So, society has spoken: to the average person, marriage is fairly irrelevant.
It’s not that we are particularly opposed to the institution – it just
doesn’t much interest us any more. Whether you have a swanky £50,000 wedding
or live in sin, few of us genuinely seem to care. The vast majority believe
that there is no difference between being married and cohabiting, even when
raising children, and two thirds believe that divorce can be a positive
step. Oh, and three quarters of us think that a mother and stepfather can
bring up a child just as well as two biological parents. So much for
traditional values enjoying a comeback.
These findings, from the latest survey of British Social Attitudes, will make
uneasy reading for some politicians. David Cameron has made marriage a
linchpin of Tory policy, declaring that tax breaks would be offered for
married couples with children if his party won the next election. Halting
the disintegration of the family is key to mending our broken society, he
says. “We need a big cultural change in favour of fatherhood, in favour of
parenting, in favour of marriage.” It is expected that the Tories would
allow stay-at-home mothers who look after children to pass on their unused
tax allowances to their husbands, which would be worth about £20 a week.
Soon afterwards the Government was accused of raiding Tory policies when Andy
Burnham, then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said that there was a “moral
case” for promoting marriage.
What might that moral case be? It is generally acknowledged that the children
of married parents tend to have better chances in life than those of
unmarried ones. According to the Jubilee Centre, a Christian-based social
reform organisation, 8 per cent of married couples split up within five
years of the birth of a child, compared with a quarter of those who marry
after the birth and 52 per cent of cohabitees. Children born to married
parents tend to be healthier, perform better in school, and are less likely
to have behavioural problems or turn to drugs, heavy drinking or crime.
Penny Mansfield, director of the relationship research organisation One Plus
One, says that while “longer relationships are likely to be married
relationships”, there is a caveat: the Selection Effect. “The kind of people
who get married may well be the kind who have the beliefs and attitudes that
would keep them in a marriage, or the capabilities and skills to stay in a
relationship,” she says. In other words, it is not neccessarily “being
married” that creates the longevity, it is the attitudes and financial
status of the type of person who would tend to marry in the first place.
“More disadvantaged people are going to figure more largely in the unmarried
group,” says Mansfield. “It doesn’t mean that if you were to take those
disadvantaged people and put them through a marriage ceremony, it would
solve their problems.”
She agrees that marriage may bring certain unique benefits to a relationship.
“It’s clear that getting married makes many people feel more secure. The act
of marriage gives a public stamp to their commitment. But for other people,
getting married can break them up because they feel bound in.” Indeed, as
some cohabitees are fond of saying: “Not being married means that you get to
keep choosing each other every day.”
So, if society doesn’t give two hoots about marriage, are politicians, however
well intentioned, out of step with the electorate? Is it naive to think that
a wedding certificate will stop juvenile deliquency? On the other hand,
wouldn’t even marriage-sceptics agree that any drive to give children a more
stable upbringing was sensible?
We asked six experts if they thought the State would be right to provide
financial incentives to marry: a probation officer, a former head teacher, a
Relate worker, a magistrate, a priest and a police officer.
Terry Hammersely is a magistrate and former teacher who lives in Norfolk. He
stresses that his views are personal and not representative of the
Magistrates’ Association or any judicial body, but he believes it is
simplistic to think that society’s ills would be cured merely by getting
more people down the aisle.
“I can’t think of anything more ineffectual than giving couples £20 and hoping
that will shore up marriage,” he says. “I understand what David Cameron is
trying to do: he sees the family as the root of everything, and this is a
kind of moral rearmament. And, yes, sometimes the type of parents who
undertake marriage vows possibly do have a different quality of commitment
and values to those who don’t. They have shown their children that there is
a value in loyalty and faithfulness, and to a certain extent that might rub
off on them. But it isn’t necessarily the case.”
He argues that many factors are involved in family break-ups, and “you would
need a broad imagination to think that people would change their attitudes
to one another for a couple of tenners a week”.
“The issue with most of the young people who come in front of us [in court] is
that they come from homes that are in poverty,” says Hammersley. “It’s not
the fact that mum and dad are married that’s most important, it’s what they
can provide for their child in terms of resources. A single mother can often
access quite good resources. Social inequality is the real problem.”
Carole Whitty, a former head teacher, is now deputy general secretary of the
National Association of Head Teachers. She spent years teaching in
Birmingham and the Midlands. In her experience, too, marriage is not a
miracle solution. “A stable family is obviously the best possible start that
you can give a child, but it isn’t always marriage that creates this
stability,” she says. “Young people know if their parents are only staying
together for their sake, and sometimes that becomes more upsetting. If
parents do separate, it is the way they manage the separation that makes the
crucial difference.
“It may well be preferable for one parent to be at home during the very early
years of a child’s life, but it isn’t an exact science. The most important
thing is for children to know that they are loved and cared for, and that
there is routine and consistency in their lives.”
Whitty says that society is still coming to terms with the economic and social
changes of the past 20 years, such as more women going out to work. She adds
that children today are less dependent on their parents for their views and
values. “The growth of TV and the internet has made a very significant
change to their lives,” she says. “We didn’t have easy access to other sets
of ideas or values when we were children.
“As to marriage, there are often complex reasons why people prefer not to get
married. I realise that David Cameron is making a political statement with
this policy, but a £20 tax break is hardly going to make the difference he
seeks.
“One pregnant woman told me recently that she would love to stay at home with
her baby for a while, but that it would have to be an enormous tax break to
help with her mortgage.”
Whitty also believes that we should keep “juvenile deliquency” in perspective.
“We hear so much about gangs and disorder on the street . . . I have been in
education for 35 years and gangs are nothing new. When I taught in
Birmingham in the 1970s we had street gangs and fights between schools. In
those schools now, you’ll find that things are a lot more controlled and
disciplined.”
