We should applaud end of the nuclear family... says top family court judge
THE collapse of the nuclear family should be welcomed and applauded, Britain’s most senior family judge said yesterday.
Sir James Munby, who is the President of the Family Division of the High Court, said the modern family was complex and took an ‘infinite variety of forms’.
He said there was a new reality of single parent households, same-sex marriages and adopted families that the law was ‘maddeningly slow’ to adapt to.
Sir James said that many Britons ‘live in families more or less removed from what, until comparatively recently, would have been recognised as the typical nuclear family’, adding: ‘This, I stress, is not merely the reality; it is, I believe, a reality which we should welcome and applaud.’
In a speech at Liverpool University, Sir James said: ‘People live together as couples, married or not, and with partners who may not always be of the other sex. Children live in households where their parents may be married or unmarried.
‘They may be brought up by a single parent, by two parents or even by three parents. Their parents may or may not be their natural parents.
‘They may be children of parents with very different religious, ethnic or national backgrounds. They may be the children of polygamous marriages.
‘ Their siblings may be only halfsiblings or step-siblings. Some children are brought up by two parents of the same sex. Some children are conceived by artificial donor insemination.
‘Some are the result of surrogacy arrangements.’ Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show about 10,000 same- sex couples have dependent children.
Parental orders for surrogacy arrangements have grown from fewer than 50 in 2008 to 300 this year.
It comes after he called for an overhaul of the country’s marriage laws in March, saying it would one day be
‘An infinite variety of forms’
laughable that men are asked to pay money to support their ex-wives.
Sir James called for equality for divorcees when maintenance payments are settled by the courts, highlighting ‘absurd’ divorce settlements that are unfairly biased against men. He said cohabitees should have the same status as married couples, and fault- free divorces should be introduced.
At the time, Sir James, who due to retire this summer as he turns 70, was accused of meddling in politics and urged to quit by campaigners.
Last year he spoke out about mental health funding and warned the lack of secure units for a particular suicidal patient would result in Britain having blood on their hands if she killed herself. Recalling that moment in his speech yesterday, Sir James said judges needed more power to decide what happens to children in these situations. Courts are not allowed to intervene in the work of local authorities.
He has already persuaded the Government to change surrogacy laws to allow single people to go through surrogacy, not just couples.