advantage of getting married?

[mama2leah]

my partner and myself are deciding if we should get married, what are the advantages? can someone tell us. we have a few children together, live together, i am a SAHM.

You have rather more in the way of legal rights if you are married (WRT inheritance/money, as to your DC if your P is named on the birth certificate he has parental responsiblilty') than if you are not.
That's it, basically. All the rest is down to how you and your partner feel about it.

We got married after having our DD and before having our DS. It didn't seem important to us to get married before we had children.

Although it sounds stupid, it felt better to get married, change my name and have the same name as DH and the DCs. It is kind of 'neater' and we felt more like a family (just because of the name!).

Getting married makes your spouse your next of kin. While you remain unmarried, your parents are your next of kin. This is important, because next of kin have rights/responsibilities when you are dead/in hospital/considered unable to decide for yourself.

If you die, next of kin inherits. Many an unmarried partner has been turfed from their home on the untimely death of a loved partner, even by previously friendly 'in-laws'.

If you are in hospital/unconscious etc. next of kin signs the consent forms for treatment. Or not.

Father, regardless of name on the birth certificate, has less rights than the mother over the children. Once married rights are equal, e.g. to make decisions on schooling, healthcare etc.

TBH, it just simplifies things. It may not make a huge difference in day-to-day life, but it helps when life gets nasty.

I feel happier having the same name as the rest of my family. Also, I think it makes a difference to how people view me, as I have always looked younger than I am and am also a little insecure. I dont know if I feel more confident or people attitudes are different but I am happy with it

for better or worse, society will percieve a marriage as more committed than a live-in relationship - particularly when dealing with hospitals, banks and any other 'officialdom' people can claim to be a 'partner' very easily but to be a 'husband' or 'wife' is a recognised status which could come in handy if one of you were sick or in an accident or other horrible situation.

It changes your relationship - in a very small and subtle way, it just 'feels' nicer. That's what I found anyway. HArd to describe...

On the legal side you might want to look here for a summary of the differences

Hmmm, couple of things aren't quite correct here.

If both your names are on the mortgage, you would keep the house if your partner died. You can also both make wills to identify exactly what the other would get if one partner dies.

There's also this: "Father, regardless of name on the birth certificate, has less rights than the mother over the children. Once married rights are equal, e.g. to make decisions on schooling, healthcare etc."

This isn't correct. The father can aquire equal parental responsibility by simply being present at the baby's birth registration (or by other more complicated routes). Info from Directgov website:

"According to current law, a mother always has parental responsibility for her child. A father, however, has this responsibility only if he is married to the mother when the child is born or has acquired legal responsibility for his child through one of these three routes:

• (from 1 December 2003) by jointly registering the birth of the child with the mother
• by a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
• by a parental responsibility order, made by a court"

it makes you feel trapped, so if you like that feeling, go ahead. Sorry, but me and a number of my friends are very anti-marriage (even tho we got married). My sister was with her partner for 14 years. Then they got married. six months later they were almost divorced. It's a subtle but important change....think about it long and hard. You can get most of the same benefits with a few legal docs (wills, etc)

There's no legal definition of "next of kin". Don't know but wonder if you could appoint your partner as your "next of kin" in the event of needing to have one? Of course, I do realise getting married effectively deals with this anyway but...