February 23, 2024 - 4:50pm
Could British people be getting happier? New figures suggest that divorce rates are at their lowest since 1971, with 30% fewer divorces in 2022 than in 2021, according to the Office of National Statistics.
In the Fifties and Sixties, the debate heated up about whether divorce should be made easier through offering a “no fault” option (applicable only after two years of agreed separation or five years of non-agreed living apart). One of the chief worries among lawmakers was that the proposed amendment would be a “Casanova’s charter” — giving licence to men to skip out on their wives and leave them beleaguered single mothers, saddled with domestic costs well beyond their means. Eventually, the bill went through in 1969 and was introduced in 1971, largely due to the fact that keeping fractured partnerships from being formally dissolved was causing more problems than it solved.
For family-values warriors there was, on the surface, a distressing explosion in marital breakups: UK divorce rates tripled over the next two decades, peaking in 1993 and topping European tables. Some conservative commentators saw this as typical of a selfish, alienated society that had been destroyed by “women’s lib”, but most understood that it represented both a backlog of misery and a life-saving solution for people who simply couldn’t make it work.
Intriguingly, we have now come full circle, in a sense, except this time divorce rates have sunk despite the introduction in April 2022 of even easier no-fault divorce.
This is not necessarily surprising. Britons now marry later and are much more careful and emotionally savvy about who they pick. Indeed, the threshold for a bond sufficient to walk down the aisle has been in the ascendant since the Sixties. One could have multiple relationships or casual sex without having to get married, so serious relationships increasingly required exacting standards of “intimacy”, “self-realisation” and good communication.
Historian Claire Langhamer’s study of late-20th-century attitudes to adultery is also telling: views on infidelity hardened just as the strictures governing relationships loosened. This is because if you cheated on a spouse who was meant to be your soulmate, with whom you had honest and authentic relations, then infidelity felt like a catastrophic betrayal.
Meanwhile feminism — which used to be blamed for a host of social ills, including the fracturing of marriages — seems to have actually helped marriages last. As men have pulled their weight at home and generally behaved better (domestic violence has over time become less frequent), the number of women filing for divorce has also sunk. In 2017, 62,712 women filed for divorce in the UK; that figure was 118,401 in 1993.
Falling divorce rates at a time of maximal interpersonal freedom suggest that, contrary to what the new family values-obsessed conservatives think, neither feminism nor progressive marriage laws destroy commitment. Really, the opposite is true.
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Subscribe”Some conservative commentators saw this as typical of a selfish, alienated society that had been destroyed by “women’s lib”, but most understood that it represented both a backlog of misery and a life-saving solution for people who simply couldn’t make it work.”
No, it is a selfish and alienated society. The Woman’s Lib part is a part of it all because it was an OTT thing too. Like the loss of Christianity, the moral relativity and situational ethics. The end of ‘Right and Wrong’ for the ‘Correct and Incorrect’ which this article dwells in. Postmodern Liberalism replacing Enlightenment Liberalism. Family breakdown – tax codes making marriage a problem, tax codes making having middle class children a very expensive luxury – 100 things of destroying traditional Western society.
If Britain is having falling divorce rates I wonder why? My guess is it is some thing like tied to mortgages, or that finally the huge forces against marriage working are being ignored – or that there are not so many ‘British’ British people getting married to get divorced
‘‘ As men have pulled their weight at home and generally behaved better (drunken bellowing, even violence, used to be extremely frequent), the number of women filing for divorce has also sunk. In 2017, 62,712 women filed for divorce in the UK; that figure was 118,401 in 1993.”
Maybe just a lot less are getting married. Maybe because Britain is Muslim and Hindu now and they do not divorce like the atheist White ex-Christian people do.
Could be anything – but my guess is:
It is not a sign that society is functioning at a higher level.
No, and unfortunately these feminists are themselves creating a society that is becoming decidedly more toxic toward women.
“drunken bellowing, even violence, used to be extremely frequent”
Really? Where’s the evidence for this? Oh, I forgot, you are a gender studies graduate. You don’t need evidence to make broad-brush, ignorant statements that back up your ideology.
Don’t forget this part, it’s priceless:
As men have pulled their weight at home and generally behaved better
Probably because people are getting married older so they are more responsible and mature. Why shouldn’t men share in the general upkeep of the home? They live there for God’s sake.
Whoosh
If anyone had taken the time to actually read the data instead of the press release they’d have noticed the ONS note that specifies that the reason why divorce rates are so low in 2022 is due to the new law bringing in mandatory waiting periods between each stage of the divorce.
This means that the tens of thousands of people who waited until after the new law came in in April 2022 (as reported on massively in the media) before starting their divorce process are still stuck in the process, which I should point out includes a 20 week mandatory so-called ‘cooling off period’.
When the 2023 results come out and the divorce rate goes up by 50% everyone will be scratching their head as to why it ha happened, even when the ONS itself has specified exactly why the 2022 numbers were so low. They will blame ‘poor economic headwinds’ for the supposed massive increase in divorces.
All the commentary about ‘cost of living crisis’ and ‘a victory for feminism’ is making me lose even more faith in journalists than I already had. Actually read the data instead of regurgitating whatever the Press Association tells you.
Having a comments section should be a great pedagogical resource for journalists. I fear they don’t appreciate it though. Unlike sulky teenagers who have to give some attention to the comments of their teachers regarding the jejune speculations contained in their essays there is no obligation on journalists to better their output by taking any notice of the comments that point out their many failures to read the data or take into account all the possible inputs that might explain an outcome that does not align with their own ideological preferences.
