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State of the union

Decline of marriage – 1

The numbers of people getting married in Britain are decreasing and the sharpest falls are in church weddings, particularly Catholic ones. Here, an expert on the institution argues that one cause of the decline is our diffidence in advocating the merits of marriage

Most people reading this article are probably not aware that we have just celebrated Marriage Week UK. This annual event goes by without a great deal of interest or activity, possibly mirroring the lack of interest in the institution itself suggested by last week’s report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on the the falling numbers of those who marry.

If you were the marketing manager for Marriage Week UK, these would be depressing sales figures. Put simply, the general public are not buying the product in the way they used to. What would be even more puzzling for our mythical marketing person would be their despair at not being able to market such a safe and reliable product – stable and trustworthy, good for health and education, long-running.

The ONS report appeared a week after Government statisticians published other figures indicating a drop in divorce. Some of those involved in supporting marriage were pleased at these figures, although with fewer marriages there are bound to be statistically fewer divorces. It is also possible that those who do now marry are predisposed towards the relationship in some unknown way. But what is overwhelmingly the case is that there is a continuing decline in the number of marriages in Britain and that that decline is most marked in churches. In 2008, there were 156,290 civil weddings but only 76,700 religious ceremonies, fewer than half the 1991 total and a marked change from 20 years ago when church weddings outnumbered civil ceremonies. (The change in the law in 1995 which allowed civil weddings in premises other than register offices may have affected these figures: 105,570 of the civil ceremonies took place in approved premises, such as hotels, stately homes and suchlike.)

But the most dramatic fall of all was in the Catholic Church, where there were just 8,640 weddings (9,932 according to figures in the Catholic Directory). Compare that to the 1981 figure of 26,097, and what emerges is a steady decline of about 1,000 weddings per year during this decade. So what is happening with the product that I mentioned above?

The main competition is cohabitation, which is on the increase. This is a difficult demographic phenomenon to analyse, but it is fair to say that cohabitees are still following a pattern of marriage – two people coming together in love and wanting to build a life together. What they are not doing is making a public commitment to each other and, to stretch the marketing metaphor further, they are buying a product that is inherently prone to breakdown. I don’t mean to criticise those who cohabit, but it does appear that increasing numbers of people are choosing a form of relationship that seems not to work for long.

So, what is it about marriage that seems to be putting people off? Professor Kathleen Kiernan, for example, in her 2002 report “The State of European Unions”, explored with young people why they weren’t marrying. Many said that either they did not want to repeat their parents’ experiences – that is, divorce – or they were traumatised by the divorce experi­ence. The increase in interfaith relationships could also be a reason; I speak to many who cite inter-religious difficulties as reasons why they may not, in the end, get married.

Then there is the impact of gender equality. To be sure, we need to be wary of what marriage is founded on. Until quite recently, it was a relationship based on patriarchy and power over women. But the ONS figures suggest a demographic change so marked that fewer than two in 100 women went through a wedding in 2008. In fact, women today are three times less likely to get married than their mothers’ generation. Finally, it is clear that the wedding-day performance itself is becoming prohibitively expensive. So, while a public commitment is important for our society, many couples find it is costing them so much that they avoid it. The wedding industry is huge, but it seems to be working against itself.

There are broader and more covert issues that could well be affecting the decline in marriage, such as the rise in individualism, brought to its peak under market liberalism in the 1980s. Finally, I believe there is a fear of commitment, linked to the rise of individualism, which means that some people translate “till death us do part” as an infringement of liberty.

So what can be done to change this trend of decline? In politics, both the main parties are pushing the family, and marriage in particular (Labour slightly less so than the Conservatives). David Cameron says he will offer tax breaks. It is certainly true that in the UK, married couples pay a third more tax than couples in other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, but I cannot see people deciding to marry because of a tax break.

Rather than a political and economic solution, I believe that we in the faith communities need to take the lead in providing a solution. And that means, to return to my marketing metaphor, that we need to promote marriage much more. We need to witness, as married couples, to this important and sacred union. We need to endorse it and make that endorsement personal. For despite advertising, it is clear that most products or services tend to be adopted because someone close to you has recommended it – when, for example, they say they have found a good restaurant, a good film, a good book. We have been shy about this in our Church. And, perhaps, with falling church attendances, there are fewer married couples attending who advertise their union.

We also need to take seriously the need for preparation. There is too much lip service paid to preparation both by the couples preparing for marriage and by the laity and clergy. It is right and proper that priests and Religious spend so much time preparing for their vocation, and take time to consider the direction they have chosen. Why is there such a discrepancy when we compare what we expect of couples preparing for their lives together with that of priests or Religious? I believe that this discrepancy contributes to the problem, that it is pervasive and possibly subliminally destructive when people consider getting married.

Despite what we say, our actions perhaps suggest that we do not believe marriage is worth much. Marriage as a vocation is talked about but not developed consistently, so the spiritual aspect is often left untended. And how do we reconcile the “fairy-tale” image of the wedding day built up by the wedding industry, when those of us who are married know that it is an imperfect, troubling, dynamic yet fundamentally wholesome experience?

We in the Church need to voice our enthusiasm for marriage. We need to trumpet its worth and value. We need to witness to all about the efficacy of this social, spiritual and sacred relationship so that we leave a legacy of stable families, and a healthy society. For if we don’t, who will?

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