So I was reading the thread in Great Debates on gay marriage, and I was wondering, having never been married:
What are the benefits of the officially sanctioned concept of a marriage? I know that it affects one’s taxes, but how? (I know hardly anything about taxes, I’m 20)
Is there any other benefit, technically/legally speaking? (I’m sure you have plenty of jokes here but I really want to know)
From Wikipedia.
A spouse is your highest ranking legal relative in most cases. He/she can make medical decisions on your behalf. A spouse cannot be forced to testify against their spouse in court. Inheritance is much more automatic and straightforward if you are married. Adoption is much more straightforward as well.
Darn. Hit “Submit” instead of “Preview”
Wikipedia provides a partial list of marriage benefits, but not the details. For example “Joint Tax Filing.” I personally don’t know what the benefits are of filing jointly. Is it always a benefit? Can it even be detrimental under some circumstances?
It’s complicated. I can say yes, sometimes it is detrimental to file jointly instead of separately. I can only say by a sort of cite that once, only once, my wife and I did save a few hundred dollars by filing separately.
I have absolutely no idea about all the ins and outs of this, though.
Just wanted to point out that the 1,138 legal benefits of marriage referred to in Waenara’s cite include only federal statues. There are approximately nine bazillion state statutes on the books as well, many of which also grant special rights to spouses.
(IANAL.)
There are many tax benefits other than the filing jointly (which can actually be a major detriment as said above- most married couples I know file separately).
The major benefits are death benefits. When my mother retired she was able to draw Social Security on my father’s account because his salary in the last full year of his life (1981) was, when adjusted for inflation (which they do) was higher than her’s. My aunt receives a widow’s pension for her USAF husband and other military widow benefits, if my mother had not cashed out my father’s state retirement pension out of necessity she would be drawing that as well as her own, etc., and, as mentioned above, inheritance is a lot more automatic if you are married than if you are just cohabiting. If a man or woman dies intestate their estate will usually automatically pass to their widow/er, often even if they are separated, before it goes to parents, children or any other relation. (Celebrity example: when Orson Welles died he was living with Oja, his girlfriend of more than 20 years and had been separated from his wife for the same amount of time, but because she was Catholic he had never divorced her; in his will he left most of his property to Oja but his wife was able to break the will due to community property laws.)
It’s often said (Jerry Falwell said it the other day) “You can leave your property to whoever you want to in your will. You can leave it to your dog.” That’s true but not the whole story- I have personally known of two gay couples in which one died and left the other their property. In both cases the will was contested and the surviving partner was royally screwed; in one case a collection of antiques that had been assembled by both men with money from both men was taken by the family of the dead partner even though they had disowned him years before. While a bit melodramatic, it’s true and this type of crap happens.
Medical is another major one. Most employers who provide comprehensive health insurance routinely offer it (at additonal cost, of course, but still much cheaper than if buying it independently) to spouses, but only a minority offer it to domestic partners. Then there’s the issue of medical decision making as mentioned above- if one partner in a gay couple that has lived together for 40 years requires a “pull or don’t pull the plug” decision, a half-sibling said partner hasn’t spoken to in decades has more of a say than the partner who is their caregiver. When I was in a relationship I can absolutely guarantee you that my mother and sister would not have allowed my partner to visit me in the hospital had I ever been hospitalized.
Basically, the point of marriage is to create a legal next-of-kin status where there is no prior legal relationship. This is why arguments about “What if I wanted to marry my sister or my dog or my car?” are the most inane to gays, because 1- you already have a legal relationship with your sister 2) the dog and car comparisons are just too stupid and insulting to talk about.
A married couple where only one has income, or one has a much larger income, can benefit financially from filing a joint income tax return. Otherwise, sometimes there’s a marriage benefit and some times there’s a marriage liability. (Personally, filing either jointly or separately, marriage has cost me a lot.)
The last time I did research on the subject, in no state could someone completely disinherit his/her spouse, not via will, not via prenup. (And in most states, they couldn’t disinherit their children, either.) This was back in the last century though so things could have changed.
It depends on what country you live in, but I should imagine the benefits of legal status, tax and pension rights hold true for most Western countries.
My understanding is that if you die intestate in England (where I live) your spouse will automatically inherit your estate. The same legal security does not apply if you are not married. This could potentially cause complications, providing you have not made a will, of course.
One of the reasons the Civil Partnerships were welcomed were because of the protection this offers in the case where one partner dies and owns property. Stories of long-term partners being left homeless have been cited, and it is noteable that many of the people who took up the chance to register their C.P have been together for decades.
I think the married persons tax allowance has been supressed in the U.K.
I believe there are pension rights in being married, someone else would need to clarify that. All I know is that I will be able to recieve my husband’s pension if he dies before me, and U.K insurance companies dislike my habit of using my maiden name.
Married fathers in England and Wales have greater legal protection if than if they are not married to their children’s mother, including a right to access, although this does not always work out in practice. One quirk is that only a married father is able to register a child alone. If you are not married both parents need to be present, and the father has to give his permission to have his name entered.
I lived with my husband before we got married. Legal rights was one of the reasons I thought it was a good idea to go official, especially as we have different nationalities (residency rights, etc.) Interestingly, not wanting his children to be illegitimate was one of his main reasons. In his country legitimate children cannot be disinherited, although this is not the case in England. Being born legitimate applies to any inheritance our children would get from his own country, and their rights to take their father’s nationality if they so wish (possible to do this as well as having British nationality).
Like others before me have said, the biggest advantage is in inheritance matters. In certain jurisdictions, you can’t disinherit your spouse.
In Virginia, the spouse can take an elective share of the estate. Even if the will leaves everything to someone else, the spouse can still claim a good sized portion of the estate.
Additionally, in immigration matters, a spouse can claim you for purposes of citizenship.
Not so technical, but there are strong correlations between marital status and happiness and life expectancy. To whatever degree the relationship is causal, that’s important.