ailbhe | On Marriage: I welcome discussion

From:

oldbloke.livejournal.com

I think some kind of ceremony marking the commitment has meaning and is useful, at a personal level.
Society needs stuff to clearly delineate levels of relationship for various legal purposes.

From:

ex-serenejo.livejournal.com

"Society needs stuff to clearly delineate levels of relationship for various legal purposes."

Why? We have contracts for that.

From:

hypatia.livejournal.com

"We have contracts for that."

Sure but that is what marriage is - its a legal contract. No amount of frills and dresses and whathaveyou alter the fact that it is a legal contract between two people, already structured to include potential property, inheritance and family issues. You can cover most of that in a bunch of subsidiary contracts but its a lot more complex in most countries (talking UK (non Scottish) law here).

From:

ex-serenejo.livejournal.com

I'm not talking strictly about marriage. I'm talking about your statement "Society needs stuff to clearly delineate levels of relationship for various legal purposes." Yes, and marriage contract is one way to do that, but I'm addressing whether or not we need "stuff" -- that is, stuff that's set up in a cookie-cutter fashion as a default that no one can alter -- to delineate the "levels" of relationship. When the government gets to decide what your relationships mean, then it can decide they mean *nothing*, as it's done with gay marriage and queer adoption and many other important familial relationships. Far better, I think, to get the government out of the sanctioning-private-relationships business.

From:

hypatia.livejournal.com

"I'm talking about your statement "Society needs stuff to clearly delineate levels of relationship for various legal purposes."

Are you addressing me or

oldbloke ? I made no such statement.

As for everyone making up their own contracts - people do make supporting contracts relating to property and inheritance responsibilities (and I'm not talking about pre-nups). You could of course, leave individual couples etc to make up their own contracts and not have a socially understood start point. I can see lots of lawyers doing nicely out of that and lots of women getting screwed by it. A great many of my generation bought into the 'we don't need the paper' only to find themselves years later alone and with no legal protection, no pensions or even rights to their own homes or contents.

I'll keep a standard and generally understood contract available however imperfect and however it needs extending until women really do have an equal share in society's material wealth to go with the rather more than equal share they bear of the responsibilities. You have the option not to use it if you don't like any part of it but that isn't justification for removing it from the many who depend on that cookie cutter contract for the most basic of protections.

From:

ailbhe

Ah yes, but when *I* rule the world...

Your generation's tales of hardship are why I felt I had to get the paper for my children, in spite of my personal moral objections to it. There are some very scary true stories out there.

From:

ex-serenejo.livejournal.com

Sorry for conflating the two of you.

I think we're talking past each other. I'm not saying the protections shouldn't be there for anyone. I'm saying they should be there for *everyone*.

And yeah, I have the option of not using those protections. But people I really care about (like the woman I spent four years of my life with, as married as we were legally allowed to be) don't have an option at all.

From:

clanwilliam.livejournal.com

I think there's a huge difference between the legal contract and asking your family and friends to come and celebrate your relationship, which happens to have the legal contract attached (not least in case of awkward family members).

Certainly, that's the spirit in which I got married. Unlike Ailbhe, I didn't want kids, and neither I nor my husband still want kids. We did want to make a public commitment to each other - in our case, it took the form of a Catholic ceremony. Not because either of us are religious but because the priest marrying us was a very close family member and we knew there was no-one better to celebrate our marriage. (My mum *had* asked that we do it in a church, and I was happy to fall in with her request, but had I not been happy, I would have stood firm.)

And I think there's enough people reading this LJ to agree that my uncle was pretty damn fab on the whole marriage thing.

The legal thing was a factor, but in that case, it was my issue, since I'm the property owner in the relationship.

The thing that annoys me about "civil partnerships" is that it's exclusionary on both sides. A gay couple who are happy with the concept of marriage are still not allowed to be married legally in the eyes of the law; they're only allowed to make a legal commitment to each other. A straight couple who are not happy with the implications of the word "marriage" still have no alternative.

I think that either everyone's allowed to get married, or the state gets out of marriage completely and just recognises legal partnerships (the latter would have the advantage of, for example, siblings living together being able to enjoy the same property benefits that could enable a survivor to keep their joint family home).

