For Better or Worse?

By A. J. Dalton (amended by Jon Porter)

Isn’t marriage meant to be for life? Why then do so many marriages in the UK now end in divorce?

A hefty 42 per cent of marriages in the UK end in divorce,the highest rate in Europe. What is happening in the UK to cause such a phenomenon? Many consider the family to be the basic building block of society. If marriages and families are falling apart, is UK society also falling apart? Is the divorce rate a symptom of some sort of social crisis? Is the UK’s cultural identity disintegrating?

It’s quite difficult these days to say what the UK’s cultural identity is. We’re all familiar with British traditions and customs,but they don’t really seem to be a big part of modern life in the UK. A popular idea from decades ago was that British men are gentlemen who wear bowler hats, but of course that is no longer true at all. It is also wrong to think that we all live in quiet, sleepy villages and play cricket. We don’t all drink tea with milk. The UK of today is one of the most multicultural countries on earth. There are exotic sights and sounds on the street corners of every British city. British cuisine is now one of the most diverse around. Everyone speaks with a different accent. The strange and the bizarre are quite common in the UK.

Is such diversity a good thing? Well, it makes the UK a very exciting place to live. There are new ideas everywhere. All the senses are stimulated. There is great freedom to be who you want to be, and most people will not criticise you for who you are. Yet such freedom seems to come at a cost. It’s not all happy families. There has been a significant number of race riots in both the south and north of England over the last 50 years of British history. Some British people regard ethnic minorities as coming to the UK to steal jobs. When the economy does badly, this feeling increases as unemployment rates rise.Strongly nationalistic political parties, such as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and British National Party (BNP), have enjoyed more popularity in recent years.

So, it could be argued that the breakdown of marriages in the UK is in some part because of the pressures put upon families by wider problems in British society. Many people become stressed and unhappy when they lack financial security, and that can then make their home life or family life stressed and unhappy as well.

Another possible reason for the high divorce rate might be that marriage no longer has the same value or meaning for British people as it once did. Church attendance in the UK has been falling for the last 50 years, suggesting fewer people consider marriage a holy institution. Since 1991, there has been a drop of 50 per cent in people getting married in church rather than a register office. Bizarrely, Christian missionaries now come to the UK, whereas 800 years ago, the UK was sending Christian missionaries out around the world.

Then there is the financial side to getting married. In the past, married couples paid lower government taxes than single people. That tax incentive has now disappeared. In addition, the cost of a ‘white wedding’ in the UK, once every girl’s dream, is now so high (a minimum of ￡10,000) that increasingly few people can afford it.

What does it all mean? Will marriage disappear completely in the UK one day? Probably not. The reality is that the institution of marriage is changing with British society, so it has a good chance of survival. Since the introduction of ‘civil partnerships’ in the UK on 5 December 2005, thousands of same-sex marriages have taken place every year. The dissolution rate (effectively, the divorce rate) is less than one per cent. The UK has made a lot of progress in the area of gay rights since homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1967.It’s probably just as well, since otherwise fewer people would be happily married in the UK.

However … that figure at the top of the page—42 per cent UK divorce rate, the highest in Europe—is still actually the lowest rate in the UK for forty years! Despite everything, the cultural acceptance of couples living together before getting married may actually be strengthening marriage in the UK!

Fun corner

Choose the correct answer for each question.

1 What do we call the party after a wedding

ceremony?

athe congregation

bthe reception

ca funeral

2 Which one of these people won’t be found in a church?

aregistrar

ba priest

ca bride

3 Which of these are not said during a civil ceremony?

a‘I do.’

bthe vows

ca blessing

Word(s) of the day

If someone plays at‘happy families’, then they pretend that everything is okay and that they have the perfect, ‘normal’ family when this is probably not the case. If something is described as not being ‘a(chǎn)ll happy families’, then the situation is not good.

Activity 1: Before you read

What are your personal views and attitudes?Do you agree (A) or disagree (D) with these statements?

1Gay marriage is fair and right.

2Marriage is mainly a religious ceremony.

3Everyone should want to get married in their lives.

4People don’t always marry for love.

Now look back at the article. What answers do you think British people would give to those same questions?

Activity 2: Vocabulary

All the words below are from the article. Match the ones with similar meanings. One answer is given.

1 diverse (c)

2dissolution

3gay

4falling apart

5bizarre

6in the past

7because

8less

adisintegrating

bonce

c multicultural (1)

dhomosexual

esince

fstrange

glower

hdivorce

Activity 3: Trends

Based on the article, choose a suitable word

from the list to fill each gap in each sentence.

There are more words in the list than you need.dropped highest up decrease risen down decreased

1The UK divorce rate is the ......... in Europe.

2There has been a ......... in the number of British people attending church over the last 50 years.

3The costs of a white wedding go .........every year.

4Since 1991, the number of people getting married in church has .........