Consultation on marriage laws

[OlennasWimple]

Interesting proposals for changing the marriage laws, including adding mother's details to the register (yay!) but doing away with actual certificates (boo!) and extending civil partnerships to hetero couples (not sure about this)

Some interesting re-imagining of the past in that article. Civil partnerships, at the time, were not intended as a stepping stone to same sex marriage. The fact that Civil Partnerships were not made available to opposite sex couples when marriage was made available to same sex couples flew in the face of the equality that same sex marriage was purportedly all about. Marriage is an institution which is founded upon and perpetuates inequality. I was born in the late 1960s and certainly through my teens and into my adult life, marriage was seen as outdated and increasingly irrelevant. I do find it bizarre that marriage is now seen as somehow progressive.

Personally, I'd vote for the abolition of marriage and replace it with a wide range of legal protections and responsibilities for people whose lives are intertwined and who depend on and are responsible for each other in different ways.

I'm in favour of civil partnerships for heterosexual couples that want them. The function of marriage historically was to enslave women. It robbed them of any right to financial, sexual or reproductive autonomy or even the right to an independent legal existence. I think there should be an option (or several options as pp suggests) that allow women (and men) who can't get past this history to nevertheless enter into committed relationships.

I'd prefer a civil partnership to marriage. Civil partnership assumes people are partners - it's even in the name. And we can do away with all of this 'giving away' nonsense etc.

You can have a marriage ceremony without any of the sexist trappings. The bare legal minimum is that you both say you’ll agree to get married. That’s it! Yes there’s a history, but in terms of the ceremony, you can do away with everything except the legal formalities .

I would've had a civil partnership if it was available, for sure.

I'm in favour of a formal ceremony to mark 2 people making a commitment to each other.
The religious version can be called 'marriage', and the civil partnership ceremony can be held in a registry office & called 'marriage'.

I don't see why they should have different legal implications, or be available to only heterosexual or gay couples.

UpStart - do you think that "marriage" would be seen as superior to "partnership", if we went down that route?

UpABitLate - can I ask why?

Marriage has too much baggage for men, with the history of it. It's got a religious root, it derived from when women were property etc. I'm an athiest and a feminist and while I did get married and have a nice time I'd rather have had another option.

mE

not men!

I think there is already some snobbery between church and registry office, I know people who aren't at all religious who have had one or more church weddings. I know one couple who were put out a local Catholic church wouldn't marry them, because they aren't Catholic. They seemed to think you can just hire any local building because its pretty, and get a vicar in.

I'm not fussed about the ceremony, it's the institution I have a problem with.

The CofE are very clear that they are there to serve the community in the UK and are happy to perform baptisms, weddings and funerals for any members of society.

However I don't think many people believe you can hire "any local building because it's pretty and get a vicar in" I think most understand that it needs to be a church of the relevant denomination.

You sound a bit sniffy yourself TBH.

Also, you can get married in loads of places for civil ceremonies now. It doesn't need to be a registry office. I got married in a lovely old building - yes it was pretty - and the registrar came to us. This is normal these days.

C of E

"It is both a privilege and a duty for your vicar to join a man and a woman in marriage. The good news is that you can marry in church regardless of your beliefs, whether or not you are christened and whether or not you have been a regular churchgoer.

Because getting married gives you a whole new legal status with many benefits, there are considerations for the vicar to make in both UK civil and church law. There are some basic requirements but there could be complications if:-

One or both of you is a national from a country that is outside the European Economic Area. Special procedures apply to the legal preparations for these marriages, to protect and celebrate those which are genuine and to help prevent those which are not.
If one or both of you has been married before. There may well be a way forward for you to be re-married in church but the vicar has certain considerations in these circumstances. Read more about this.
Although same-sex marriage legislation has changed, it remains the case that it is not legally possible for same-sex couples to marry in the Church of England."

The bare legal minimum is that you both say you’ll agree to get married

We had a civil ceremony and during the interviews I was very clear that I wanted us both to say the same things. In the event, they used slightly different wording for me than for him, I hesitated to say yes, wanted to say look, we agreed we would say the same things. In the event, I trusted him to be equal, and just went with it. But it is just not right to say that the minimum is you both agree to get married.

Wow they really shouldn't have done that. You should complain (if it wasn't years ago).

Ours had a menu of words that we could choose from and we had the same. I think the assumption was they would be the same unless you wrote something yourself.

I mean the menu had maybe 4 sets of words / vows that were non gendered. So yours must have had to put something in on purpose. Unless it was different in your region - ours was branded for the area we were getting married in IYSWIM.

We were married in Surrey. When I asked about the different forms of words, they fobbed me off saying that the others were simplified versions for 'people who don't understand'. Suppose that should have told me how sympathetic they were.

I never complained...'bout the only time in all my life that i just put up with it... I decided what really matters is our relationship and how things work between us.

Oh well that's shit. I got married in Herts and there was a whole pack with loads of info & I think 3 or 4 sets of words printed you could choose from or write your own. The provided sets ranged from very flowery / romantic to much more straightforward and were all very well written I thought. We went with one of the provided sets. They didn't have different male / female forms for any of the provided sets.
I'm really sorry they did that what sods. You're right though it's not something to dwell on (I am a dweller and it doesn't make me happy!).