From:

rmc28

Um, but gay marriage does exist in this country. We just call it civil partnership. I wish we didn't have the naming difference because in terms of rights under the law they are identical, but I can hope that in another generation or two society will have moved on some more and we can avoid the duplication.

Tony & I got married because what we wanted was covered by the standard marriage contract (in particular next-of-kin rights for each other and any children). I'm happy that pretty much every official form I fill in seems to have done a cut+paste s/spouse/civil partner/ which allows a lot more people access to the same contract.

I also think that having a default contract (marriage/civil partnership) acts as a useful model to those who want to draw up their own contract. I believe that between them, marriage and civil partnership cover the majority of long-term relationships people want to protect in law; I'm sympathetic to e.g. poly relationships that aren't covered, but I'm a big fan of the 80/20 principle: have something that works for most people rather than have nothing because you can't make something that works for everyone.

From:

oldbloke.livejournal.com

Where did I say it shouldn't be just a simple contract? I used the word "stuff" precisely because it doesn't tie it down to any specific thing.
[5 further lines of rant deleted]

Edited Date: 2008-01-19 09:57 pm (UTC)

From:

ex-serenejo.livejournal.com

I'm not sure what you're asking views on. Yes, I think state-sanctioned marriage is unfair, and I won't participate in it until everyone's allowed, but if you want to know what I think about your participating in it, I think you did what was best for your family at the time and that's excellent. (I think the laws you describe suck a lot.)

From:

ailbhe

I was horrified when I discovered them; they made my parents legal next of kin to any children I had - both my parents. I wanted to avoid that. And you can't set that out in a will, either. Not with the same watertightness.

There was a time when the legal father of a child was the man married to its mother at the time of birth, no matter how many of the involved parties swore it was someone else.

From:

ai731.livejournal.com

Here the legal second parent of a child is that person designated by it's mother, and agreed to by the second person (male or female). That is to say, the mother signs a document (called a "Declaration of Birth") saying "The second parent of this child is Foo", and Foo signs the document to agree that he/she is the second parent of the child. Regardless of genetics, this second parent then has all parental rights. So my lesbian cousin's partner legally became the second parent at their son's birth, exactly the same way that Jean-Francois became Daphne's father at her birth. Basically the signatures on the "Declaration of Birth" trump the civil status of the individuals involved.

From:

ailbhe

It's whoever is on the birth cert now, I believe. But it wasn't when I first got pregnant.

It was by the time she was born. I may never get over being angry about that.

From:

micheinnz.livejournal.com

There was a time when the legal father of a child was the man married to its mother at the time of birth, no matter how many of the involved parties swore it was someone else.

I believe that's still the case in New Zealand.

From:

glitzfrau.livejournal.com

*outing self as author of question* -

I'm happy we are committed life partners. I'm delighted we're co-parents...

...what better answer could there be? For yourself as well as for nosy internetters?

From:

ailbhe

I think about the legal and social status parts a lot, and those I am definitely at best ambivalent about. I think they're important.

And I think that the very fact that the question, using the language as she is spoke, conflates "are you happy with your legal status" and "are you happy with your relationship status" is problematic.

From:

glitzfrau.livejournal.com

Hmm, but is that the fault of the language or of my phraseology?

From:

juliet

Disclaimer: as someone else has said, obviously you made what seemed like the best decision for your own situation at the time, which is fair enough. We have to live & work within the existing laws, after all.

Me personally? I wouldn't get married, because I am unhappy with the social & historical connotations of marriage. If civil partnerships were available for male/female relationships, I might consider that (except that I wouldn't due to having >1 partner, but in principle).

Having said which, my other personal objection to marriage is that I don't think my partnership(s) need legal recognition, particularly. (Which, to be clear, is not to imply that if other people want that there's anything wrong with that.) This gets more complicated of course if kids are involved - I'm in the position of managing my own finances, having no dependents, having a legal half-share in my house, etc etc, so it's very easy for me to say that the legality isn't important.

(Although I am reminded that I need to do something about the medical next-of-kin issue.)

Also the idea of standing up in front of people & all the hassle involved makes me shudder :-) (I know you can get married/partnered/whatever without the party & people & hassle, but given that the only reason that works for the whole thing for me personally is the "party & friends" aspect... :-) ).

