Is marriage becoming the preserve of the affluent?

[ChocolateWombat]

Having been a parent at a state school in a socially mixed area, and also a parent at an affluent independent school, I have noticed a real difference in whether parents are married or not.

In the independent school of almost 600 pupils, almost all of the parents are or seem to be/have been married - on the parents list, almost every mother is Mrs...
However, at the socially mixed school, probably 2/3 of the parents were unmarried. Those who were seemed to be the more middle class ones. It just got me thinking.

Now before this turns into a state school/independent school issue, I really don't want it to. My interest is in the role affluence plays in whether people marry or not - I can totally see that in state schools in affluent areas, similar numbers of parents are likely to be married.

Is marriage becoming the preserve of the affluent and something out of the ordinary for the less affluent? Is this the case and if so, why?

Oops, just remembered one of our sets of friends ARE married. They eloped to a Scottish island and had a humanist ceremony alone :)

Humanist ceremonies are not legally binding.

I married after children and loads of people in my nct class in a middle class area weren't married.

However, I would agree that the practical and legal benefits of marriage (e.g. on divorce, when passing assets between husband and wife) aren't so relevant if you don't have money.

Battery - I'm pretty sure they are in Scotland?

I think educated women are just more clued up on the legal and financial benefits of marriage, and more confident to state their terms.

I'm astonished by the number of women on here who have no idea of the disadvantages of cohabiting.

It needs to be taught in schools, along with basics of economics and financial management.

I'm a married "Miss". I got married because I was young and in love and wanted a fab party and a big dress I later came to learn mostly via MN and quite embarrassingly for a lawyer how important marriage was to protect me and my DC. If you do not marry then you need to make a raft of proactive decisions to ensure you and your DC are adequately protected.

Now I'm doing pretty well so it'd have made sense not to marry since DH earns a fraction of my salary

There's rather more marriage amongst the parents of my DC's peer group than I'd have expected, having grown up in a liberal left milieu.

I see your foolish and ignorant, and raise you provincial, small-c conservative.

It really wasn't very long ago that being pregnant and unmarried was a big deal.
My mother was sent to an unmarried mothers home and I'm in my forties.

Maybe it comes down to the various sorts of middle class. Pony, dog and aga middle class get married. Arty bohemian middle class don't.

I've never understood the argument that it costs a lot to get married. Licence is somewhere in the region of £30 and you can do the deed at a registry office for around £40. Everything else is an optional extra.

I think one thing has been missed in this thread - benefits. Although I am married, I have noticed in the more deprived area in which I live, that most couples with children are not.

The mother claims to be a single mother, the father having deserted her, and she will claim it was a violent relationship and therefore she cannot be made to give information about him. She will also claim social anxiety as a result of the violence, and will therefore negotiate a tidy benefits package, all while living in domestic harmony with the so-called violent partner who is actually just her partner.

Married unemployed women do not receive half of these benefits as her husband is expected to support her. It is disgusting and the whole benefits system basically discourages marriage.

How many of these cases can you personally verify?

Or did you read about it in the Mail?

And what would you rather? That the benefits system encouraged marriage?

Then what? How will that help improve adult relationships, for the benefit of children?

runningoutofpatience - how many women do you actually, personally know who are in that exact situation? What a load of twaddle that sounds!

I was married, will get divorced later this year. No major assets other than house and children, both of which we are splitting 50/50. No biggy. The fact that we are married has no effect whatsoever on who gets what, just an unnecessary bit of extra paperwork.

If neither of you have anything then financially it's not as relevant. Half of nothing will still be nothing! But for high earners it makes a huge difference. And even more of a difference if a woman puts her career on hold to raise children. I've never known anyone personally who is married to a high earner who is able to share childcare duties 50:50. I'm sure it does happen but it's not common in my experience. Most professionals, including myself when I worked, have to travel for business and had to be available at stupid o'clock for international conference calls. It meant sitting in pjs at 1:00am on the phone. It's just not compatible with caring for children. When my son came along we were faced with putting him in full time care be it nursery/nanny or one of us giving up work at least while he's young. My husband has financial commitments to his previous wife that mean he doesn't even have the option of giving up work to stay home even if he wanted to. He pays his ex a huge amount of maintenance because they were married. Had they not been he wouldn't owe her a cent. She is more qualified than him but she did put her career on the back burner for their kids. I imagine she's quite happy she was married!

**"I also agree education is a factor; the more educated you are, the more likely you are to have realised how much better the outcomes for DCs are with married parents."

That statement, to me, seems very judgemental actually.

running

Are you the editor of the daily fail?

What a load of codswallop!

Marriage offers nothing to financially independent women.

The fact that statistically lots of women aren't financially independent is a huge feminist issue but shouldn't be confused with the pros/cons of marriage per se.

"I think educated women are just more clued up on the legal and financial benefits of marriage, and more confident to state their terms.

I'm astonished by the number of women on here who have no idea of the disadvantages of cohabiting.

It needs to be taught in schools, along with basics of economics and financial management."

Well, for alot of women, there is no actual finanacial benefit of getting married (unless you look for a husband with assets or earning potential).
For some women, who are financially independant and continue to be so throughy the child bearing years, the only reason to get married is because you want to, not because it makes financial sense to do so.

Dd at private school. I am down as Mrs. I have never been married.

The one unequivocal irreplaceable advantage of marriage is the inheritance tax break. If you have a house and assets worth more than 650,000 between you then you really really need to marry. Clearly this is going to place a disproportionate incentive for marriage for the fairly wealthy (the super rich have their own alternatives).

The new SAHP marriage tax break is also only an incentive if you're earning noticeably over the personal allowance, and have a SAHP in the family, so that's an incentive that's skewed away from the very poor.

Kids at state school . I'm not a Mrs . We are married and affluent. I would never eat shop bought jam, only home made

What are the reasons why less affluent women are choosing not to marry? I am more interested in them, than the range of responses from the affluent.
In the past less affluent women married, but there seems to have been a big decline.

I agree with Jackie0 - it's only really in the last 40 years or so that illegitimacy has lost its stigma.

Previously an unmarried mother was a fallen woman and the father was often written out of the picture.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/11362982/In-the-Family-Way-Illegitimacy-Between-the-Great-War-and-the-Swinging-Sixties-by-Jane-Robinson.html

OP you are sounding a bit like a reporter but to answer your last post, someone I know who was a NINA unmarried mum for 14 years got pregnant young. As she had left school with no qualifications and was in a low paid unskilled job with no prospect of that ever changing she chose to keep her unplanned baby rather than having an abortion, which is what most middle class girls who get pregnant do. So she ended up raising a dc with someone who was a 'teenage boyfriend' but not someone she ever saw as a life partner. He did ask her to marry him. They did have one of those never ending engagements but never even started planning a wedding. She felt that it was better to stay with him while the DCs were young but once they were older they broke up as ultimately they weren't suited.

She had several friends with similar life stories.

I don't think this was that uncommon.