Civitas

Perhaps the greater issue is not that people are losing the aspiration to marry, but that marriage is becoming unavailable to many. Were this the case, it would matter on a public as much as on a personal level: not simply would it mean people’s ideals were becoming unrealisable, but that the family arrangement with the optimum outcomes was becoming a ‘luxury’.

A study on divorce recently came out of the University of Maryland from which it could be deduced – although this is not a conclusion the authors themselves draw - that marriage is indeed in danger of becoming a privilege of the educated and affluent. ‘Women’s Changing Attitudes Towards Divorce, 1974-2002: Evidence for an Educational Crossover’, by Steven P. Martin and Sangeeta Parashar, recently appeared in the US Journal of Marriage and Family (68, February 2006: 29-40). Their study shows that educated women (those with university degrees) have become ‘more restrictive’ in their attitudes towards divorce, whereas women with little education (those with no high school diploma) have become ‘increasingly permissive’ of divorce – the reverse of the situation in the 1970s. Martin and Parashar’s study is primarily interested in understanding the shift in divorce attitudes between the two strata of women, in relation to their divorce behaviour. One of the key findings is that the behaviour of highly educated women now correlates with their attitudes. But pertinent in their findings to the marriage as a luxury argument, is their interpretation of the significance of the attitude shifts. They conclude that it is the ‘decreasing uncertainty’ about stable marriages which has lowered the ‘personal salience of divorce for them’, and increases in socio-economic inequality which have ‘made uncertainty about marriage more salient’ for the less educated.

There is a lot of evidence, in both the US and the UK, to back the idea that lasting marriage, or marriage at all, is becoming less achievable for the less educated and well off. Couples facing economic uncertainty are more likely to cohabit, extramarital childbearing is more likely to happen amongst women in lower socio-economic groups – who are consequently less likely to marry the father - and divorce is more common amongst poorer couples. These trends are largely dictated by economics: it’s more difficult to achieve the financial stability desirable for making a lifetime commitment in the first place and money pressures are more likely to lead to marital instability. And policy in the UK is certainly not helping matters. Married couples get no recognition in taxation arrangements, there is little support available for married couples and the organisation of benefits effectively discourages getting married. Policy thus misguidedly presents another ‘adversity’ to those who are less fortunate financially.