Marriage, Divorce, Living Together simple?

I read two blogs recently; one was about the break-up of a famous British music star's marriage and the other was advancing the view that marriage is an out-moded concept out of place in the modern World. Both these writers misunderstood a couple of legal points.

In the first blog the writer asked why there had been no pre-nuptial agreement. Pre-nuptial agreements are not enforceable under British law. People do occasionally make them but in an acrimonious divorce a court need not even look at them.

Now to the second blog. Many people think that marriage is an out-moded concept, now rendered unneccessary in a modern World. However, speaking as someone who lived very happily, "without benefit of clergy", with my partner for twenty-four years, we got married last year. Why I hear you say. In many legal jurisdictions the law is still heavily weighted in favour of marriage. Inheritance and inheritance tax laws in many countries mean that if one partner died the other might lose their home and/or be left with a huge inheritance tax bill to pay. The other point to remember is that in many jurisdictions that if an unmarried person dies their body becomes the property of their next of kin. Which means that the next of kin can organise the funeral without reference to the partner of the deceased (who may know far more about the deceased partner's wishes than the next of kin) or even invite them to the funeral. These are just two examples but there are other legal difficulties.

Certainly in the legal system in England and Wales people generally, think that there is such a thing as a Common Law marriage, which will protect their interests, this is a fallacy. Common Law marriage was outlawed many, many years ago.

One might think that leaving a will would safeguard one's partner in the event of one's death, that is not neccessarily the case; in some legal systems who can inherit is very strictly laid out in statute law and rarely does this include unmarried partners, in others, if you have a good enough reason and relationship to the deceased, you can overturn a will.

Marriage, divorce and living together are all legal minefields and may not be as simple and clear-cut as you might think.