Getting Married - for Non-Religious Couples, What is the point in modern society? Options

[Pixie*Porsche]

Have a few friends who have either recently got married (but are not Christians) or will be doing in the next year or so which has got me wondering - what is the point especially in society today? Many of the girls I know getting married are absolutely obsessed with it - just what is so alluring about becoming 'man and wife'?!

OK on a very materialistic level it's a great opportunity for a party. However, the costs involved in said wedding make it an extremely expensive party... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/party1.gif)

I don't envisage myself getting married despite being in a long term relationship and gone are the days when it was only acceptable to have a child if married, so I find myself pondering for non-religious couples - why?

The cynic in me sees weddings as an awful display of traditional patriarchal practice and/or a rather vulgar (in some cases (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)) display of wealth but not necessarily class (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)! - Or is this just the weddings I've been to? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Babybird2]

It's just a good excuse for a party (IMG:style_emoticons/default/party1.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[corenfa]

I'm not bothered about getting married but would be in the following situations:

* having children. I freely admit this is a bit irrational because once you have children together, you could sue the chap for child support anyway (though I think it's much better not to have to!). I am not going to defend this point of view because it's not based on logic.

* next of kin. This is just a practical consideration; my family lives very far away so I have no next of kin in this country.

There's a whole mythology surrounding getting married that a lot of people, women especially, buy into. Given that there's a lot of modern mythology that I don't buy into, this is just another thing in that category.

If I want to be committed to someone, I will be. Likewise them. To me, getting married just means you need a lawyer if you want to break up.

I'm not anti-marriage, I'm just not that bothered about it. If my partner wanted to get married I'd be OK with it. I think it can be nice to acknowledge the union and have a party for the family.

One small point... if I did get married, there is no way I'd be "given away" by my father. I am not some package to be handed off from father to husband. Though I wouldn't object to being "given away" by *both parents*, I've been living on my own for so long that it would be a bit silly.

[barry-clari]

It's just a good excuse for a party (IMG:style_emoticons/default/party1.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

You (two) do good parties (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yay.gif)

[BadStrad]

It makes life (legally) easier. I have friends, who have children and they've had to jump through hoops of paperwork to try and get some kind of equality with married parents. For example without the bits of paper if one of the kids needed an urgent operation and the mother wasn't available (say on an aeroplane) then the father would have not the legal right to make the decision to go ahead with the op.

Getting all the right documents drawn up is probably more expensive than a wedding at the local town hall.

[Halka]

In the days when I used to be invited to weddings I always loathed them, and the only recurrent nightmare I've ever had involved getting married! I've always felt rather like you, Pixie, which is why as an old cynic, I've been unmarried to the same man for 25 years. The children seem to have made it through to 18 and almost 16 without any problems. Medics etc usually query who I am, but are happy for dad to sign all forms without question, probably because he has the same surname as the children. Bad Strad is strictly correct, though, I think.

My understanding is that, so far as UK law is concerned, your next of kin can be anyone you nominate as such. So, no reason to marry there.

I think some people marry because they want to make a public affirmation of their commitment to one another. I think that is a good enough reason, and that it can be done simply, tastefully, and relatively cheaply - though I do not intend to do so..... (yet?)

[Pixie*Porsche]

It makes life (legally) easier. I have friends, who have children and they've had to jump through hoops of paperwork to try and get some kind of equality with married parents. For example without the bits of paper if one of the kids needed an urgent operation and the mother wasn't available (say on an aeroplane) then the father would have not the legal right to make the decision to go ahead with the op.

Getting all the right documents drawn up is probably more expensive than a wedding at the local town hall.

Surely that is not the case if the father is on the birth certificate?

Corenfa - I find it particularly interesting that it is the women who seem most interested in getting married! Going by the whole 'giving away' thing and other traditional sort of meanings behind it!

[Halka]

It makes life (legally) easier. I have friends, who have children and they've had to jump through hoops of paperwork to try and get some kind of equality with married parents. For example without the bits of paper if one of the kids needed an urgent operation and the mother wasn't available (say on an aeroplane) then the father would have not the legal right to make the decision to go ahead with the op.

Getting all the right documents drawn up is probably more expensive than a wedding at the local town hall.

Surely that is not the case if the father is on the birth certificate?

Seems to depend on whether the birth was registered before 2003. If the birth is registered by both parents together and after 2003, then the father has parental rights/responsibilities.

