Why Get Married After Having Children? Some Views.

Labour leader Ed Miliband and his long-term partner Justine Thornton got married last week. They already have two children, so why get hitched?

For many people having a child is the ultimate commitment to a partner. A life you have created together and are responsible for raising. It's a commitment many people make without getting married. But some then go on to tie the knot, like Ed Miliband and his partner of six years, Justine Thornton. Why?

There are the obvious financial and legal advantages to getting married. For older people issues surrounding pensions and inheritance are often the reason they decide to get hitched after years together. But Miliband and Thornton are still young. And while the pressures on the leader of the Labour party will be slightly different to those of the average person, there is no mistaking that attitudes to marriage and family have changed. Getting married used to be about sex, living together and having children, but research shows this is no longer the case.

According to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey, which was conducted in 2008, almost two-thirds of people now see little difference between marriage and living together. Fewer than a fifth of people took issue with it. Just under half thought cohabitation showed just as much commitment as getting married. When it comes to children, where opinion can often be a bit more traditional, only 28% said they believe married couples make better parents.

So why do it? Psychologist Donna Dawson, who has specialised in sex and relationships, says it is often about making a public statement."Having the children take part is like a ceremonial creation of a family and a public statement that they are all in it together. It's very much a 21st Century ritual, which more and more people will be doing. She says even when couples say there isn't a specific reason, there is "always something going on underneath". Sometimes it is about marking a different stage in a relationship, or they might have taken a long time because of the bad example they were set by their own parents. There is usually a reason, even if they are not fully aware of it.

Chris, 41, and his partner were together for nine years and had two children when they got married. He didn't feel any direct pressure from his partner or family, but says as his children got older he wanted them to have parents who were married."For me a big part of it was the children," he says. "I didn't want them to be asked at school why their parents weren't married. I suppose you could say that was me feeling a slight pressure to conform to social norms, but if I hadn't wanted to get married in the first place I definitely wouldn't have done it."

But people who get married after having children could actually be the traditionalists. Historically, the UK has a long tradition of informal "marriages" that were recognised by the community, says Penny Mansfield, director of the relationship research organisation One Plus One.

'Golden age'
"If you cohabited or had children together you were as good as married in everyone's eyes. It's only after the introduction of the Hardwicke Marriage Act in 1753 that marriage became a legal concept and unmarried couples became stigmatised. She says the "golden age" of marriage was as recent as the 1960s and 70s, when more people got married than ever before. Marriage was seen as a passport to adulthood, when you were allowed to have sex and live together.

"Obviously, people wanted that freedom as soon as they could," says Mansfield. "The average age of people getting married was 21 for women and 23 for men. Now you can put a decade on those ages and that's because sex and cohabitation outside of marriage are largely accepted. Now I think people get married after the house and kids because it is very much a public celebration of what they have, rather than the passport to adulthood."

Guardian columnist Zoe Williams has been with her partner for six years and has two children - just like Miliband and Thornton - but says she thinks it is a "weird gesture" to get married at this stage. "It's now socially acceptable to have sex, live together and have kids outside of marriage, so why spend £10,000 or more on a wedding?" she says. "Having kids is a much bigger deal than marriage, a much bigger statement of commitment. Personally, I just don't think about getting married. I simply have never felt a need to be married."

In the end it could all be about having a big party for Ed and Justine. According to BSA survey, 53% of people now think a wedding is more about a celebration than a life-long commitment.

Murphy's Laws of Parenting.

• The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.

• The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.

• The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.

• A sure way to get something done is to tell a child not to do it.

• For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.

• Toys multiply to fill any space available.

• Yours is always the only child who doesn't behave.

• If the shoe fits ... it's expensive.

• Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.

• The hand that rocks the cradle usually is attached to someone who isn't getting enough sleep.

Loving your Enemies.

Is it possible to love someone whom you hate?

My wife and I have often reflected on the early days of our marriage when both of us experienced feelings of hate. Our condemning words to each other had stimulated hurt, and on the heels of hurt, anger. Anger held inside becomes hate. What made the difference for us? We both agree it was the choice to love.

We had realized that if we continued our pattern of demanding and condemning we would destroy our marriage. Fortunately over a period of about a year, we learned how to discuss our differences without condemning each other, how to make decisions without destroying our unity, and how to give constructive suggestions without being demanding.

What made all of this possible? Basically it was learning how to speak each others' primary love language.

Our choice to love was made in the midst of negative feelings toward each other.