I think that there still are a whole bunch of social issues around being "married" and the roles of husband and wife, and that these are mostly detrimental to woman (& in some cases to men as well). I also think that however much one may wish to resist those roles, there's enough socialisation behind them that it can be difficult to do so.

From:

rjw76

I also think that however much one may wish to resist those roles, there's enough socialisation behind them that it can be difficult to do so.

I have not actually found this any worse since becoming "wife" rather than "female partner living with a man as if married". Society, or at least the bits of it I move in or have to interact with legally, doesn't really seem to distinguish between the two.

Not that this means that there *aren't* any social expectations, of course...

From:

ailbhe

I've noticed some differences since becoming "wife", a word neither Rob nor I use very often. Some of these are useful, in regards to stuff like his work and bank things, and some are less so. Much less so.

From:

sidheag.livejournal.com

I, and DH, feel that our commitment to one another (and its exact terms) are none of the business of the state, or of anyone else we don't choose to discuss it with. So we didn't get married. Then (nearly 20 years after we became a couple) when we planned Colin, we wanted to make sure that DH and I were equally regarded by the law as the future baby's parents, etc. We still resisted getting married briefly - we contemplated doing what we could by private legal documents, and we briefly investigated using Scotland's marriage "by habit and repute" law. In the end, it was clear that getting married was vastly easier and cheaper and more effective than the alternatives, so we did that. In a register office, with only the statutory two witnesses, who were an unmarried couple of friends. In the end it was OK; in particular, I hadn't realised that if you get married in a register office you don't have to say anything in public about the matters we regarded as private, such as the nature of the commitment: we just had to say we wanted to be regarded as married.

For a long time we didn't tell anyone (including family for some months) but we don't bother about that any more. I do still wish we hadn't "had to".

From:

ailbhe

That guardianship law was a real pain. I hate it. Hate hate hate.

From:

tiggsybabes.livejournal.com

Our marriage is useful in that my family now all has the same surname, but that could have been achieved with a deed poll name change & I indeed, Kate had a different surname to me for the first 2 years of her life. At school, I am called Mrs Blight as it's Kate's surname, would they still call me that if I was still Anna Roberts?

This year, Andy & I will have been a couple for 8 years & married for 4, yet the outside acknowledged celebration will be our wedding anniversary. The 8 years of being together is for meaningful for me, plus Kate is going to be 6 in March, so again, it is more meaningful that my eldest child has been with us for 6 years.

From:

sidheag.livejournal.com

At school, I am called Mrs Blight as it's Kate's surname, would they still call me that if I was still Anna Roberts?
Yes!

From:

hypatia.livejournal.com

Definitely. Anyone knowing my children addresses me as Mrs Offspring-surname. I could get worked up about it but life is too short.

From:

ailbhe

My sister used to get addressed as Mrs Stepson-Surname, which was neither her name nor the child's father's name.

From:

merryhouse.livejournal.com

I *almost* sorted that one by settling both names on the children, so that they are "Son W-C" (unfortunate, I know... but kids today don't seem to know WC) and I have been sufficiently high-profile about it that all the teachers, and therefore all the children (they are much more accepting than adults), call me "Mrs W". It could be worse.

Of course, I haven't tried sending Rob into school to see how they cope ;-)

I think my father still hasn't come to terms with it. His cards are addressed to "Master Initial C" . My parents-in-law, however, use "Master Initial C-W" - they're very good at keeping their differing opinions to themselves.

From:

rmc28

I have yet to train certain relatives out of addressing us as "Mr & Mrs F Finch". I seem to have upset the stuffiest by repeatedly failing to do Christmas cards etc, which helps!

I don't mind "Mr & Mrs Finch" as I deliberately made my surname non-hyphenated so the Coleman could be dropped when I was doing entirely with-Tony (or now with-Charles) things. I can live with "Mrs Finch" and there are times when it is useful, but I hate and loathe "Mrs F Finch", I am not an appendage of my husband.

From:

firecat

We didn't get legally married because we don't trust the government, and marriage is a hugely complex legal contract that can be changed by the government any time without our consent.

