Why ever not? We’re on house number 4, mortgage number 6. It’s quite easy. You fill out the paperwork so that both people are owners and the survivor gets the house. Add to that a will, a living will, and naming each other as the beneficiaries on insurance. The worst part of it? On our first mortgage, he was listed as “bachelor” and I as “spinster”. Spinster? Really? That’s a blow to the ego, when you are in your late 20s.
This one is actually pretty clear. Longitudinal data analysis (i.e., looking at the same people over time) shows that in the U.S. marriage has a positive effect on income, for men at least. Why? Because 1) married couples typically have a more specialized division of labor, so men are more able to focus on productivity in the labor force. 2) Marriage is thought to be a stabilizing influence - men make fewer rash decisions after they get married. 3) Employers think that married men are better workers, so their salaries grow faster.
IIRC, marriage doesn’t have much of an effect on women’s income. While women lose a little, black women gain a little. Either way, it’s becoming a mother that really has an impact on women’s salaries.
This is actually a hard question to answer. The U.S. does not collect good data on marriages and divorces. This pdf from the Census Bureau has some data that get at your question. If you look at Table 3, you’ll see that of people in their 50s, 7% of men and 6% of women have married 3 or more times. It’s much, much more common for people in that age category to have married only once. However, that’s based on data from 1996, so the people in that age group were born roughly in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and cultural norms about marriage and divorce may very well be different for people of later generations. Still, the median is almost certainly somewhere between 1 and 2.
Nope, sorry. Fuck the declaration to society. I’d have doubts about a partner who considers anything short of marriage to be “open to suitors.”
You can say “fuck it,” but the fact is that in taking that position you’re implicitly keeping your own options open. People take big risks in committing themselves to a person, to taking on responsibilities, to investing financially and emotionally in another person. It seems entirely reasonable to ask for this kind of “all-in” public commitment. If you’re not willing to do it, why shouldn’t your partner continue to look for someone else who is willing to offer that extra bit of security?
Your saying this doesn’t make it true.
I’ve had several partners who’ve had the same views on marriage as me.
Plus I said in my initial post that I’d be willing to get married to soothe the concerns of a SO but I guess you didn’t see that.
So married couple are all committed? Divorce and infidelity don’t happen?
If you find that you need a public ceremony in order to feel secure in your relationship, then go for it. Just don’t make the mistake of believing that that is true for all others.
Agreed.
That probably should read “She went by her birth name/maiden name rather than her married name.”
Actually, this device of not automatically allowing a woman to take her married name was done just so the provincial government could make some coin by forcing newlywed women to pay money for a name change.
One other thing: the Ontario law regarding the suspension of the convention of automatic name changes on marriage came out of the R.S.O. of 1990. As I recall, Bob Rae and the NDP were in power at the time.
This was ten years after “Joe Who’s” illustrious seven-month term of office.
Maureen McTeer kept her maiden name simply because she had her own career and also because she was somewhat of a feminist. To quote Wikipedia:
Clark married Maureen McTeer in 1973, while she was still a law student. The two met when Clark hired her to work in his parliamentary office; McTeer had been a political organizer herself since her early teens. McTeer has developed her own career as a well-known author and lawyer, and caused something of a fuss by keeping her maiden name after marriage. That feminist practice was not common at the time, but was later taken up by other political wives, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Of course there are no guarantees. There are only relative degrees of security. But the people saying “It’s only a piece of paper; all that matters is what I feel” are choosing to be selectively perceptive. A family is not a purely private arrangement. It’s a unit of society and that makes interactions with society important.
As to Manitoba, yes, the arrangement is somewhat the same.
We even have something here called “Homestead Rights”, which state that the other party in a relationship also has an interest in the house they live in, in cases where that person’s name doesn’t appear on the title. If the relationship should go south, that party has the right to a half interest in the portion of the home that is owned, i.e., half the value of the paid off portion of the mortgage.
The same applies in Quebec. You can change your name socially, but to legally change your name changes everything, all the way back to your birth certificate. A mention in the paper may include ‘née maidenname’, but as far as the government is concerned the new name is now your birthname. It’s one of the reasons I chose to hyphenate socially when I got married. I wasn’t willing to sign over my own name so completely. It’s possible that I would have done the same even if that wasn’t the case, but that detail meant I wasn’t even considering the name change any more.
So legally changing your name means that you never had a different legal name? Interesting paradox.
I think that what it means is that if you legally change your name, all your legal documents must change to your new legal name. Why would it be otherwise?
Now, of course and as mentioned, in Quebec and apparently in Ontario as well, a married woman may use her husband’s name as a social courtesy, but it isn’t her legal name unless she actually officially changes it. Which I think makes a lot of sense.
That’s no different from American law. You are free to use whatever name you like, so long as you aren’t trying to commit fraud. You can also change your name legally any time you like, simply by ceasing use of your old name and commencing use of your new one. The sole legal requirements are (1) Use of a new name, (2) with the intent to change your name, (3) with no fraudulent intent. This process can be made easier by getting a court to acknowledge your name change. This varies from state to state (or perhaps even county to county) but most U.S. marriage licenses I’ve seen include a blank right on the form that gives you an opportunity to change your name legally on the spot. It’s completely optional and may be taken advantage of either or both parties to the marriage. This allows you to skip the step of a separate declaration by a court acknowledging your name change.
We have that in Alberta, too - when I bought my first property, I had to sign a legal document saying that I was single and there was no one else who could possibly have a legal interest in my property.
Not in the Bible belt (or at least northern Arkansas). My sister is 22, and she has to fight discrimination, as, since she is unmarried, she is thought to not yet be a full adult. Men have it a bit easier, but you’re still expected to at least have someone you’re considering marrying.
First off, it’s not the partners that are concerned. It’s the rest of society that thinks you’re still available. Granted, with cheating and divorce so popular, being married often is a not sufficient deterrent to seek a relationship or fling. But I don’t understand why you would think you and your partner are the only people who matter.
Second, the fact that you said “partners” would tend to indicate to me that you never reached marriage level commitment, anyways. The whole point of marriage is to say that you want to be together for the rest of your lives. If you’re after serial monogamy, I’d rather you not get married.
The whole point of marriage was originally a commitment to saying you’d never break up. That’s why the whole children thing kicks in. The idea is that a child needs two parents and does not need to see them separate. The marriage was saying: We’re so committed to staying together that it’s safe to have kids with you. I don’t have to worry you’re going to run off and leave me with the kids.
The less important marriage becomes, the more I understand people not giving a crap about it.
Seriously? Seriously? My having had more than one partner in my life is a hint that I’ve never been in a relationship that’s reached that stage of commitment?
Hence the phrase “unless you are religiously conservative.”