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@convert, but in many cases, the man doesn't get an even split, especially if there are young children involved and he loses the family home.
I live near a marina full of narrowboats and I'd estimate about half of the occupants are divorced men in such a situation.
Marriage means a lot of things to different people. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Marriage can be a small legal event with two witnesses from the street, or it can be a big public committment with a party, a promise made before God, etc. Those are all social constructs.</span>
What marriage very clearly is, is a legal and financial committment that goes beyond cohabiting. Many, but not all, of those committments can be made outside of marriage.
Mostly, they apply when something goes bad. So when TJ or his other half change their mind about 50:50 (perhaps "50:50 but not my pension, or not my house" - they seem to be quite common). They also apply when someone dies. Some relationships split up, those don't generally involve someone dying. In most cases, this is all dealt with amicably. In the rest, marriage gives the spouse better protections than if they were simply a partner.
They seem very happy and long may that last but if they do split up she would seemed to have done very well if she walks away with 50% of the assets he brought to the relationship.
Even as a marriage skeptic to such a degree that I started this topic, I'd like to point out that it's not inclusive of assets brought into the relationship - it's assets that are of the relationship. e.g. if I were to remarry tomorrow (which would be tricky with current laws about bigamy) they would not own half my stuff (or be responsible for half my debt) if we split up the next day, but if we married and one of us won the lottery, the other would be entitled to half of that. Unless a legal argument to the contrary can be found (e.g. one partner working far more, or having far higher needs).
I think the legal framework is probably quite an important part of marriage, and to be honest anything that simplifies disentangling my life from my kids' mum's life is welcome and much needed.
Interesting.
One marriage for 25 years. Including 20 pretty decent ones.
just because a relationship or a marriage ended doesn’t mean it was a total failure
I’m lying next to the woman I’m going to marry in 2 months. Neither of us get any financial benefit from doing this. We just both want to. We are better together. We don’t need to be married. And we’ll still be living together only 5 days a week. We aren’t religious, or naive. But we are going to stand up in front of some friends and say this stuff. Probably using some vows nicked off ? Cougar, for which many thanks. And we aren’t changing names.
If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. But for some of us it means something.
Even as a marriage skeptic to such a degree that I started this topic, I’d like to point out that it’s not inclusive of assets brought into the relationship – it’s assets that are of the relationship
Wrong.
After 5 years it starts to get inclusive of all your assets, and 15 years is deemed as 'long-term' - which might also include time together before the marriage according to the judge - and then it becomes a 50/50 split.
Not so great if you get married later in life after you've built up some reasonable assets and then silver-surfer syndrome hits and you split up and then you are left with a lot less, and half your pension, into old age.
It should be a split from when you get married and couples should be more aware of this and plan for it - pension planning, etc. I think there might be less break-ups if both partners felt financially 'independant' throughput the relationship, takes one less factor out of the equation of things that can lead to problems - a feeling of financial dependence.