Thanks but no thanks

So the Tories want to incentivise marriage? Who says romance is dead?

I got married two years ago (please contain your disappointment…). Contrary to popular belief I did this by choice. It hasn’t made one iota difference to our relationship, it does however change how others treat you (I now get patronised even more by bank managers). We could easily have just continued co-habiting.

However, there’s a certain romance after 5 years of living together of ‘sealing the deal’ in front of witnesses. Also, my husband is Australian and with this government changing visa restrictions and residency rules almost annually on a whim there was a constant unease in the back of my head that we could be forced into a difficult and inconvenient situation in the future.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make – as a feminist the symbolism sat uneasily, as an atheist even more so. So we solved the problem by sodding off to Vegas, rewriting the ceremony removing all traces of god and obedience and letting friends and family give some staggeringly inappropriate readings instead. Then we had alcohol. It was a good day. It was our day. It was our choice.

Should I be rewarded for that choice? No. We didn’t even have a wedding list – why should every taxpayer in the country give us presents?

I am really surprised the Tories want to offer tax breaks for married couples for two main reasons:
1) In this economic climate surely new unnecessary tax breaks are an unaffordable luxury? Aren’t the Tories supposed to be the party of cuts?
2) Aren’t they also supposed to be the party of minimal state interference in people’s lives?
The whole ‘family values’ thing is a strange anomaly of The Right. For example, in America the Republicans are pro-choice in everything from the ‘freedom’ to bear arms and an open market for healthcare – but anti-choice when it comes to ‘pro-choice’.

I don’t think marriage should be specially commended in tax law. There are commitments that I believe should be rewarded more thoroughly – carers of people with disabilities and long term terminal illnesses for example – but all I did was sign a public declaration of love for my partner (he’s that needy…).

The Tories seem to see marriage as a sort of salve for societal ills but it’s not – it won’t make you a better person and there’s no proof it will make you a better parent. And if you need a piece of paper to stop you running away from your partner every 5 seconds then my guess if that you’re probably not suited to long term commitment of any kind.

It’s no coincidence that the Tories have made their policy announcement in the first week of January – a month which traditionally sees a spike in the number of couples filing for divorce (Christmas’ll do that to you). Statistics show that if the economy picks up, it’s likely the divorce rate will too. Which seems on the face of it to suggest that marriage is an economic situation as much as a social one. However, if, as the stats seem to show, many of those people endured being trapped in a difficult marriage for financial reasons, one has to question whether incentivising them to stay married is a good idea.

Luckily, it looks as we’re all safe for now because it turns out the Conservatives are talking complete cant.

Look closely at the fine print in the following associated Cameron proclamations:

It is something we want to do, something we believe we can do, it’s something, within a parliament, I’ll definitely hope to do.

(Translation: “we have almost no chance of achieving this and I know that”)

Recognising marriage in the tax system is something I feel very strongly about and something we will definitely do in the next parliament. We will set out exactly how in due course.

(Translation: “we have absolutely no idea how we would go about achieving it anyway”)

Phew…