The belief that the quality of a couple’s relationship, rather than its
legality, is what matters seems to be a consistent one. Sue Parkes, chief
executive of Relate for Greater Manchester South, says that showing mutual
respect in a relationship is the example that we should be setting children
first and foremost. “We need to show children good-quality long-term
relationships, married or unmarried, where there is genuinely an equal
partnership,” she says.
“I know children who have been raised brilliantly by single parents. I
wouldn’t like to prescribe to any woman what she should do. But I do think
children need something to aspire to – and that is a stable family life.
Some children live in difficult family circumstances where the parent
changes partners constantly. They need stability, but that doesn’t have to
mean marriage.”
And the tax break? “I don’t think £20 a week is going to be a carrot to many
people. There’s no longer such a tradition of saving to buy your first house
together, then having kids. People get married later in life when they are
financially stable.
“Yes, it’s lovely for children to go home from school and mum is there. And
it’s true that when both parents work it creates extra stresses, with
shift-work and people working away from home. But with fragmented families
to whom £20 may seem attractive, those mothers are probably at home anyway.
And it isn’t a big enough amount to appeal to those who aren’t.
“It would be more constructive for employers to make it easier for parents to
spend more time with children at home.”
Father Philip Chester, of St Matthew’s Church, Westminster, believes on the
other hand that marriage is “desperately important” and hugely beneficial to
the community. “It is a gift that brings stability, generosity of love and
selflessness,” he says – a public declaration of love in a world in which
fewer people engage with their wider community, preferring to remain in
their homes. However, he is not sure that promoting marriage via the tax
system is helpful. “Marriage is part of the fabric of our society and it is
good for the State to recognise and value that,” he says, “but it should
never be about money”.
He believes that marriage should not be an easy thing to enter – or exit: “If
it is done too easily, it loses its worth”.
Bernard McEldowney is a police officer in the West Midlands and deputy
chairman of the Gay Police Association. In Coventry, where he works,
officers are often called to deal with domestic rows and antisocial
behaviour. “If a couple are having a lot of rows, that can impact on the
children, who may grow up thinking that it’s normal. They may then repeat
the pattern,” he says.
“Nothing in life is so simple that it can be cured by one thing. I know a
woman who has raised five kids on her own and they have all turned out
great. None has been in trouble. After her husand died and she became a
single mother, it didn’t mean that they all went off the rails.
“Obviously families can provide a stabilising influence, but some families
don’t. It is the quality of the care that counts.”
In some families, he says, criminal habits are passed down through
generations. “If you have a father who goes out doing burglaries, there’s a
chance that you’ll do the same. A mother might be better off bringing up
kids on her own than having a husband who’s always off doing robberies.
Sometimes two women can create a better environment in which to raise a
child than a man and a woman. It’s common sense.
“I think kids have too much time on their hands now, and nowhere to go.
Parents are spending more time at work, doing more overtime. Part of the
answer is having more social centres for young people.”
Barry O’Doherty is from NAPO, the union of probation workers, and works with
young people on Merseyside. He believes that the reasons for young people
offending today are complex. “There is a lot of hopelessness around,” he
says. “No one is against marriage – stability is a good thing – but this
sounds like soundbite politics.”
O’Doherty is deeply critical of the idea of tax breaks for marriage. “A lot of
people are poor. They might be desperate for £20. So are you going to put a
potentially unsuitable couple together for £20?” he asks. “For the past 25
years we have been subjecting children to advertising campaigns which say
that greed is good. We are obsessed by celebrity, by TV programmes such as
Big Brother.You don’t unravel all this with one simple policy. The inference
is that stopping kids offending is easily done. But it’s going to be a long
haul.
“Personally, I would invest in youth clubs, with people trained as youth
workers to work alongside kids doing energetic activities. When I was a kid
there were loads of youth clubs, but you don’t see so many now because it
costs money.
“David Cameron’s policy is a gimmick. If it worked, it would be wonderful:
life would be easy. But I think it’s naive, unmanageable and potentially
dangerous.”
So have the results of last week’s survey caused a rethink within the
Conservative Party? A response from the Shadow Families Minister, Maria
Miller, seems to suggest less emphasis on marriage and more on ending the
system in which couples benefit from living apart. “There is strong evidence
that children benefit the most from, whenever possible, having both parents
involved together in their upbringing,” says Miller. “But at the moment the
benefits system pays couples more to live apart than to live together. It is
vital that we end the couple penalty so that families are not forced apart.”
No one, presumably, would argue with that. It is the idea of prodding
couples into staying together when they may no longer want to that seems to
cause the most concern. As Penny Mansfield says, it was the “shotgun”
marriages of the late Sixties and Seventies, when it was still considered
shameful to be pregnant and unmarried, that contributed to the huge divorce
rates a decade later. There is now a raft of high-achieving, middle-class,
cohabitee parents who are bringing up well-educated, happy children but who
don’t tend to be considered in the loaded, catch-all phrase “unmarried
parents”.
In a large-scale US study into disadvantaged children and their families in
2006, it was found that in a third of cases it was recommended that the
couple should not be encouraged to stay together because there was a history
of violence between them, or the father had been jailed for violent crime.
In the 21st century, marriage seems to have lost its status. We can only wait
and see if politicians can turn back the clock.
66%
say there is little difference socially between being married and living
together
53%
say a wedding is more about a celebration than a lifelong commitment
48%
say living with a partner shows just as much commitment as getting married
28%
say married couples make better parents than unmarried ones
63%
say divorce can be a positive first step towards a new life
78%
say that it is not divorce that harms children, but conflict between their
parents
Source: British Social Attitudes Survey, 2008