When we thought we would have kids, we were concerned about how to legally ascertain fatherhood, but we read some legal self-help books that indicated there were ways to do this. But we decided not to have kids, so it turned out not to be an issue.

Privilege is involved in our being able to comfortably choose not to be legally married - we have enough money to hire lawyers to write specific contracts about what we want, and our parents on both sides support our relationship, and (US-centric) we can both afford our own health insurance.

Privilege would of course also be involved if we had decided to get legally married, since we are an opposite-sex couple. Although in California there are some legal rights granted to same-sex couples, at least today.

From:

glitzfrau.livejournal.com

marriage is a hugely complex legal contract that can be changed by the government any time without our consent.

Mmm. That's a huge issue that I have with it. Less that my government (Irish) might change it, but that married women are governed by different laws as they move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Obviously, that's the case for any traveller, but the kind of rights that are at stake from jurisdiction to jurisdiction - owning property, the right to say no to sex, custody of children - are particularly gendered.

From:

merryhouse.livejournal.com

just a further thought - are (British) opposite-sex couples allowed to engage in a civil partnership?

I sort of assumed they were, but something someone said above made me wonder.

I would like to do that, just to make a point. Unfortunately we got married years previously, and wanted a church ceremony anyway. I suppose we could have had a blessing... hmmm

From:

glitzfrau.livejournal.com

No, they're not. British marriage is only open to opposite-sex couples, and civil partnership to same-sex couples. There's no distinction between the rights and responsibilities conferred by each institution, but they're separate contracts.

From:

biascut.livejournal.com

Also, you can't contract one if you're already contracted in the other.

From:

ai731.livejournal.com

That's such a shame. We've (Quebec, Canada) got the options of religious marriage, civil marriage, and civil partnership, all three are available to opposite-sex couples, and all three (depending on your religion - some religions will marry same-sex couples and some obviously won't) are also available to same-sex couples. This was the main reason I could get married with a clear conscience - because, for instance, my lesbian cousin could marry her partner under the exact same laws and have the identical marriage to mine.

From:

glitzfrau.livejournal.com

You're right, the inequality of terminology is rotten - but as an Irish person, British law seems pretty damned progressive to me. In Ireland, there is no legal protection for same-sex relationships at all, nor recognition of partnerships contracted abroad. I'm getting civil partnered to my girl in Britain, but as soon as I move back to Ireland, my parents become my official next of kin, and I am legally single.

From:

biascut.livejournal.com

What's the difference between civil marriage and civil partnership, then?

British civil partnership is designed to give the same rights and responsibilities as civil marriage, and you can't have one if you're already party to the other. I understand opposite-sex couples not wanting to use the word marriage, and same-sex couples wanting to use the word marriage, but it does seem superfluous to me to create a new legal institution that's basically identical to an existing one, but with a different name.

From:

ai731.livejournal.com

but it does seem superfluous to me to create a new legal institution that's basically identical to an existing one, but with a different name.

It is superfluous, and there is no major legal difference between civil marriage and civil partnership, just a historical one. Civil partnerships were introduced in 2002 when a same-sex couple sued for the right be legally recognized as partners, claiming discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and won. Civil unions were created to allow same sex partners to have the same legal rights and benefits as (opposite-sex) married couples. However, the civil partnership was made open to opposite-sex couple as well, and was quite popular among people who were against "marriage" because of religious connotations, or for other reasons. Then, in 2004, civil marriage was opened up to same-sex couples, when it had previously only been available to opposite-sex couples (again as a result of a law suit brought against the government, claiming discrimination). Since civil partnerships were still very popular, they were kept as an option, rather than going through the mess of changing the laws yet again :)

From:

micheinnz.livejournal.com

New Zealand's Civil Unions are for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. I know two "civilised" couples, and they're both opposite-sex.

From:

mollydot.livejournal.com

(coming late to the party)

And I believe if you legally change your sex, but want to remain attached to the same partner, you need to dissolve the original contract, and create a new one.

