In British and Australian society, married couples are no longer regarded as the “central norm”. Instead, they are a shrinking minority headed for collision with the rising US gay activists who have now raised the stakes from demanding equal rights in gay marriage, to equal rights in gay divorce.

Has the world gone mad?

Not according to researchers around the world. These trends are entrenched, long-lasting, and have corroborative parallels that indicate marriage is no longer normal. In fact, it’s going the way of the Dodo.

And as the UK Telegraph newspaper said today: “Champions of ‘alternative’ lifestyles will be cheered by the results of the latest British Social Attitudes report, which seem to suggest that the heterosexual married couple is no longer seen as the model of a normal household.”

Entitled New Families: Tradition and Change in Modern Relationships, the study by the National Centre for Social Research found men’s views about marriage and parenting tended to be more traditional than women’s.

However, Britons are taking a more liberal attitude toward sex and marriage, are increasingly comfortable with gay relationships. 70% had no objections to pre-marital sex – up from 48% in 1984 – and two-thirds of the 3000 people polled thought there was little difference socially between being married and living together.

In the UK, the number of single-person households and cohabitation is on the rise, while marriage rates are at their lowest since 1986.

In Australia, the marriage rate is at its lowest in 100 years. About 66% of marriages are first marriages, compared with 90% just 30 years ago. Most couples live together before they marry (up from 16% to 76% in the past 30 years), and about one-third of all babies are born to unmarried parents.

In Britain, only 28% thought married parents brought up children best, while 41% disagreed with the proposition that “one parent can bring up a child as well as two”. This apparent inconsistency could be one of the ‘canary’ indicators to observers of life as it is lived. It’s probably more about what people feel it is acceptable to admit, rather than what people actually believe.

The Telegraph commented: “None the less, this decline in the general willingness to express regard for traditional marriage is alarming. It suggests that public opinion has been formed by media fashion and anti-marriage government policies: so much so that all the statistical evidence now in the public domain showing marriage to be by far the most stable and secure form of union in which to raise children is scarcely having an impact.”

Swing to Seattle, and less than a year after winning the right to establish domestic-partnership contracts through the state, the gay and lesbian community is seeking the rights that go with divorce. Senate Bill 6716 and House Bill 3104 aim to provide homosexual domestic partners end-of-life rights, nursing-home visitation, veterans benefits and spousal testimonial privileges that married couples enjoy.

Director of the British survey, Alison Parks, said the trends were consistent, and the fact that there is a gap between what people say and what they are actually willing to do is not hypocrisy. “A lot of people are genuinely conflicted on what they should do,” she said

It seems that morals and statistics in these three major English-speaking nations are diverging, and the creaks and groans we’re hearing are these ‘genuine conflicts’ as individuals speak one way and act another. The world is becoming a far far different place, at a rate few of us would have predicted.

There’s no doubt that married couples will continue as a solid component of society, but the commitment and lifestyle can no longer be considered the cultural norm.

Happy Marriage Depends on Fighting Skills!

Filed under: Marriage

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and get loads more!