Musings on marriage

"So what does your husband do?"

Er, well, I don't have a husband as it happens.

"Oh..." {cue awkward silence}

 

I have a long term partner, we've been together a good six years, we are very happy, we just don't happen to have married each other.

When we were just a couple and not a family, not being married never seemed to raise an eyebrow, but since being pregnant and now we are a happy family, there is an assumption on behalf of many people that we are husband and wife. Unless of course I'm out and about on my own with baby wriggle pants, then there is often an initial assumption (or maybe it's just my perception) that people think that I'm a single mum. Now I'm very pleased for my happily married friends, and those who aspire to being married; I also admire the dedicated single parents out there doing a super hard job, but there still seems to be some sort of a taboo about being non-married parents.

People in my office reverted to calling my other half my partner, rather than my boyfriend, as it seemed a more fitting terminology for him. At my ante-natal appointments the midwives called him my husband. My partner's colleagues and clients started asking about his 'wife' after wriggle pants was born, and the grandparent generation have no idea what to call us! Admittedly it's got a bit confusing on the parcel and letter front, with various combinations of surnames appearing already.

The long and short of it is, we are happy as a family, neither of us are overtly religious, and we don't feel a need to be married just now. Maybe when wriggle pants is bigger and if she would like us to be married then we would think about it, but David Cameron and co's plans to give married couples a £150 tax break certainly isn't going to be enough to sway us just yet. Let's face it, it'd take a fair few years of tax breaks to pay for a wedding these days and I'd rather be saving for a bigger home for us to live in, or for the little one's education, than splashing out on a wedding.

In fact a lot of my friends in London in their late twenties and early thirties are being faced with a choice between getting on the property ladder or getting married, many are saving years for a deposit for their first home, and by the time their own property is within reach, there isn't the time or money to spend on a wedding before having children.

What do you think? Is it a taboo to be non-married parents? Is it rude for people to call us husband and wife when we have made a conscious decision not to be married? Is the cost of housing preventing people getting married before having children?