The constant display of utter incompetence by journalists when it came to interpreting statistical matters was most vividly and infuriatingly exhibited during the covid pandemic. I don’t suppose I am unique in often flipping quickly to the comment section to see if an article is even worth reading. There are, of course, a few authors here that I will read without a quick check on the comments.
You are not alone, Jeremy!
Mind you, “a [sic] historian of gender and intimacy in modern Britain” is probably less likely to be preoccupied with fact so much as pressing an agenda.
Quod erat demonstrandum supra!
PS – “jejune” – excellent adjective!
@R Wright: thank you.
@Jeremy: exactly so. Certain commentators (like yourself) always give valuable perspectives on these articles. I fear, though, that most journalists have adopted the approach of not reading the comments on their articles, in order to avoid exposure to ‘trolls’.
This is the sort of error that a publication can’t ignore. It makes the premise of the article absolute nonsense. UnHerd has editors and this is a perfect example of where editors need to step up and recognise an error has been made.
It is a sad indictment of our times that so many people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost – more for support than illumination.
The seemingly good news is that the rising trend in divorce reversed in 1993, largely due to later marriage / just not seeing the point in getting married in the first place. 2022 / 2023 will be an anomalous blip in that trend for the reasons ONS provides.
What is more worrying for society is that falling divorce rates have not been matched by rising fertility rates.
“Marriage rates have fallen to their lowest on record in 2020; for men, there were 7.4 marriages per 1,000 men not in a legal partnership compared with 19.1 in 2019; for women, there were 7.0 marriages per 1,000 women not in a legal partnership compared with 17.8 in 2019.”
– https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2020
Yes. And from the 2022 headlines (and this doesn’t even require looking at the data itself, it is literally headline points):
“The lower number of divorces in 2022 may partially reflect the introduction of new minimum waiting periods, meaning that divorces applied for after 6 April 2022 may take longer to reach final order.”
Could it also be that marriage has been so devalued that a lot fewer people, particularly those without religious commitment, now bother to get married and so the number of divorces must inevitably fall
Is it not just that fewer people get married?
Agree, a percentage would have been a more useful figure. However anecdotally many more of my mates in my age group are staying together when compared to our parents generation. There’s only 1 who is separated from the kids mother, whereas there were multiple when I was at school.
Perhaps a combination of starting families later, as well as seeing the damage that divorce did growing up has made people more desperate to avoid it?
Life tends to be cyclical after all, the youngsters today seem to much more boring and less hedonistic than the last few generations
The reason there are fewer divorces overall is because there are less marriages in the first place. What everyone is really talking about is the near 30% drop in divorces granted year on year. This is mainly the result of the new 2022 divorce laws bringing in mandatory waiting periods meaning that the their divorces had not completed in 2022. The 30% drop is mostly an anomaly, essentially, and doesn’t reflect wider societal trends or ‘material conditions’ as marxists would put it.
Conventional marriage may have made sense at some time in the past, but usually doesn’t now. Marriage promises may now be abandoned, as one partner may find convenient. A more practical arrangement might be a fixed term, renewable, legally enforceable contract.
Yes, but such a society as you describe will have a very short shelf-life.
Men don’t need to divorce any more. They just wait for their wives to drink themselves to death with Chardonnay from wine O’clock every day, as is the modern way. I’m only half joking.
Good luck with the book Zoe. Wondering though, how does an historian of ‘intimacy’ go about doing field work?
Joyfully.
So when the rate goes up again, will the author tell us all about the failure of feminism?
Hardly surprising if divorce rates are lower. Rates of marriage are lower.
The number of divorces has fallen because the number of marriages has fallen. Duh!
As for feminism being wrongly blamed for “the fracturing of marriages”…
“I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honourable and viable political act…We can’t destroy the inequalities between men and women until we destroy marriage.” – Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor
“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage.” — Sheila Cronin
“The nuclear family must be destroyed… the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process. … – Functions of the Family, Linda Gordon, WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969.
“We can’t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage. ” — [Robin Morgan, “Sisterhood Is Powerful,” (ed), 1970, p. 537]
“Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women… We must work to destroy it.” – The Declaration of Feminism , November 1971
There’s a key variable missing here. It’s one thing to give us numbers of divorces in absolute terms, or declines in divorce numbers compared with previous years. But what about the relative frequency of marriage?
If fewer people are even bothering to get married, for example, falling divorce rates are less impressive than they first appear.
The last non-Covid year we have marriage numbers for is 2019. There were 219,850 in that year, a 37% drop since 1989, notwithstanding that the population of England having massively grown since then.
It is a serious problem, given children raised by unwed parents have far worse outcomes on nearly every front.
The comment by R. Wright is spot-on and show the article to have been written in ignorance of basic and readily available information. Yes, pretty inexcusable.
Even without myself being aware of Wright’s point, however, I knew from the first paragraph that this was a sloppy piece of journalism. The author wrote “divorce rates are at their lowest since 1971, with 30% fewer divorces…” thus conflating a rate with an absolute number and making nonsense of the conclusions drawn. It doesn’t take a degree in statistics to understand this point, only basic numeracy and logic. But if you are attempting to use numerical data to substantiate your argument, you should at least know how to do it!
The whole point of marriage is to create children and provide for their security and protection. Easy divorce and gay marriage have made it all but meaningless now. That’s why so many children are messed up. Thanks boomers and fems.
What a shallow assessment of the data, missing the key I créditant of context. Lazy reporting at the extreme.
It’s not the total number of people divorcing that is relevant: it’s the number of long term partnership breakups. Marriage rates have declined hugely, so we should be looking at the % of marriages that break up and the % of long term partnerships that breakup.
This extraordinary lack of numeracy and investigation is a terrible inditement on an otherwise excellent publication. Shame on you.