Congratulations to Kirstie Allsopp who, after 21 years of being ‘happily unmarried’ to her partner, Ben Andersen, has finally taken the plunge.
Some commentators have suggested that perhaps she was inspired by the similar later-in-life marriage of her neighbours, Richard Curtis and Emma Freud. After all, Kirstie’s ceremony took place at the Grosvenor Chapel in Mayfair, which was the scene of a wedding in Curtis’s film Love Actually.
But I have another, less romantic, theory – for I too decided to say ‘I do’ – also in front of my two sons – after being ‘happily unmarried’ for 23 years. I did it to secure our family home.
People assume that living together for decades, being what’s known as common-law partners, confers the same rights of inheritance as marriage. Unfortunately it is not so, as numerous women have discovered. When their relationship has broken down, they’ve lost everything.
David and I had been very careful to ensure we were joint owners of our property and had assumed that meant we were safe. We were wrong, as was pointed out by a very close Scottish friend who was good with money.
She told us on many occasions that, if one of us died, there would be no question of the other losing the property, but there would be inheritance tax to pay on the other half of the house.
She rightly assumed neither of us, as the surviving partner, would be able to afford the tax due alongside all the other expenses that come in the wake of a death. The kids, she said, would lose their family home because we would have to sell. Just get married, she said. There’s no tax to pay on the death of a husband or wife.
David and I were reluctant. We’d both been married before. As a feminist, I hated the traditional idea of one man – the father – handing over a woman into the hands of another man.
I hated that a woman would be expected to take her husband’s name. I’d taken the name of my first husband, Brian Murray, and regretted it ever since. I had managed not to promise to obey first time around but second time around, I had no desire to be a ‘wife’.
We tried to persuade the government at the time to extend the newly introduced civil partnership available to gay couples to heterosexuals. We were refused. Heterosexuals can get married we were told.
So, that was that. Ours was not the romantic affair Kirstie and Ben appear to have enjoyed. She wore a designer dress. I wore my black sweater, black trousers and a long, beige linen coat. David was in a suit.
My two boys, Ed at 19 and Charlie at 15, did their best in clean T-shirts and jeans. Norma, the friend who’d delivered the financial advice, probably looked the smartest.
It all took place at the register office in Macclesfield where we had made it plain we didn’t want any fuss. There would be no flowers, no hymns or poems. The only words would be what was necessary under the law.
The two very proper Northern women who officiated were mystified by us. Norma, Ed and Charlie sat in the front row as David and I stood facing each other.
The primary registrar opened the ceremony in a serious tone with the words, ‘We are gathered here today to join David and Jennifer in matrimony in front of their family and friend.’
The pointed mention of the singular ‘friend’ caused great hilarity among our three guests. I don’t know whether it was Ed or Charlie who first fell into uncontrollable, hysterical giggles, but that kind of laughter is catching.
Soon both boys and Norma were helpless and David and I joined them. Not one of us could stop laughing until that stiff registrar said: ‘I really think you could take this very serious event a little more seriously.’
The giggles subsided and, as David and I looked into each other’s eyes to speak our vows, it became very serious indeed – and even a little romantic. We were sure this would be a lifetime commitment to care for each other. We loved each other and, this time, we were not making a mistake.
The bossy registrar began to warm to us as she realised we were grown-ups who knew our own minds and who should be respected. She even bent the rules, and after Ed and Norma had witnessed officially, she allowed Charlie – though too young – to sign his name too.
All was well until the moment came to fill in the details that would appear in the register and on our marriage certificate.
There were both our names and professions, our fathers’ names and professions but no mention of our mothers. ‘What about our mothers?’ I asked. ‘Oh no, we don’t need those,’ said the registrar. I was furious.
I have spent years campaigning for change and, at last, heterosexual couples can have a civil partnership and, since 2021, a mother’s name can be included on a marriage certificate.
I can’t help but pity all those women who were excluded from the record – including my mother, Winifred Bailey.
Who’s the real Bridget Jones?
Last night saw the UK premiere of the fourth Bridget Jones film, Mad About The Boy.
What a phenomenon Helen Fielding created when she invented Bridget in her column in The Independent in 1995. She tapped into all the concerns with which women were obsessed at the time.
Then came the films and Bridget became Renee Zellweger. Personally, I saw Bridget as Helen, whom I met in 1996. She admitted Bridget had been based on her own anxieties.
I interviewed her again after the first film in 2001. She was unspoiled by her new-found wealth. A great talent, yet still full of that same anxiety to which we can all relate.
Wynne’s comment is no joke
What was Wynne Evans thinking when he made what he thought was a joke about ‘spit roasting’ a female colleague on the Strictly tour? How could anyone think two men having sex together with a woman is remotely amusing? Why do some men never learn it’s time to step out of the locker room?
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has gone right down in my estimation. He’s to drop women’s health targets in the new NHS plan. As Lesley Regan, the Government’s first Women’s Health Ambassador, said: ‘There’s already a men’s health strategy. It’s called the NHS.’
Maggie can fill the hole in my heart
Minnie, my 18-month-old chihuahua, and I have been grieving the deaths of Madge and Frieda earlier this month. Minnie had been utterly miserable … until the arrival of three-month-old Maggie, left. Full of energy, games and joy. Our house is becoming happy again.
I didn’t want to watch the TV coverage of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz this week. My memories of my visit there in 1964, aged 14, still make me shake with fear.
As we left under the sign Arbeit Macht Frei, my father told me that he was Jewish. ‘There but for the grace of God,’ he said, pointing out that, even though I was not fully Jewish because it passes down through the mother, he didn’t think I would have escaped Hitler.
