The UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in the Western world

Never mind wedlock, marriage is not

a prison, but a pledge

By Jenny McCartney

Last week’s gloomy statistics about the growing percentage of children being born out of wedlock failed to acknowledge the burgeoning social trend of the post-baby wedding

By the year 2016, it was predicted last week, the majority of children in Britain will be born out of wedlock. At the moment, the rate of babies with unmarried parents is running at 47.5 per cent, and heading upwards. It’s a funny word, “wedlock”, reeking of ancient custom, with echoes of a key turning inexorably in a heavy door slammed shut on the single life.

The marital state of Britain today suggests that many people, when they hear “wedlock”, react as one might to the ominous clang of prison gates, and retreat. They find it much easier to have a baby together than to tie the knot, even though marriages can be broken, but a baby means (in theory, at least) that you are forever connected in some style to the other parent. There are couples who, if they crave a public statement of permanence, are more likely to seek it in the tattoo parlour than the registry office. Yet, in fact, there is no true “lock” in “wedlock”: the word grew out of the Old English “wedlac”, or pledge-giving, and the “lac” suffix means “offering”: more volition, less imprisonment.

Does the marriage of parents matter for children? Statistically, it would seem to: cohabiting couples are three times more likely than married couples to have split up by the time a child is five years old. The UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in the Western world, with just 68.9 per cent of children living with both parents (in Finland, it is 95.2 per cent).

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