IS THE MARRIAGE BED-ROCKING ??

http://www.marriagemakeover.co.uk/

1 March 4th 2007

The Sunday Times asks is Britain splitting up over Marriage? The politicians are polarised – David Cameron advocates marriage as the bedrock of society and protector of children, whereas Tony Blair offers no such judgement but is prepared to pick up the pieces where things go wrong.

Are either of them right, or is this just political posturing? Does it, nevertheless, indicate a real problem with the image of the institution of marriage in Britain today?

I think it does.

The realities of any relationship between couples living together do not revolve around romance and happy ever after, rather they rely on realistic approaches to joint responsibilities money, children, housework, putting the cat out and all the other boring bits and pieces of day to day life.

Unfortunately marriage is much more identified with the boring bits than cohabitation, which many people seem to think is nearer to the footloose and fancy free world of the young free and single.

I suppose in a way that is true – if cohabiting couples have children, half of those couples will separate before the child is 5, whereas with married couples it is only 1 in 12 of the partnerships that breakdown in the same period.

In other words cohabitation is truly not as serious a commitment as marriage.

And that is very sad for the children who will have to cope with more likelihood of separation from one parent, and for a society where promotion of the single ideal, particularly for young men, is reflected constantly in the media.

If we are going to change anything and promote marriage as long lasting institution that people might want to be part of, then it has to be attractive.

That attraction can be dealt with in lots of ways – try tax and benefits for example. At the moment the system is weighted so that single parents receive more than couples, which seems to be completely antagonistic to the continuation of a relationship. If a young mum can tell her husband to get lost after a tiff in the knowledge that she will be just as well off without him due to tax credits and welfare benefits, she is much less likely to struggle on.

People have to want to opt in to marriage now because there is no longer a presumption that a couple should marry, even if they have children.

I would like to see more promotion of marriage through tax and benefit incentives, (for instance whatever happened to the transferable allowance promised to us by Nigel Lawson) perhaps David Cameron could think of one of his Tory predecessors when he starts to work out how he is going to do more than pay lip service to promotion of this idea.

And the other big one is giving support to people who are in marriage (or cohabiting and contemplating marriage) through services designed to prepare and nurture relationships. Long term marriages have huge benefits that are social, physical, emotional and financial for individuals. All of these benefits should be promoted and spelled out, and the government should pour money in to services that maintain, support and prepare people for marriage.

It needs to become fashionable for people to look at their marriage in the same way they look at a business or a project – as something which needs to be reviewed on a regular basis with all parties involved, having their opinions and aims listened to, and a new way forward agreed and implemented on a regular basis.

This would change the foundation of many family relationships, and give a bedrock solidity upon which they could build a much more interesting and exciting lifestyle because the basic details of their existence (like putting the cat out) had already been organised and did not need to be constantly monitored.

As a society we have historically praised those who invest their time in work, and yet individuals who do so and lose their marriage as a result can find themselves losing 50% of their assets and even income etc etc – such a loss would be unthinkable if it was to do with business, and yet in the breakdown of a marriage it is regarded as an almost unavoidable result of an emotional difference between husband and wife.

In so many cases this is simply not true. I have seen a great number of clients who understand more about their own position and that of their partner at the door of the divorce court than they ever did during the marriage itself (because of the machinery we have used to disclose financial, business and lifestyle issues). It is so sad for them to realise that if they had invested time in the relationship at an earlier stage, they might never have reached this point.

We need to promote the idea that relationships need preparation, honesty and support, and that those things are not boring. In reality they facilitate the fun which can follow in a relationship if there is no constant bickering or worrying or arguing about money or children or clash in careers. Marriages need preparation for solidity, and managed for harmony and fun to have a future.

If David Cameron wants to promote marriage he should think about this. Extra money and taxes is one thing, changing the culture is quite something else.