Susieblue

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could help or have any advice.

My partner and I are going to apply for IEC 2014 program as soon as its available.

We have been together 7 and a half years and were planning on getting married, however, I am not sure if you can be married and still apply for the IEC visa? Are you still likely to get a visa if your married?

We thought about applying for the IEC and then getting married in Canada at some point, would this be allowed? and would I just apply under my married name for the second year visa?

I would just like to know my options. Getting married in Canada would be what we would prefer but obviously not if it meant breaking any rules.

Former Lancastrian

The IEC programme doesn't discriminate so yes you can be married and apply in 2014 providing you meet all of the other eligibility requirements.

Susieblue

Hi,

Thank you for the reply. Do you happen to know what would happen if we got married on the IEC while in Canada? is this allowed?

orly

Sure. I married my Canadian wife while here on an IEC visa.

If you're both British it's not a problem either. I know in Ontario there are no particularly tricky rules or hoops to jump through. Just apply for a marriage licence beforehand. You do not have to be a Canadian citizen or live in Ontario to get married here.

You might want to check that the rules are the same elsewhere if you're planning to go to a different province.

Susieblue

Hi,

Thank you for the reply, its appreciated as I can't find anywhere else that has information on these details. If we were to marry in the first year of the IEC and I applied for a second year I assume I would just apply in my new married surname? I just don't know if those issuing the IEC visas would find it inappropriate that we got married while on the first one or it doesn't matter to them as long as you meet all other requirements (our goal is to get PR if this is possible down the line)

BTJ

You'd apply in the name in your passport. Whether you change your surname or not is up to you, but you'd just have to renew your passport first if you want to change name.

orly

You'd apply using the name in your passport. You could apply for a new passport I guess if you wanted to make sure you could use your new name.

That said do you actually have any reason for changing your name? It seems a rather quaint old fashioned idea to me :P When I married my Canadian wife I told her I didn't care in the slightest what name she took. She kept her birth name.

christmasoompa

Quaint & old fashioned? I only know one woman that didn't change her surname and she really regrets it now - absolutely everybody, from the doctors receptionist, to the children at school, call her Mrs Smith, even though she's actually kept her name and is Mrs Jones! She also hates having a different surname from her children.

It's still very unusual for a woman not to change her name imo. And it's just as well I did, as my son's name is my maiden name so I'd have had to think of another boys name if I'd kept it!

orly

Never experienced that. My wife gets called by her name and I get called by mine.

I then look at her mother who has a different surname from my wife. My wife's brothers have yet another surname. An increasingly common occurrence. I have colleagues in work with a similar situation where different people under the same roof have multiple surnames.

It's only an issue when you deal with people who make assumptions and/or can't read as far as I can tell. I personally found the idea of my wife changing her name to mine pretty strange. It may be generational, more and more younger couples are disregarding that "norm". In many parts of the world people keep their names. Icelandic naming conventions are particularly interesting.

PMM

Hi


Neither has my wife, who kept her maiden name, and this was over 30 years ago. The only people who seemed to have a problem with it, were my and her mothers. In Quebec, a spouse can't change their surname through marriage.

christmasoompa

Trouble is, most people do make assumptions, and they assume that the wife and husband have the same surname, certainly in the UK. Again, using my friend as an example, the kids at school all call her Mrs X, she hasn't got the heart to correct them as they just don't understand that her name may be different to their classmates!

And just to clarify as you mentioned it being a 'generational' thing - I'm only in my 30's!!

orly

Does anyone where the custom came from in the first place? I'm assuming (yes...making an assumption) it had something to do with men being viewed as superior to women, of greater importance or something equally comical.

PMM

Hi


At one time women were considered chattels of their husbands/fathers. The following quote may define it for the UK and Canada.

A ruling in British common law in 1876 emphasized the problem for Canadian women by saying "Women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but are not persons in matters of rights and privileges."

"English law defined the role of the wife as a ‘feme covert’, emphasizing her subordination to her husband, and putting her under the ‘protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord’. Upon marriage, the husband and wife became one person under the law, as the property of the wife was surrendered to her husband, and her legal identity ceased to exist. Any personal property acquired by the wife during the marriage, unless specified that it was for her own separate use, went automatically to her husband. If a woman writer had copyright before marriage, the copyright would pass to the husband afterwards, for instance. Further, married women were unable to draft wills or dispose of any property without their husbands’ consent.[3]

Women were often limited in what they could inherit. Males were more likely to receive real property (land), while females with brothers were sometimes limited to inherited personal property, which included clothing, jewelry, household furniture, food, and all moveable goods.[4] In an instance where no will was found, the English law of primogeniture automatically gave the oldest son the right to all real property, and the daughter only inherited real property in the absence of a male heir. The law of intestate primogeniture remained on the books in Britain until 1925.[5]