by Tony Rucinski, Premier Christianity
New figures suggest fewer than half of adults in England and Wales are now in an opposite-sex marriage. The Church must be bolder in defending and celebrating marriage, says Dr Tony Rucinski
Fewer than half of the adults in England and Wales are now in a man-woman marriage. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the figures last month and once you separate out civil partnerships and same-sex marriages, man-woman marriage stands at 49.8% of adults. The ONS didn’t publish that arithmetic itself but it is a finding that should reach every pulpit in the land because of what lies underneath it.
Using the ONS’s online service, you can build the tables the state has never published – marriage status crossed with faith. And when you do that, the figures show something very plainly: marriage in Britain now lives where belief lives.
The faith divide
Every named faith group in the latest census is more than half married – Hindus at 67.6%, Sikhs at 63%, Muslims at 57.7%, Jews at 55.2%, Christians at 52.7%. And the adults with no religion – 17.4 million of them right now – are barely a third married, at 35.8%. Most of them, 52%, have never married at all.
Even if immigration numbers are removed, British-born Christians are 53.1% married – still, in their majority, a married people. The British-born with no religion are 35.6% married, and as with their immigrant counterparts, most have never married at all. Same country, same generation gaps, same housing market, same cost of living. The difference is belief.
And the number of children being born follows the marriage pattern. Births in England and Wales fell again last year, to a provisional 1.39 children per woman – the lowest yet recorded. A country that stops marrying stops having children. We can see it happening before our eyes.