The Government must do more to support marriage
by Sir Paul Coleridge, Conservative Home:
International Marriage Week runs from the 7th to 14th of February. This year is its 20th anniversary and Marriage Foundation is in charge of promoting it.
Its purpose is to provide an annual focus on the importance to the family and society of marriage. It surely also provides the perfect opportunity to consider the Government’s and Conservative Party’s current attitude to Marriage and Family breakdown.
Two questions immediately arise. One, what is their current attitude and policy driven by that attitude? Two, what should it responsibly be, in the light of the plethora of recent and substantive research on the subject?
Question one is answered in a sentence or two. The Governments current policy in this area is both outdated and inadequate, and as such it is irresponsible.
High-sounding and largely meaningless soundbites abound. At the Westminster Hall debate last week focusing on Marriage Week Caroline Nokes trotted out the conventional and rather tired platitudes, which repeatedly conflate marriage with families but do nothing to reassure that they understand the distinct added advantage to society that marriage itself instils.
Her statements during the debate: “The Government view the role of families as fundamental in shaping individuals, and in having an overwhelmingly positive effect on wider society”, and “When it comes to the critical issue of improving children’s outcomes, the evidence shows that it is not the structure of a family that is important but the quality of the relationship between the parents.”
These fail entirely to address the real point, which is that stability is the key to children’s successful development and that stability is far more likely to be found within marriage.
See also:
Staying in an unhappy marriage could be the best thing you do, new study suggests, by Rozina Sabur, Telegraph
This new study shows how important it is for kids to have married parents, by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, The Week
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