Partners News No 6 - January 2001
By Dave Percival
The UK Marriage Debate
According to a recent article from the Daily Express, young women still believe in marriage, want to have children within wedlock and intend to remain faithful to their partner. But unlike previous generations, they are prepared to wait.
Modern women want to marry someone from the same social class and background as themselves. Nine in 10 women want to get married, and men seem just as keen to get married, with only 13 per cent of those women questioned believing that they were more keen to commit than their partners.
Three-quarters of the women surveyed want to get married before they have children, but seven per cent said they would consider getting pregnant to persuade their partner to marry them. Two-thirds think divorce is too easy nowadays and more than 50 per cent think married couples don't put enough effort into their relationship.
In a little publicised move at the end of last year, the Labour Government finally scrapped the "No Fault Divorce" provisions from the Statute Book. Now ministers are expected to announce plans to strengthen support for families and marriage, including an enhanced role for marriage registrars in counselling couples. Couples would have more time to reflect before they marry, with both parties attending the register office to make the first arrangement. Marriage counselling and support services would also be boosted.
The Government seems to be in disarray on the whole subject of marriage however. "The Government should not promote marriage as the ideal context for bringing up children, said Tessa Jowell, the minister for employment and women. She says it would be wrong to make the offspring of single mothers or cohabiting parents feel inferior. "We would never want to advocate a family policy that made some children feel they were first class children and others feel they were second class," she says in an interview in The Telegraph. "Children thrive in a stable environment, being brought up by parents who love them. I think in the 21st century families come in all shapes and sizes."
Her comments will infuriate some of her colleagues. In recent months Paul Boateng, the Home Office minister, has been pushing for a forthcoming consultation paper on the subject to advocate marriage as the ideal.
Family values campaigners were furious when legislation lowering the age of consent for homosexuals to 16 reached the statute book late last year. They also fiercely resisted attempts to repeal section 28, which banned councils from promoting homosexuality in schools. As a concession on this issue, it was agreed to put on the statute book a legal duty on teachers to promote the importance of marriage.
In April, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, scrapped the married couples' tax allowance and replaced it with a children's tax credit which will go to all parents. A green paper, Supporting Families, published by the Home Office in 1998, stated: "The Government believes that marriage provides a strong foundation for stable relationships. We do share the belief of the majority of people that marriage provides the most reliable framework for raising children."
After the intervention of No 10, the new green paper is likely to use a similar compromise form of words. The Tories are also divided on how to support marriage. A proposal drawn up by David Willetts, the shadow social security secretary, and Michael Portillo, the shadow chancellor, for a transferable tax allowance for married parents is being resisted by some senior Tories. They want a benefit to go to everyone who is married.
We can expect the issue of Gay Marriages to be an issue too either in the election Campaign, or for the next Government. The Liberal Democrats have already stated they would legislate to give Gay couples the same rights and status as hetero-sexual couples, whilst the other parties are known to be considering how to address the issues.
What do our various partners think? Why not use the Partner's Forum to start a debate - we don't all have to agree, but it would be good if we were able to discover those of a like mind, and to decide how we as organisations and agencies might respond to some of the very real practical challenges that changes in the law and societies expectations place on us.
