Trying to force people to lose their assets without a marriage contract or indeed any contract at all really is shameful.

But what about a short term – say a year or two long relationship where there are no children and the women does earn a wage? Should this women be supported for life? Receive a big compensation package? I don’t think so!

I can see both sides of the argument as I have a daughter and I am a divorced Man. From my POV I was stitched up in court in my divorce settlement and for my daughter I worry that she will be left high and dry or traded in for a new model with nothing and a child or two and out on the street.

The one ray of light in the future doesn’t involve lawyers in family law I’m afraid. CSA / CMEC should be abolished also and pre-nups should be binding. If you do that then you make men and women need each other, to earn enough and to bring up the children. The fallback is state benefits. Has to be the way forwards.

Some lighter comments. Firstly, I have nero full version CD / DVD burner software and Nero Essentials (Lite) version on my PC. And I do prefer the Lite version. My point is that of course it is marriage lite and would further undermine marriage.

Second lighter comment. Seems to me that this (co-habiting) situation has all come about with the sexual revolution and the invention of the Pill. Perhaps people should enjoy their new found freedom from reproductive responsibility issues and enjoy sleeping around rather than worrying about children, it’s not as if we have a population worry in this country with the number of eastern europeans getting pregnant in this country – let them worry about it. If women don’t want that then is the same position as thousands of years, and as it should be, namely that she needs the bloke to look after her and he needs her to look after the children, and i for one am doing this (co-habiting and having children), because I want it to remain my business and not be taxed or my woman and children to be taken away from me by a no fault divorce or devorce lite stitch-up.

I’m sure you’re right that there are women who suffer terribly from relationship breakup, and have no rights. I agree that’s a problem. And there may be a solution to that that I could agree with. Maybe the Law Commission’s proposals do that, if they focus on proving loss. I’ll need to look at them in detail.

But Lord Lester’s bill was wholly wrong. People choose to cohabit precisely because it involves no formal legal commitment; to force such commitments on them (unless they paid a solicitor in advance to draw up an agreement) after 18 months of living together (which Lord Lester’s bill did, if you analysed in closely) would discourage cohabitation. It wouldn’t be the modern, hip, relaxed thing you imply; in fact it’d be retrograde. For the sake of protecting the relatively few women you want to help, it’d force young people who want no ties and perhaps divorcees who want to avoid new ones into a 50s style choice between living apart and taking on responsibilities. It would act against the trend for cohabitation, not go with the grain of it. And it’d intensify yet further the trend towards single occupant households and the pressure on housing.

So I think you’re quite wrong if you assume opposition to Lord Lester was “moralistic” – mine certainly wasn’t. I think people should be free to live together without formal legal engagements. Come up with a solution that respects that freedom, and I might support you.