Why marriage is more stable

“Marriage is more stable than cohabiting”, reports the Daily Telegraph, accurately summarising a report from the Office for National Statistics.

The usual rent-a-quote right winger is then lined up to say how this proves the Tories are right to give tax breaks to married couples, etc.

However, what is overlooked in the article’s analysis (though referred to) is that two-thirds of co-habiting couples go on to marry. That is, marriage is (for co-habitees) a way of continuing to be a stable couple. But this is not a symmetric operation – married couples never (or very, very rarely) change from being married to co-habiting.

It is this fundamental asymmetry which accounts for the prevalence of married over co-habiting couples; there is an entropic movement to the ‘phase state’ of marriage.

Nowhere does the survey indicate that marriage is either morally or societially preferable, despite what the moral agenda of the Telegraph would have us believe.

Question of perspective

The Daily Mail is quite worked up because the number of marriages in England and Wales is “at its lowest level since 1862“.

Quoting figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Mail predictably attacks Labour for the decline – the report comes “as Gordon Brown’s Labour government faces mounting claims it has failed to support the institution” (what the Mail fails to mention is that most of these claims come from newspapers such as the Daily Mail).

The Mail explains: “Fewer people are getting married than at any time in more than 100 years, the Office of National Statistics revealed.”

But what’s this on the ONS website? Here the same report is published under the headline: “Registrations in England and Wales remain stable”.