woman should, if she undertakes primary domestic responsibility. But I also had the luck to meet someone lovely, and benefit from a good education, which included sufficient legal understanding to want to be married before making career sacrifices when the kids came along. Not everyone is as lucky, and part of the "dependency" narrative that does make me flinch a little is it seems to penalise those less blessed in life on the grounds that those more fortunate can manage, so why can't they?

True, but most of us are in the UK, and this is a UK based fourm.

A UK centric focus to a discussion is quite appropriate here, IMO.

Not every couple can manage to maintain financial independence for both of them, capitalism doesn't work like that. If a child or an adult or their parent is sick then it is almost impossible. It doesn't even have to be a serious or long term illness, very few people could take a month or two off to care for a child and have a job to go back for.

What is really needed is a cast-iron, absolutely no wiggle room law that ensures any adult becoming a parent through consensual sex/IVF HAS TO step up and pay a certain amount to support that child until the age of 18. Parents can either do 50% of parenting and financial support, or they can pay a decent amount to whoever is taking on that responsibility for them.

And the cap on how much that is should be somewhere near 80% of take home pay.

When families split any assets should be divided by the number of people that they have to support, not the number of adults, and then pro-rata-ed by residency of kids.

More flexibility towards family time for covering medical appt.s/illness would also be great.

But until those things happen, then yes, no-one should contemplate parenthood without legal protection.

Error not really. Don't you ever leave the country? A medical emergency while abroad happens to people all the time.

Of course we sit within the EU and all legal agreements can be challenged particularly if there relatively new models.

Also good work making non UK posters feel so welcome.

people within a family situation should take care if the security of all members. Whether that be a father who is a stay at home carer to a disabled child, a mother who has given up her career. Or a family with two careers and a big mortgage.

The most important factor in this security may or may not be marriage, it might be life insurance or carefully written wills or whatever.

I agree that a sahm with no assets of her own and who has given up financial independence to care for children will be far better married.

But not everyone fits that mold.

I'm laughing beadybaby if you want to score a point off me that badly, here, just have it

...and I travel plenty thanks, don't think I will ever find myself dealing with matters of intestacy anywhere else though, and that is what we are discussing here...

No, not really. The thread is about the level of protection married couples enjoy, financial or otherwise, compared to non married couples. That covers a pretty broad spectrum of issues.

It is important to understand the difference between an internationally recognised contract (like marriage) and a nationally recognised one.

For example loads of people in the UK think prenups can be enforced etc

People are replying like they didn't read the OPs thread. If your going to be a stay at home parent make sure you have a legal backing. Mostly mums. We have all heard it before about trapped wives. Its worse with no legal standing.

The thing is, Blu, marriage can prevent one member of a family unilaterally ending the unit and leaving the other person with all the responsibility, while they hang on to most of the £.

And Battery, a lot of people couldn't afford the sort of platinum plated CIC policies to which you refer (even now the insurers finally pay out in most claimed-for situations, which for a very long time they famously didn't), let alone alongside life policies, mortgages, and health insurance. So you end up, rather as in the States, with a large group of people barely clinging on by their fingernails, because they can't afford good insurance, and can't afford to be without it because there is no good alternative provided by the state. That isn't a social welfare system I admire, or would like to be part of - especially as children are condemned in most cases to the lives of their parents' choices. Of course insurance policies are very important protections to have, but not everyone can afford them - and social welfare systems are there to provide a bare safety net then. In some cases, the state picks up the slack because an ex doesn't want to have to. How does it fit with your politics, if housing benefit provides for kids while one parent stays in the family home alone? How is that the state hands-off?

Finally, children's CI cover is small lump sum - think national average salary level - meant as a bridge for the family, not a raft. It couldn't possibly compensate for loss of career potential, in almost all cases.

Dianat1969 the thing is that would would loose her standard of living but the choice is there. She will have £350.000 from half of that house if mortgage free. Choice choice choice

I couldn't agree more. When my (unmarried) parents split after twenty years together, my father - totally legally - threw my mother out without a penny. She has done amazingly well since, but he would never have been able to do that if they had been married. It is really important!

I'm always surprised at how people dismiss marriage. Do you ever wonder why gay people lobbied so long and hard for the right to marry? It isn't because they wanted a big wedding. it is because they were tired and sad and worn out by being excluded from the bedsides of dying partners, given no say in end of life decisions, excluded from benefits their partner could have gotten (insurance/health) if they were married, tired of being liable to inheritance tax, tired of going to lawyers to make complex costly arrangements that anyone else could arrange in one day by buying a marriage license and heading down to the registry office.

The OP could have phrased it better but I think a lot of people are living in a la la land where being a partner is the same as being a spouse because that is the way it ought to be. It isn't.

I agree ClashCityRocker - instead of telling women to marry lobby for defacto/civil partnerships/cohabitating couples' relationships to be accorded the same legal status and protection as marriage like they are in many countries.

In NZ if a couple has lived together for three years in the event of a breakup their relationship is treated the same as a marriage in terms of asset redistribution if it is taken to court.

21 year olds who have lived together for 3 years as students are likely to have few assets and just break up going their separate ways. But someone with children who has lived with their partner for over 3 years is protected in law with all assets seen as joint.

In these threads you see people tying themselves in knots, saying that their situation is different, coming up with numerous contracts and ways to try and imitate some of the protections marriage affords when would be a hell of a lot cheaper to buy a licence and go down the town hall on your lunch break. Marriage is what you make of it, if you want to see it as purely a contractual agreement that's all it has to be. You don't even need to tell anyone that you've done it if you're not into the idea.

And those who are the higher earner, yeah, I would do the decent thing and marry my partner in that position. If something happened to me I wouldn't want them to go through any more distress or worry than absolutely necessary. Atilla's point was still relevant- no-one wants to potentially be beholden to someone's extended family when their spouse passes. Too many people think they'll get round to making a will or any of the agreements mooted above, but put it off because of the cost or hassle in engaging a solicitor or whatever. At least if you're married, the majority of that is dealt with.

I wonder if the option for civil partnerships was open to heterosexual couples would there be many takers who are just against the concept of 'marriage', or if they'd made the same sort of arguments against it? My view has definitely been coloured by many of the stories I've read on this board. It's too easy for someone to fuck you over once the love is gone and the chequebooks come out, when all you have is the memory of a conversation where they said, "but I'd never do that to you".

I got married after DH asked me to move in with him. I told him that I wanted to be #1 in his life and have him as #1 in my life. I explained that if I just moved in with him the LL commitment to them would be greater than the commitment to each other and I didn't want that. He proposed about 22 hours later!

I had two weddings and if we couldn't have afforded it we would have gone to city hall and had the mayor marry us. FWIW I earned more than DH when we married and 7 years later he earns 10x what I earn. We got married in the US and have a prenup to protect both of us. I don't understand why anyone would have children before marriage but each to their own.