When we stated speaking each other's primary love language, the negative feelings of anger and hate abated. Yes, you can love someone whom you are presently hating.

Dr Gary Chapman. "The 5 Love Languages."

Priorities.

Is your family one of your top priorities? Believing that God established marriage and family as the most basic unit of society makes family extremely important.

Within family relationships, we recognize that the marriage relationship is more fundamental than the parent-child relationship. Marriage is a lifelong, intimate relationship, whereas most children will eventually leave their parents and establish their own marriages.

The quality of the marriage is also important because it greatly affects the parent-child relationship.

If family is one of my top priorities, then how will that affect the way I spend my time, money, and energy?

When I am loving my wife by "acts of service" I am also doing something for my children. I'm setting for them a model which I hope they will remember when they get married. One of the most important things you can do for your children is to love and serve your spouse. Nothing creates a more secure environment for children than seeing Mum and Dad loving each other.

Today, let your children see you loving your spouse.

(Dr Gary Chapman)

Marriage Is Political.

Questioned last week about whether his decision to get married is a political one, Ed Miliband insisted that, 'what people care about in this country is people having stable families.' This answer reveals a disturbing failure by the leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition to understand two crucial facts that fresh research by Jubilee Centre to be published in the coming weeks makes increasingly plain.

Firstly, that marriage is always political, for it has huge social and economic ramifications; and secondly, that all other forms of relationship offer families far less stability than marriage.

It is also a public health issue.........to the cost of £42 billion a year.

John Hayward - The Jubilee Centre.

A Usain Bolt Moment.

I remember the title of the day conference very well. “Slaying The Dragon”. It was held in Glasgow and was aimed at dealing with the issue of drugs and substance abuse. I recall nothing any of the speakers said. But what I do recall is being stunned and gob-smacked by the statistics on the overhead projector (you know, that antiquated machine with the acetates which you now see in museums or in Church cupboards).

So much was being said about heroin and ecstasy. But by comparison, the graph showing deaths from smoking and alcohol related illness were miles ahead. It was a Usain Bolt moment! I was wide-eyed and almost disbelieving what I was seeing.
It occurred to me that we are influenced so much by media attention on particular things, especially the tragic deaths of young people. But the enormous detrimental impact of smoking and alcohol, at the time were way down the list somewhere and not on the agenda. I came away feeling the need to be more accurately informed by the facts than just swallowing what the media serve up.

Now when it comes to family breakdown I feel the same is happening. We are told that the form of the family does not matter. What matters is good parenting. But the facts tell another story. The cost of family breakdown is an enormous problem. It costs £42,000 million every year, according to the Relationship Foundation. A Usain Bolt moment?

Most of this represents the cost of supporting lone parent families. This vast bill is bigger than the entire defence budget and yet we still have no government policy to manage it better. This is not to lay blame at the door of single parents but simply to acknowledge that uncommitted relationships, cohabiting, simply does not work and it is this which is driving family break-down. The financial costs alone are staggering. And it is largely preventable.

Slaying this dragon is not impossible. It requires a shift of emphasis from cure to prevention. A Government led strategy to put prevention measures in place rather than simply be there to pick up the pieces would be a good start. We need to think long term and not just be reactive to emergency present needs.

92% Live Together Before Marriage.

Nine in 10 British newlyweds have lived together before their wedding day, a new survey has suggested. For past generations, cohabiting prior to marriage was frowned upon by some, but 92% of recently wed adults asked said they had done so, with one third of those cohabiting for one to two years. In contrast only 10% of married couples shared a home together before tying the knot a quarter of a century ago.

The survey by online relationship site eHarmony.co.uk polled 505 married adults of 25 years or more, and 530 married adults of one year or less. It found it was more common today for couples to separate at some point during their relationship, then get back together at a later stage and marry.

Half (50%) of the newlyweds surveyed had spent some time "on a break" from their partner before going on to wed, compared with only 20% of those married 25 years ago. More than a third (38%) of newlyweds said they were already raising a child together, compared with just 9% of past newlyweds who had children before they got married.

Both sets of adults polled agreed the most important thing to achieve before their wedding day was financial stability.

Dr Gian Gonzaga of eHarmony.co.uk said: "Whilst a lot has changed in the journey couples take to marriage, one thing remains true. It is important to take the time to understand if you and your partner will be compatible across the long haul."

Of course that is important. But does living together before marriage deliver that understanding?