
John A
Well-known member
Founding Member
I have discovered that if I marry my fiancee legally before I get a job, we'll lose about 50% of our state benefits, even if we don't start living together immediately. This set me thinking as to whether I might be able to "have my cake and eat it."
I am also aware that if a non-conformist (i.e. non-Anglican) minister of religion - or anybody else for that matter - conducts a wedding ceremony without the registrar present, and issues a purely ecclesiastical certificate to the effect that he has done this, we won't be legally married, although the church won't regard us a living in sin either. (It's easy enough to start one's own church if nobody I already know will perform the ceremony. I was thinking of doing this anyway, for other reasons.)
Would an ecclesiatical marriage not recognised by the state be sufficient (if the mental health didn't read the papers too carefully) to establish me as my fiancee's Nearest Relative for Mental Health Act purposes? (As nearest relative, I could bestow upon my beloved a power her mother won't give her to refuse the unwanted attentions of the "mental health" industry.)
Alternatively, can my fiancee substitute me, her fiance, for her 83 year-old mother as her Mental Health Act Nearest Relative?
My fiancee is a mental health service user. I am not.
I am also aware that if a non-conformist (i.e. non-Anglican) minister of religion - or anybody else for that matter - conducts a wedding ceremony without the registrar present, and issues a purely ecclesiastical certificate to the effect that he has done this, we won't be legally married, although the church won't regard us a living in sin either. (It's easy enough to start one's own church if nobody I already know will perform the ceremony. I was thinking of doing this anyway, for other reasons.)
Would an ecclesiatical marriage not recognised by the state be sufficient (if the mental health didn't read the papers too carefully) to establish me as my fiancee's Nearest Relative for Mental Health Act purposes? (As nearest relative, I could bestow upon my beloved a power her mother won't give her to refuse the unwanted attentions of the "mental health" industry.)
Alternatively, can my fiancee substitute me, her fiance, for her 83 year-old mother as her Mental Health Act Nearest Relative?
My fiancee is a mental health service user. I am not.