Why do so many people in the uk not get married?
Posted by awkward_plum98@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 17 comments
First off, I dont mean to come off a rude with this question, there is nothing at all wrong with not getting married, Im just inexperienced in life as a teenager and a bit curious.
Why do people have a realtionship for 10+ years, have kids, have a house together but not get married?
Obviously everyones situation is different, and I've heard adults mention the cost of getting married 'properly' is quite high, but I cant imagine that so many people care about that. Is this really the main reason or do people just not care for the paperwork these days?
Thanks for answering my silly questions reddit, have a nice day :-)
EDIT: i regret posting this question some of the responces are very bleak, but thank you for the knowldge, tdlr exlensive party is a pressure cooker and waste of money compsred to houses or holidays, disvorces are painful and messy, people dont liek the religoius or mysoginistic aspect, fair play thank you
Notabene69@reddit
*** Does anyone know if the UK has similar tax breaks for married couples? We paid significantly more here in the US when we were just living together.
destria@reddit
I don't think people understand the legal framework behind getting married and what that actually entails in terms of your rights and responsibilities. That goes for both people who don't get married and people who do. It's not just a piece of paper, nor is it necessarily religious or traditional.
This summary is pretty much what led my partner and I to get married after 10 years. We were already living together, owned a house, thinking about having kids and already being unmarried was causing some problems. It's stuff like oh I need to put this life insurance into a special trust just to make sure he gets it and my family don't. Or how I couldn't share his workplace private medical insurance. It's not romantic at all but these little things add up. Not to mention, what if the worst happened and one of us died? What happens to our stuff, our money, our pension? Headaches all around.
Nor does it have to be expensive. A wedding is different to a marriage. You can get married at a registry office with two witnesses and a couple hundred quid.
CidreVinegar@reddit
This!!! Exactly this. I am in the boat of married without a wedding to protect financial outcomes .... well, almost, we 'marry' in a month but no bugger will know about it (!) I looked into other ways of legally protecting ourselves and it all worked out way more expensive than the £40 odd we are spending on the 'marriage' just the two of us. If it is a purely legal and financial affair it didn't have to be a 'thing' - we aren't telling family or friends, it means that little!!
JanuaryGrace@reddit
I did this 4 years ago! Got married in jeans and flip flops on a Wednesday morning with 2 witnesses, didn’t tell anyone until after. We had a house and 2 kids, we just wanted the legal protection.
Notabene69@reddit
I got married in a mini skirt & flip flops (it was the 80's) as well. We went to a justice of the peace on a Tuesday because it was half the price as the weekend. Two young broke kids in love.
innitdoe@reddit
Many people consider marriage to be an outdated and unnecessary institution with unwanted religious connotations. Additionally the financial advantages to it are quite small and the process itself is often expensive (certainly if you have a big party it can be very expensive).
Why do they need to be married?
lambriniqueen@reddit
This.
Yes, there are legitimate financial benefits to getting married, and maybe I'll have to figure that out later in my life... but as someone who doesn't care for religious institutions (disclaimer: I don't judge anyone for their individual beliefs) why should I have to buy into their outdated, historically misogynistic practice to get those financial benefits?
Edit: the health stuff imo is also kinda fucked up. Why do I have to be married to someone to prove we've had a long term, intimate relationship and I care about what happens to their health????
ThousandWit@reddit
I think the point of marriage in the modern day is to be that proof. Regardless of whatever historical connotations marriage may have once had (and you can still get a civil partnership if you don't like those connotations!), if I'm a doctor and you come into my hospital for the first time with your partner in a coma, I don't actually know that you're the person to trust. And while you can go round updating next of kin forms at every place you might need to, an easier way to do it would be if you had some sort of certification that you're the person to be trusted on all topics. Marriage to me looks like the legal framework for providing that proof of relationship needed to access the societal benefits of that relationship.
jaimelannister95@reddit
I am a doctor. People don't always nominate their spouses as nok and we're not supposed to assume that the spouse is the nok. A nok can be a parent, a child, a sibling, even a friend. In fact, while working in ICU, I saw very few people whose nok was their spouse, even if they were married.
PoisedPigeon@reddit
The financial advantages can be pretty massive.
Especially with inheritance.
geeered@reddit
So can the disadvantages if it all goes around - well, apart from the lawyers!
AweDaw76@reddit
Not getting married, for a Woman, is a HUGE risk if you have kids together
You will lose pension contributions, both private and NI credits, and are entitled to literally nothing except a tiny bit of Child Maintenance. Even if you don’t believe in marriage, get pen on paper for Civil Partnership to take risk off the table
geeered@reddit
If the woman stops working and the man continues working.
This is how it happens the majority of the time, but it doesn't have to be that way too.
AweDaw76@reddit
It doesn’t, but that’s how it is 90% of the time
jaimelannister95@reddit
If a woman has to stop working after having kids, the problem is her lack of ambition, not her husband. And it also implies that dad is an incompetent, deadbeat who has no interest in spending any time with his own kids.
Emotional_Gap2177@reddit
As far as I know, a civil wedding certificate costs around £60. So money are never an excuse. They simply don't want to. They like this life of waking up everyday and see what the vibes are, and leave if they get bored. On to the next one. 🤷🏻♀️ That's what I've noticed.
SnowmanRandom@reddit
Why stay in a horrible relationship?