Marriage is a great institution, inheritance tax issues or not

It’s hardly the love story of fairytales. Not only has he admitted that inheritance tax is his only motivation, but he spelled out his plans to Saga Magazine (of all publications), adding that getting married is something he “should get around to” before he dies.

On the romantic scale, it makes the proposal of one of his Office characters (a small ad reading “Lee love Dawn, marriage?") seem gallant and moving.

As anyone who has watched any of his films or TV shows will know, Gervais is not unromantic.

Cemetery Junction finishes with a young couple running to flee their dead-end town, Extras climaxes with his dour character getting over himself to reunite with his friend, and even David Brent winds up by finally making all of his colleagues laugh.

Yet his hatred of marriage appears one of his central values, and this begrudging tying of the knot appears a grim acceptance that the system has somehow beaten him.

In one sense, Gervais is right. Couples who co-habit and have been together a long time but do not want to get married or cannot afford to probably do not deserve to get stung with an inheritance tax bill.

The government probably should have some measure to avoid people exploiting the system and has put forward marriage as being that.

Maybe there could be another metric, but even if it is wrong for people to feel forced into getting married, that does not mean that there is something wrong with marriage itself.

I take against the notion that marriage is some kind of necessary evil.

It can be hard work, but even though it is a historic concept, it is no less relevant.

Formally committing yourself to love and serve a partner (whether before God or a registrar) is still a powerful and devoted act.

While there might be an understanding between a non-married couple that they are life partners, it is still more than symbolic to actually state the commitment. For richer, for poorer.

Weddings themselves, if you can get over potentially making small talk with someone you half know next to you for hours, are also joyous occasions.

For all that is going wrong in the world, I have found the couple I have attended recently to be an all the more powerful reminder that love exists and should be celebrated.

Perhaps Gervais should work on his proposal. Luckily for his partner, I am not sure that small ads still exist.

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William Mata is a writer and SEO editor for LBC.

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