Why do people think less of a couple who aren't married?

Reggie_Rebel

With divorce being so easy now and plenty of people being multi-divorcees it makes not a jot of difference.

Izadora

lazer wrote: »

Basically, i think the difference is if a couple are married you know the status of their relationship, if they aren't married you don't - they could have been with their OH for 2 months, 2 years, or 2 decades.

You still only know the legal status of their relationship though. I don't see that a couple who marry after 2 months of knowing each other are somehow more committed than an unmarried couple who have been together for decades.

lazer wrote: »

A unmarried couple also don't have the legal protection marriage provides

For me, that's the only real difference. I've seen far too many people enter into marriage for the wrong reasons to think that it instantly conveys some greater meaning to their relationship.

onlyroz

Unmarried couples can be just as committed to each other as married couples. However, getting married is the simplest and cheapest way of ensuring that your family is protected if you die or are critically injured. Also, if the relationship does break down then the divorce process is meant to ensure that all parties (including any children) are treated fairly.

PasturesNew

Unmarried says to me "X wants to marry Y; Y doesn't really want to marry X; X pretends they don't need a bit of paper; Y just nods while looking over X's shoulder at what else might be available". X won't push it ...secretly they daren't as they know Y would be off like a shot.

LilElvis

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

People who aren't married are still serious about their relationships, I don't really know how anyone can say different tbh? Do these people who see fit to judge really know the ins and outs of a persons relationship? No, no they don't.

However, as has already been pointed out, it does bring legal protection that those who aren't married don't receive. Although there are ways of going about sorting that out if you're really against marriage.

Anyone who judges and deems a persons relationship to be inferior just because they aren't married, is very shallow indeed IMO.

Not all benefits are available to the unmarried. To receive a spouse's pension from my husband's former employer I need to be married to him - simply co-habiting would get me zip.

SanguineSteve

PasturesNew wrote: »

Unmarried says to me "X wants to marry Y; Y doesn't really want to marry X; X pretends they don't need a bit of paper; Y just nods while looking over X's shoulder at what else might be available". X won't push it ...secretly they daren't as they know Y would be off like a shot.

What a life of worry.

fairy_lights

PasturesNew wrote: »

Unmarried says to me "X wants to marry Y; Y doesn't really want to marry X; X pretends they don't need a bit of paper; Y just nods while looking over X's shoulder at what else might be available". X won't push it ...secretly they daren't as they know Y would be off like a shot.

That's pretty presumptuous! There are a lot of unmarried couples out there where both X and Y are happy with the arrangements and neither want to get married.
You could just as easily say that a lot of couples only get married because X wants to and Y pretends to agree!

j.e.j.

fairy_lights wrote: »

That's pretty presumptuous! There are a lot of unmarried couples out there where both X and Y are happy with the arrangements and neither want to get married.
You could just as easily say that a lot of couples only get married because X wants to and Y pretends to agree!

I think to be fair, there are a lot of women around who drop a few sprogs by their bloke and secretly hope that he'll pop the question, when in fact he has no intention of doing anything of the sort.

As they say, why buy a book when there's a thriving lending library in the town

TBagpuss

I think that the only accurate answer is that it depends - both on the people in the relationship and the people doing the observing.

I *personally* don't think less of a couple because they are not married. However, I may be more sceptical about the likely length and success of their marriage depending on my observations of them as a whole - in some cases, not being married can be a symptom of other things, such as a reluctance to commit.

Equally with some couples who do marry I may be equally sceptical or think less of them based on what I know of them over all.

As I happen to know a lot about the legal effects of marriage and of not being married, while I don't think less of people who are not married I do sometimes think that individuals or couples in that situation are naive or unwise, based on their circumstances (not that being unmarried = being naive, but that there are a lot of people who don't know what a difference it makes and who make inaccurate potentially very significant assumptions about the implications of being, or not being, married)

There are still also fairly large numbers of people whose religious beliefs, or attitudes based on religious or social background, make a difference to how they see such relationships. Don't forget that it's only really within the last 30-40 years that living together has become socially acceptable - there are a lot of older people who grew up 'knowing' it was wrong and inferior, and no doubt many of them passed on those attitudes to one degree or another to their children.
My mother told me about a woman who she met at ante-natal classes when she was expecting my sister (so in around 1971) - this woman was not married, and the lady running the classes provided her with a 'wedding' ring to wear when she went into hospital, knowing she would be treated better by staff and other patients if she appeared to be married. So it's hardly surprising that there are still lots of people who have that sort of attitude to a degree today.

lulu_92

PasturesNew wrote: »

Unmarried says to me "X wants to marry Y; Y doesn't really want to marry X; X pretends they don't need a bit of paper; Y just nods while looking over X's shoulder at what else might be available". X won't push it ...secretly they daren't as they know Y would be off like a shot.

Maybe in some scenarios it is.

For me (X) and OH (Y) it is:
X wants to marry Y, Y wants to marry X but wants to make sure they can afford the wedding they both like (although know they could go down the registry office for cheap but X and Y would like a wedding and know they don't need to justify reasons why to anyone ). X tells Y that if the intention is there they should get engaged, Y is very vague on the subject, so X and Y don't get engaged (which I hope is not the end of the story!)

:rotfl::rotfl:


I don't judge anyone on if they're married or not. Most people my age who are married rushed into it for one reason or another, not necessarily as a sign of commitment or for legal protection. Some people just see it as something you need to do. OH and I aren't married (see above) but we want to be, although we're not going to get into debt or rush through it for the sake of it. We're just as committed to each other, married/engaged or not!

One person got engaged to her OH after two years together and decided suddenly 6 months later that they needed the wedding as soon as possible so they could start a family.