The Sunday Times has today published the report of a survey it commissioned on marriage in Britain today. The survey is extremely comprehensive, covering many aspects of marriage, from sex and fidelity to who does the washing up. It makes extremely interesting reading, particularly when the results are compared with those of a similar British Social Attitudes survey carried out in 1983. As the Sunday Times reports, some of our attitudes have shifted radically from those days; others remain steadfast. For example, we are now far more relaxed about homosexuality and premarital sex, but not about adultery, of which 84% say it is always or mostly wrong - a similar result to 1983.
Perhaps of most interest is the value placed upon marriage. A majority of respondents believed that marriage is better than cohabitation, and despite (or perhaps because of) high divorce rates in the recent past, the ideal of 'marriage for life' continues to be strong - in fact, even more people than in 1983 think divorce should be more difficult. Is it the case, as the Sunday Times suggests, that we are turning against 40 years of liberalisation of divorce laws and becoming the New Puritans, the New Monogamists?
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