[Pixie*Porsche]

In the days when I used to be invited to weddings I always loathed them, and the only recurrent nightmare I've ever had involved getting married! I've always felt rather like you, Pixie, which is why as an old cynic, I've been unmarried to the same man for 25 years. The children seem to have made it through to 18 and almost 16 without any problems. Medics etc usually query who I am, but are happy for dad to sign all forms without question, probably because he has the same surname as the children. Bad Strad is strictly correct, though, I think.

My understanding is that, so far as UK law is concerned, your next of kin can be anyone you nominate as such. So, no reason to marry there.

I think some people marry because they want to make a public affirmation of their commitment to one another. I think that is a good enough reason, and that it can be done simply, tastefully, and relatively cheaply - though I do not intend to do so..... (yet?)

I'm pretty sure you are right about next of kin as I put my partner as my next of kin although I am not married, never had any queries etc.

Must admit that when (rather than if, hopefully) I have children I would prefer them to have my surname or both myself and my partner would change our surnames to something different i.e. not either of the ones we were born with.

It is nice to hear that others can have a long term relationship without marriage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Benjy]

When I got married there were tangible tax advantages to doing so. Otherwise we probably wouldn't have bothered. Those benefits have evaporated over the years, so I am not sure that the business case would have stacked up if we had been able to predict the tax policy changes. And for a proper appraisal we should have included a risk factor for potential subsequent divorce (which has not yet arisen!)

But we had a good party (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[BadStrad]

Surely that is not the case if the father is on the birth certificate?

Seems to depend on whether the birth was registered before 2003. If the birth is registered by both parents together and after 2003, then the father has parental rights/responsibilities.

Friends had their kids prior to 2003, father's name was on the certificate.

[Swell Box]

If I can add a male observation here:

I have known many couples who married years ago. Some have divorced, but not many.

I have also known many couples who have lived happily together for twenty years or more, decided to get married, and then divorced within 18 months!

There is something 'different' about being married, but I suppose that 'difference' depends on the individuals concerned.

Observing this from a church and PCC point of view, baptism of a child, and often children, now seems to be the new marriage ceremony, and is often the first time that an unmarried couple will publicly celebrate their partnership.

SB

[anacrusis]

As a committed atheist, who got married:

yes, it does feel different to do this thing, which is a public confirmation of a commitment made in private, in my view. We'd lived together for a year before the wedding, and it sends out the signal, not looking for anyone else, want to make our lives together and be there for each other. More than a friendship, it nonetheless needed friendship at its basis, and bringing in those who are important in our lives and asking for their approbation and support, and yes, giving them a bit of a party too, to celebrate what is really a life event, seemed to be a good way to include them. Marrying one person involves marrying all the baggage they come with - their families, their friends as much as their personal foibles and characteristics, and this was a way to accept the "whole package", if you like. We wanted kids, and have been lucky enough to be able to have them, and that status also protects them a little.

As I find churches scary places to be in, specifically church services, which give me the heebie jeebies, we had to think about how to do the marrying thing: my husband was a churchgoer, and indeed sang in the St Giles choir. He approached the minister, who said hmmf, better meet her, I think, came round to dinner, "interviewed" me, decided I was okay and that our motivation and reasoning for pairing up was sound, and agreed to officiate (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif). He did offer me his church to do it in, more than once, but I'd have felt so fake doing that, that he agreed to let us be wed in the pretty Georgian concert hall in which we lived at the time (well, okay, we lived in the hallkeeper's flat), and we wrote our own vows, which expressed our thoughts about the meaning of what we were doing and kept god firmly out of my end of the bargain. Result. We then made use of the acoustic and had a little concert-ette at the end of the ceremony, and dinner and a knees-up in the same building, and most of our guests were thoroughly enthusiastic. With the exception of a fundamentalist relative who thought I should've done it in a church and told me I'd "not done it properly" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif).

[Hubicka]

I couldn't be in a lifetime relationship and not get married (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)
I think it's so important (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) To me it shows your dedication to eachother and your relationship, celebration of your love, the biggest kind of love you can give and symbols the start of your lives together as 'one' (pass the bucket haha)

[Halka]

Must admit that when (rather than if, hopefully) I have children I would prefer them to have my surname or both myself and my partner would change our surnames to something different i.e. not either of the ones we were born with.

I was very naive... I thought the children had to have the dad's surname. It was only when we got to number 2 that I understood that I could give the child any surname I liked.. As their paternal grandfather was Polish, but changed his surname when he came to the UK, I rather wish, with hindsight, that I had used grandfather's Polish surname for the children, as I've never felt my partner's adopted surname is a "real" surname! Then we could all have had different surnames - as the children would have had masculine and feminine forms of the Polish name.