Tim Worstall

Opting Out and Opting In

Slightly strange proposal here, I really don’t know what it’s being driven by either:

Cohabiting couples who separate should be given the
same rights to each other’s wealth as married couples who divorce,
according to Government advisers.

Cohabitants
should receive automatic rights and obligations "akin to marriage",
according to research financed by the Ministry of Justice and published
yesterday.

These rights include a share of
property and pensions and the ability to claim maintenance and lump
sums. The research suggests there should be an "opt-out" scheme for
those unhappy with such an arrangement – as long as both partners agree
to it.

The aim seems to be to bring back Common Law marriage, something we certainly haven’t had since the 1750s (and possibly before, I’m hazy on that point). But not if people opt out.

Why not leave the situation as it is….that you have to opt in? If you want shared finances then get married: there’s no religious connotations to this any more. it is literally a piece of paper forming a contract. That contract providing for shared finances. Why complicate matters?

Anyone know what the idea behind this is?

In

4 responses

  1. Kay Tie Avatar
    Kay Tie

    “Anyone know what the idea behind this is?”
    Paternalism. If you can be auto-enrolled to a pension, why not marriage. Or consent for organ donation. Or voting New Labour, for that matter.

    Reply
  2. dsquared Avatar
    dsquared

    part and parcel of a general attempt to give more rights to unmarried fathers (who at present have basically zero).

    Reply
  3. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    And the Scottish Parliament recently scrapped good old “marriage by habit and repute”. Perhaps attempts to find some logical consistency in New Labour gives too much honour to their intellects.

    Reply
  4. ad Avatar
    ad

    Man rents a room in a house. Woman rents another room in the house. At what point will the law decide they are cohabiting? What if both renters are the same sex?
    With common law marriage, you at least had to tell people that you considered yourselves married.
    OTOH – I wonder if you could just opt out of some of the rights/obligations? Effectively, you could then write your own marriage contract.
    dsquared – unmarried fathers are an interest group utterly without lobbyists, influence or a sympathetic media. Whoever this is designed to benefit, I would be amazed if it was them.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to adCancel reply

Discover more from Tim Worstall

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading