Here's a completely unromantic blog post about getting married.

Marriage for all is not quite the same for everyone.

Bravo, Switzerland! We are truly proud of our progressive country that introduced marriage for all on July 1, 2022. As with women's suffrage, we are a truly progressive pioneering nation. 

But to this day, there is a remnant of patriarchy that our parliament has not (yet) eliminated Survivors' pensions and mandatory accident insurance are significantly more generous for women than for men. This made perfect sense in 1948, when the AHV was introduced. At that time, the vast majority of women were economically dependent on their husbands. 

Today, the reasoning is somewhat more difficult. But men still receive a widower's pension only if they have minor children at the time of the death of their spouse, or now also of their husband. Widows, on the other hand, receive the pension without limit (including childless women if they are at least 45 years old and have been married for five years). In the case of marriage for all, this means that lesbian couples can enjoy slightly more than gay couples.

Should you get married now, you ask? I don't know. We're not big on feelings, we're insurance and pension advisors. But we can tell you what the advantages of marriage are compared to a registered partnership or cohabitation. There are also rational reasons for or against such a step. For example, registered couples are worse off in terms of survivors' pensions and automatically have the separation of property, which puts the person who works less at a disadvantage. Furthermore, there are differences in issues such as adoption or facilitated naturalization.  

We will ask you some important questions that you will not hear at the registry office or in church. So it's better to talk to us before you swear eternal fidelity, which lasts 15.7 years on average.