Cesira living together is a choice. Having a child is a choice. If you don’t want the potential consequences, don’t do it
Yes. You are making the choice the live together as opposed to choosing to enter into a contract.
If we have arrived at the point where so many do not realise that living together with a child in common does not create a legal commitment it is also possible for a situation to arise where people do not realise that if they do not leave within a cut off point they are entering into a legal contract.
Those that do realise it might create a phenomenon of leaving and returning (with the resultant instability for their partner/kids) to avoid a continuous period of co-habitation changing their commitment status.
Plus a potentially not inconsiderable number of non-primary caregivers who will walk out the day before they become liable for more than they are willing to give. That has the capacity to increase the number of partners a serial monogamist clocks up and creates children, then leaves with over their lifetime.
Additionally I know lots of people who have lived together for years, whose children are now grown, who continue to live together, love each other and continue to provide the stability their children have long enjoyed via their solid union. I see no reason to arm twist those people into a legally binding contract they actively do not want, or force them to live apart in order to avoid it. We have moved on from shotgun weddings being foistered on people, I see no benefit to returning to something not so dissimilar in the form of contracts that are not actively sought, or desired by the participants.
Women in particular can wind up trapped in a shared home, via economic disadvantage and/or abusive behaviours. I cannot support a policy that would have them sleepwalking into a legal contract with somebody that they do not actively choose to enter into a legal commitment with, but instead passively slide into because they are hamstrung, or too disoriented/disadvantaged to avoid.
I agree with you that what has become socially acceptable has effectively stripped by the back door the primary caregiver (of any shared children) of protections they could previously rely on. That should be tackled head on. It is perfectly possible to have good and valid reasons for being opposed to marriage/civil union. It is also perfectly possible for people to espouse those same reasons simply because they wish to camouflage their (or their partner's) antipathy for committing to their current partner, regardless of what that means for the other person in the relationship.
Which is why I have agreed with the OP's point about raising awareness of the different legal status of living together v marriage for the last 15 years. But I don't think we can effect real change by tinkering with the law, which is unlikely to resolve the issue it sets out to resolve, and has the potential for a whole host of unwanted, unintended consequences.
What would be more effective, and fairer to those who have ethical/philosophical objections to marriage/civil partnership, would be to achieve real clarity in the public's mind as to what the legal ramifications are of having children outside of making a freely chosen, active commitment to each other.
And rendering it at least as socially acceptable ("cool" if you like) to insist on commitment before children, as it is to have children first and postpone legal commitment between the parents.
I think the campaign will have to be a lot more high profile, and far better funded than any of the efforts that I have seen thus far.