why do people want to get married

[juswonderin]

Looks like most marriage are unhappy. What's the point of marriage? For kids? Why can't they be raised to be happy, healthy adults by single unmarried parents? Do you think when kids grow up (next 20-30 years), marriage will be as important in society as it is now?

I am just very fed up with my own problems and was wondering what's the point? I was a happy person once. Sorry for the rant.

I haven't read all the comments but we are all affected by our experiences and it seems there are lots of split opinions.

My marriage is very happy, we've been together 12 years this year with one DS 4.

We're married because we wanted to celebrate our commitment to each other and it makes sense for finances and arrangements with our son.

I grew up with an unmarried mother who cohabited unhappily with a man for 17 years before she died. I was determined to be nothing like that and would rather be alone than unhappily married/in a long term relationship.

Being sure of who you and your partner before getting married is probably helpful.

"You should actively choose to share your assets not get them by default."

This.

There should not be special rights for cohabiting partners.

I DO think that PSHE and sex education classes at schools should clearly spell out to young people that there is no such thing as a "common law" spouse, and that if you are going to have children with someone then you need to either a) get married b) get civil partnered c) sit down with a solicitor and work out everything in the form of contracts and wills or d) base your lifestyle choices on the assumption that you could potentially be left raising your child as a single parent without any help at any moment.

Mary - that simply doesn't work if you end up with an abuser which between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 women will.

Offred, I don't belive that 25-33% of husbands are abusive. Whilst some women and some men may end up with abusive partners it's not an issue with marriage.

If you combine marycanary's and chickiwick's posts though it hits the right buttons. Like Chickiwick I grew up in an unhappy marriage and my parents invented serial divorce and I saw my mother take my father to the cleaners and her second husband take her to the cleaners.

Let's say I grew up fairly cautious and mindful of everything Mary has said.

Too many women end up in abusive relationships (and for all my parents' mistakes I never experienced that) because society still conditions women that it's better to be in a relationship than single. I still remember snidey comments in my 20s when I was single from 22-27 "just focussing on your career or has a pretty girl like you got something to hide in her closet". Er no, I just can't be arsed with tossers and there aren't many decent blokes about. Got married at 31.

I got married nearly 26 years ago and had a pre nup. It was my money then. The problem is?

The problem is, that yes they can be taken into account however they can also be over ruled.

Sensible though - sets out expectations early.

Looks like most marriage are unhappy.

What a strange comment OP. Where did you pull that from? Thin air?

Happily married here. Marriage was a way of legally and publicly committing ourselves to one another for life. I certainly hope it is still important when my DC grow up. They'll be raised to view it as important.

Where did you pull that from? Thin air?
Divorce statistics?
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2013#percentage-of-marriages-ending-in-divorce
OK, 42% is not "most", but it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that if that's the divorce rate then the unhappiness rate might be at least 50%.

Personally, though, I read that comment not as something strange, but as a sign that the OP is feeling very sad at the moment due to personal circumstances. And when you have a bad experience like that, suddenly when you look around all you can see is other people having a bad time too. It's something that only time will help with.

It's not an issue with marriage but 1 in 3 16-24 year old women are in an abusive relationship, 1 in 4 women will experience DA in their lifetime according to current stats.

My point was it is all very well telling children that you should not have children until you have the protection of marriage and there is no such thing as 'common law spouse', though there are some legal protections in place for unmarried cohabitees with children already in actual fact, abusive partners exercise control over their victims so just knowing the info does little about what is actually quite a large problem of abuse of women in intimate relationships.

and TBH marriage and abuse are not entirely separate issues, we know abuse usually escalates at three stages - when you marry, when you have children and when you try to leave.

I believe we need laws that adequately protect women and children from abuse and which aim to equalise economic power between men and women and we need to raise boys and girls to understand abuse and equality.

Telling children (but girls really) to get married before a baby is not always wise anyway and is a bit like victim blaming.

Offred where are those figures from? They don't reflect the society that I see. What sort of laws do you propose to " equalise economic power between men and women"? I don't want to upset anyone but it sounds as though you've had a tough time and are a little bitter. There are good people and bad people but vicimising men or women isn't going to help that.

Never understood marriage.

It seems insane!
You've known someone a few years and want to make a legally binding contract to ensure they can never leave you?

People grow and people change, it's an unreasonable concept to me

Fall in love and be happy

I can see why you would think making a legally binding contract to ensure someone can't leave you is insane. It's less obvious why you think that's what marriage is, though.

I think with some of the recent court cases where people long divorced are being dragged back to court and told they must make more and bigger payments even after a 'settlement' has been made will stop people wanting to get married.

You've known someone a few years and want to make a legally binding contract to ensure they can never leave you?
Having grown up with divorced parents I guess I've never seen it that way :)

But basically, when you have children, you are producing a new person with someone you may have known for a very short time - a new person who will have half your traits and half the traits of this semi-stranger :) Compared with that, marriage suddenly seems perfectly reasonable, no? Marriage is/was just a way to make all that weirdness seem official and thus absolutely normal.

Happily married for 13 years, together for 24 years. I don't especially think marriage is the only way, but for us, I really wanted a word for him which showed that we were one family unit. I wanted something that symbolized us making a choice to stick together through good times and bad. I wanted that security for our kids, and for us to have one name.

Plus marriage offers legal and social benefits too - when he got a job abroad I could go, we've been able to travel in some conservative countries without raising eyebrows, we know we won't be hit by inheritance tax when one of us dies, and if, God forbid, we broke up, there is legal protection that ensures a fair division.

It just works for us, as it worked for our parents etc. We've never had a divorce in either family so I guess we had that example before us. If you don't want to, fair enough, but I'd not change my decision for the world.

To be fair, the recent case I think you're thinking of lotsof was as much because the initial judge had for some reason fucked up and the mistake needed correcting as anything else. It was an issue with the initial settlement that for whatever reason hadn't been remedied at the time. The reporting on that one wasn't very responsible or accurate though.

Engineer - it is not my responsibility to educate you on the issue of globally gendered violence. Use google for fact checking and stop sneering at me.

Maybe a good place to start would be ordering a copy of 'men explain things to me' by Rebecca solnit.

My marriage is very important to me.
It's a legal and public commitment to each other for life, and a religious sacrament.
My DH is the love of my life, we are happy, our children are happy.

Offred,
I wasn't sneering at you but I do question what you are writing. I was interested in what legal changes you propose. Your tone does seems a little harsh to me though.

Yeah I was interested too. I'm well aware of gendered violence, my question is more about whether altering the status of cohabitants is likely to change the situation in the UK for the better. I'm aware that Canada and Australia have done so, and Ireland also have a system where people can opt in rather than it happen automatically. Has this made things better for women and children there?

I never really understood why people got married until I met the love of my life, everything clicked and suddenly it was something I really, really wanted to do -as did he. 18 months on we were married, and now nearly 20 years and 3 DC later, we are still very much in love and very happy.

TBH I completely understand it doesn't work for everybody, and why some people don't understand marriage as a concept - I was one of them for a long time. But it works for us. If other people don't want to 'get it', doesn't affect me