My View: Madeleine McDonald

One of the country’s leading judges has called for co-habiting couples to be given the same legal rights as married couples, simply because an awful lot of people are choosing not to get married. Poppycock! It’s a free country. Couples choose to get married, or not, for good and sufficient reasons of their own. What they should not do, however, is cry foul when the consequences trip them up.
By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Feb 2011, 15:55 BST

No-one who takes the big step of moving in together anticipates failure. Neither does anyone expect a tornado to rip off the roof, yet tornadoes occasionally happen and most people are savvy enough to take out buildings insurance.

Instead of complicating matters by inventing a new form of legally binding contract, judges and citizens’ advice bureaux should be hammering home the message that a marriage certificate gives both spouses valuable legal protection, or insurance against misfortune if you prefer. In marriage, assets are shared 50/50, whereas if an unmarried man pays the mortgage and his partner pays all household bills, he can boot her out of “his” house years later if the relationship breaks down. Aside from property or pension rights, what about securing the children’s future, something all couples should surely put their minds to. A widow or widower with dependent children qualifies for a widowed parent’s allowance, currently almost £100 a week, whereas co-habitees are left to do battle with the tangled benefit system at a time of grief. The reasons I have heard trotted out for not getting married range from the sublime to the ridiculous. In my youth American feminists claimed that marriage was legalised prostitution. Despite the harm such lunatic outpourings did to the just cause of equal pay for equal work, the desire to cock a snook at patriarchal society echoes down the years. Then there are the people who say they are not religious and that it would be hypocritical to set foot in a church. And the daftest objection of all, that weddings are too expensive.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

You can have a cheap wedding as easily as a grand one, it’s the years ahead that matter. A lifetime ago, my husband and I had a simple register office ceremony. I reckon my father had change from a tenner, including paying for a pub meal afterwards. My brother and sister-in-law, in contrast, preferred an opulent do, choosing a country house hotel famed for its peacocks. Neither gaiety nor joy was diminished by the rain that bucketed down on the day. The guests dried out their damp finery in the hotel ballroom, while the peacocks skulked in the shrubbery. Despite radically different beginnings, both unions have stood the test of time. Simple solutions are often the best, and for me it’s a no-brainer. Any couple committed enough to want to live together should take themselves to the register office on their afternoon off and sign that piece of paper. Job done.

Related topics:American