What is your opinion on children before marriage?

lazer

onlyroz wrote: »

People should do whatever is best for them. However, I wanted to be married before having children - partly because it just felt "right" and partly for all the legal reasons that Daska talked about. People who never intend to get married really should make sure that their wills are watertight and their property is in both names.

What I don't get is why people intend to marry but then have the baby first. If you're going to do both anyway then surely you might as well do it the right way round?

This is what i also don't get - the only reason I can come up with for it is that they want the expensive wedding and believe it is worth waiting for.

Personally, I want a marriage, the wedding is only the start of it, it is the marriage that is important, and if we couldn't afford the wedding we wanted, we would simply have a cheaper one, not wait years and save up.

onlyroz

lazer wrote: »

This is what i also don't get - the only reason I can come up with for it is that they want the expensive wedding and believe it is worth waiting for.

Well I've always been baffled by expensive weddings anyway - I was a student when I got married and so we did it on a shoestring. My brother got married in an extremely lavish wedding which, to me, was a complete waste of money - a better use of £30k would have been to put it towards a house that better met their needs.

kelfen

Am a bit old-fashioned so would love to be married first. We are actually FINALLY starting to set the date - hopefully August next year, and plan to do it on a shoestring - parents only at the ceremony, pub lunch for the families afterwards, off on honeymoon and then to have a handfasting. We don't plan on spending more that £1k if we can help it

lazer

onlyroz wrote: »

Well I've always been baffled by expensive weddings anyway - I was a student when I got married and so we did it on a shoestring. My brother got married in an extremely lavish wedding which, to me, was a complete waste of money - a better use of £30k would have been to put it towards a house that better met their needs.

Expensive weddings are fine if you can afford them. We are getting married in just over 2 weeks and its not a cheap wedding, but it is what we want, and also importantly what our parents want (Old fashioned as it sounds I think as they have brought us up and made us inot the people we are today they deserve some say in our wedding - my cousins fiancee wants to go abroad and get married but my aunt cannot fly so will not be able to attend her sons wedding - to me this is selfish - but thats justmy opinion!)

alias*alibi

I'd love to hear my mums take on this subject! My neice had a baby in July; 2 months short of her 21st birthday. She had split with her boyfriend and went back home. Before my niece and her fella split up my mum who lives in the USA (and has subsequently been brain washed to a degree) tutted and said ' there really is no need for unplanned pregnancies in this day and age; contraception is vastly available; I hope they plan on getting married soon' and was really quite nasty about it. The irony being she was an unmarried 17 year old when she fell pregnant herself with my brother and was promptly dumped by the father! That was waaay back in 1969! She forgets she was once a statistic and now tuts and rolls her eyes at the state of the UK's marital problems, or lack of marriage should I say. She's so opinionated on this subject; it makes me drop my jaw in disbelief sometimes.

I had my DD out of marriage; we married when she was nearly 3. Mum didn't utter a word to me about not being married but I am guessing she thought better of it as I was diagnosed with PCOS and fertility problems and time wasn't on my side as such.

malkyh

We had our first child two years before we were married, and our second 2 years after we had been married.

Made no difference to us whatsoever.

margaretclare

kelfen wrote: »

Am a bit old-fashioned so would love to be married first. We are actually FINALLY starting to set the date - hopefully August next year, and plan to do it on a shoestring - parents only at the ceremony, pub lunch for the families afterwards, off on honeymoon and then to have a handfasting. We don't plan on spending more that £1k if we can help it

It's possible. That's about what DH and I spent on our wedding in 2002. I had a simple wedding in the village church first time around, he'd had register office - we wanted something different, but simple. We got married in our local Methodist Church which didn't charge us for the ceremony. Music, flowers etc were done by our friends from church. Wedding lunch in a local pub/restaurant, 18 of us. If it had been down to DH there'd have been hardly anyone there - us, 2 witnesses and the minister. I wanted a little bit more than that. We compromised.

I think a wedding is important but it does not have to cost a fortune. You are just as married even if you do it as cheaply as possible.

AlisonHarrison

I am in my 50s and none of my school friends had children before they were married and it was considered quite shocking. Although I do have two friends now who each have teenage children and they are not married, but I think it is unusual.
Another friend who has children the same age as me now has separated from her husband of 20+ years, and is struggling with ESA, WTC etc now. So, really does it matter?
I wouldn't do it, but it seems to work OK.
I think the older you are the less likely you seem to be in accepting it.
My own children late teens, early twenties spoke about it a few weeks ago and both said that they would not have children before they were married. However, I think what they actually meant was before they had left home and were in stable relationships.
I was trying to think whether or not I would mind, and I think I might be a little disappointed if they were not married. However, I think what I would mind more than anything else is if there was children and they had not left home and had the chance to build a nest for the babies.
We are probably a little old fashioned in this house though because most people think it is ok.

Aubergine_2

daska wrote: »

Marriage (not a wedding) is important if you plan to have kids because of the legal protection it provides. It means that the weaker party, or the survivor, isn't left out in the cold when something untoward happens. IF you don't get married then you can literally find yourself with nothing. There's a thread at the moment where a man is asking for help because his uncle's partner of 27 years has died intestate and her sister has stopped him arranging the funeral and is likely to inherit her estate. There was another one not long back where a mum had been turfed out of her home and had no right to return because it was all in her partner's name. I have a friend who's partner of 40 years died and their family turned up the next day and changed the locks on him. Marriage is a property contract, it's there for your protection, and it's cheap at twice the cost.

I often hear people talk about this but I don't quite get it. I live with my partner and we have a child. We have no plans to marry. If, for example, my partner dies, does this mean that his family can take everything from me?

Torry_Quine

Aubergine wrote: »

I often hear people talk about this but I don't quite get it. I live with my partner and we have a child. We have no plans to marry. If, for example, my partner dies, does this mean that his family can take everything from me?

If you aren't married then without a will you are entitled to nothing. Your child no matter how young will inherit. Please write wills now!