The beauty guru makes a very good point.
Caroline Hirons was married to her estranged husband Jim for over three decades, but now is she advising her daughter against tying the knot.
Her 24-year-old daughter Ava is expecting her first child with her boyfriend Zachariah Noble but Caroline doesn’t think they should get married.
The beauty guru’s point isn’t to avoid ‘commitment’, it’s to be cautious about potentially losing financial control of her life.
‘The financial argument about tax benefits is all very well, but it’s not that big of a benefit if it means women can financially lose control of their lives and become dependent on someone else, who subsequently has all the power,’ she wrote in the i Paper.
‘The only extra security you’ve got is that if your husband dies, normally everything would automatically pass to you as the wife, which isn’t the case if you’re not married.’
Caroline also argued that a ‘piece of paper isn’t going to stop you from getting divorced, or stop someone cheating’.
Caroline shared that 32 years ago, she was the one who wanted to get married, but Jim wasn’t that fussed about the prospect. In hindsight, she thinks he was ‘onto something’.
The 56-year-old explained that when her younger colleagues show her their engagement rings, she urges them with the utmost respect and love not to marry their partners.
Caroline and Jim aren’t getting divorced because it’s ‘too expensive’, and she’s not looking for a new man to keep her warm at night either.
In fact, she’s ‘actively discouraging’ people from setting her up with someone.
Caroline recalled fondly that she’s already experienced the love of her life, and now she, her children, and her grandchildren are the loves of her life.
‘I’m financially independent, and as soon as I marry someone else, they become the beneficiary of all my money. Are you joking? Absolutely no chance,’ she wrote. ‘I haven’t grafted for decades and built these businesses up to leave it to some random bloke that I meet in the latter half of my life.’
(If you can’t see us snapping our fingers to this statement, rest assured that we are).
Caroline said that women are ‘sold the dream’, but in reality, the institution of marriage is ‘misogynistic’.
She spoke of how, generally, children take their father’s surname, and how women are referred to ‘Mrs’, ‘Ms’, or ‘Miss’ depending on their marital status.
‘That whole dad-walking-you-down-the-aisle thing and handing you to another man? Women, wake the f**k up!,’ she encouraged.