From:

pir-anha.livejournal.com

i don't like contracts set up by third parties which i don't even get presented in whole before signing. i especially don't like it if the third party gets to change that contract under me (after i've signed it), without getting my consent.

i want the government out of that. i want people to understand exactly what they are signing. yes, that'll be complicated. the thing is that it's complicated now; people often just don't realize how much so until their state-sponsored marriage isn't working out.

and then there's the whole heterosexual privilege thing, which luckily has changed in canada since i moved here, so it's no longer an issue. yay, canada.

i am not telling anyone in general whether or not we're married because i don't want the baggage associated with it. also, there is the poly thing (on which canada is not at all progressive). i refer to my life partners as "partners", i'd never ever use "wife" or "husband" even if we were to present as married. i'm not religious, so i have no personal hassles on that front. i want church and state separated in this regard. completely so. i'd actually prefer two different terms for the legal and religious relationships.

as for support from "the community" for my relationships -- i don't really care. i didn't make commitments with my beloveds because of the community, and i don't specifically need its support; i need its acceptance (which i don't have from society -- that poly thing again). so i am doing my own thing, and fuck society. our friends love and care for us individually and would be sad with us if our relationship broke up; that's a good thing, i don't want more investment from them.

From:

sashajwolf.livejournal.com

It is important to me to have some form of spiritual ritual when I make a lifetime commitment to a partner, because that seems to help make the commitment real to my subconscious self, and that in turn makes the relationship more stable. I also think it's important for the communities in which people live to recognise and, where appropriate, support any commitments they want to make public, and that includes the state - but I'd rather that were done in a way that is free of relgious associations, so I'd prefer civil partnerships for all who want them (including people whose relationships are not romantic or sexual).

Incidentally, it's not entirely clear to me that UK marriage and UK civil partnerships are equivalent in terms of legal rights. The statute in question does not say that - presumably deliberately - but instead lists a whole bunch of other statutes that now apply to civil partners as well as to married couples. What it doesn't do is tell the courts that all our case law now has to be applied equally to both, so (unless I've missed a court case on it, which is possible) we don't know yet whether or not they will do that. Personally, I think it's likely that they will, because our judges are usually fairly sensible about reflecting social changes and have gradually been moving towards treating LGB people more fairly in contexts like custody for a while now, but it's not guaranteed. We had a judge resign recently because he wasn't prepared to enforce the Sexual Orientation (Equality) Regulations, after all.

From:

naath.livejournal.com

I don't like marriage - I don't really think that I can get away from the historical and social baggage and have a marriage the way I want it, because even if I do that in my private life other people will still assume that I'm going with the flow.

I don't like the separate-but-equal (which never really is) that has been extended to gay people (even though quite a lot of effort is being put into making it mostly equal here - it *is* different, for instance if I had a *marriage* it would be recognised in almost any country I might move to; a civil partnership most likely would not be unless the other country had civil partnerships also).

I don't like the exclusion of poly people - and not just of people who want to marry 3 other people but also of people who want a marriage that allows for a "bit on the side" with no punishment - I don't like that you can't change the terms on which you are allowed to divorce, I don't like that your nosy neighbours will still think you 'ought' be monogamous...

I don't like the historical associations with woman-as-property-of-husband.

I don't like the association of "marriage" and *only* "marriage" with next-of-kin-ness. Perhaps I want the father of the child to be the child's next-of-kin but I don't want to be his partner any more. Perhaps I want my next-of-kin to be my best mate if I don't have (or even if I do have!) a person who I might consider marrying.

I don't like it that there are benefits available only through marriage (such as next of kin rights; and no Inheritance tax). I don't think that it is the government's place to promote marriage - whether they are promoting it over 'shacking up' or over 'being single'. I also don't like that there are tax *losses* incurred through marriage - which come from the married couple being considered one person in some respects (it's a problem if you own two houses, for example). I don't think the government should be treating me as if I'm part of the same person as my partner.

And I am angry on your behalf about the laws that drove you to seek legal marriage you didn't want in order to protect your children - an entirely admirable desire that you should have been able to manage in a way more in line with your general feelings.

I think the current marriage contract should be available for people who want to sign up to it - although I do think they should be made to read/be told what it is they are signing up to before they do so. I also think that the various parts of it should be available separately for people who want them. And I think there should be no financial gain or loss to marriage (compared to shacking up) excepting the cost of the wedding.

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I'm spreading panic on my toast!

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