BRITAIN TURNS ITS BACK ON MARRIAGE
Fewer women than ever now wed as young reject tradition
THE proportion of women who are married is at a record low, official figures revealed yesterday. Only 49.5 per cent of women over 16 in England and Wales are married, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Last night campaigners warned of the ‘continued denigration of marriage’ and called for better tax breaks to encourage couples to wed, describing current measures as ‘pathetic’.
When men are included in the ONS figures, just 50.8 per cent have chosen to marry – falling to less than half among under-35s.
The figure for men alone was 51.5 per cent, with their lower life expectancy leaving more women as widows in later life. Since 2008, the proportion of married men has fallen by 1.8 percentage points from 53.3 per cent, and women by 1.3 percentage points from 50.8 per cent.
Some 24 million people in England and Wales are married, while the number living together outside marriage has gone up in the past year to 5 million.
The shift away from weddings has followed a transformation in the aspirations of millions of women who now want to go through higher
education and into careers rather than marry and start a family. Many postpone marriage and family further because of the need to maintain incomes and pay mortgages.
But other observers pointed to a class divide over marriage. Harry Benson, of the Marriage Foundation think-tank, said: ‘Marriage rates have been declining since the 1970s, yet what these figures conceal is that the better-off continue to marry in their droves. Three quarters of those in higher-income groups are married when their child is born compared to only one quarter of those in the lower-income groups.
‘The better- off know that publicly endorsing their commitment to a life together remains the best guarantee of family stability, security and well-being.
‘The result is that divorce rates have fallen back to 1960s levels whereas breakup rates of couples who don’t marry remain stubbornly three times higher.’
One age group is bucking the trend – increasing numbers of people over 70 are married, with the figure rising from 50.3 per cent in 2008 to 55.8 per cent last year.
In 2016, Great British Bake Off presenter Prue Leith married at the age of 76 after being widowed eight years earlier. ‘I am giddy with the joy of it,’ she said. ‘And why shouldn’t we oldies be
‘Best guarantee of family stability’
happy, fall in love, feel that rush of unadulterated happiness again?
‘There’s nothing in the world like it – and it’s the same at 70 as it was at 17. Same anxiety, same longing, feeling sick, excitement, same everything.’
The ONS figures, drawn from the large- scale Labour Force Survey, showed that nearly four out of ten people are not living in couples and fewer than half the adult population under the age of 35 are married.
Some 8 per cent of people are divorced, 6.4 per cent are widowed, and 0.2 per cent are in civil partnerships.
Critics say the falling marriage rates and the rising level of cohabiting relationships are the result of political indifference.
Author and researcher Dr Patricia Morgan, said: ‘There has been continued denigration of marriage and no support at all from governments. People are not encouraged to marry, there is no tax help, and the result is that people do not marry.’
Dr Morgan joined calls for ministers to allow couples to transfer their tax allowances, so a married husband or wife could stay at home to raise children while the working spouse benefits from two income tax allowances rather than one. She said: ‘Tax help for married people is pathetic and limited to those on low incomes.’
It comes as lawyers press ministers for a law that would give to co- habiting couples similar property rights to those of married couples.
Graeme Fraser, of the Resolution family lawyers’ group, said: ‘Official statistics have repeatedly shown how quickly the number of co-habiting couples is rising. However, laws shaped by the social norms of the 20th century are still governing 21st-century relationships, potentially putting millions of people at risk of destitution in the event of the breakdown of their relationship or the death of a partner.
‘I hope this call will be supported by a Prime Minister who likes to characterise himself as a social liberal and who is himself in a co-habiting relationship.’