Marriage 'will be extinct'/Tackle juvenile crime 'by strengthening marriage' - 4/20/02

[Smartmarriages ®]

subject: Marriage 'will be extinct'/Tackle juvenile crime w/ marriage- 4/02

from: Smart Marriages

Predictions from Great Britain:  

Marriage 'will be extinct in 30 years'
by SARAH HARRIS, Daily Mail, United Kingdom
20th April 2002 

arriage is doomed and will be virtually extinct within 30 years, according
to the country's leading relationship experts.

They say the vast majority of couples will reject it in favour of a series
of long-term relationships.

Ironically, the prediction comes from Relate, which used to be called the
Marriage Guidance Council.

Duncan White, who is in charge of Relate's 2,000 counsellors, believes that
only one in five of long-term couples will be married by 2030, and at least
eight in ten births will be outside marriage.

If partners do eventually tie the knot it will be only to make a social
statement or to gain a rewarding tax break.

Speaking before the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
conference in Nottingham yesterday, he said that his staff were seeing vast
changes in the way people view marriage.

'It will be seen as an esoteric choice rather than the norm,' he said.

Instead, he forecast an increase in 'constellation' relationships where
couples have a series of long-term relationships with children from each.

Annual wedding rates are now at their lowest since records began 160 years
ago, while 40 per cent of marriages are doomed to failure, the conference
heard. 

Divorce is running at 160,000 a year, also thought to represent an all-time
high. 

And while 20 years ago one in eight babies was born outside wedlock, this
has risen steadily to four in ten by 2000.

Relate's Julia Cole, a psychosexual therapist, added that increasing
involvement in affairs would also damage the idea of marriage.

'Affairs are not necessarily the death-knell for the couple, but they are a
warning that urgent attention is required if the relationship is to
survive,' she told the conference.

Christopher Clulow, director of the Tavistock Marital Studies Institute,
agreed that more and more couples now prefer to live together.

They also favour marrying at register offices, hotels and stately homes
rather than having a traditional church ceremony, he said.

Mr Clulow said: 'More than three in five women marrying for the first time
already live with their husband-to-be.

'Around half of all conceptions take place outside marriage, and in excess
of one in three births are to unmarried women.

'There can be no clearer indications of the trend to deregulate marriage
than falling marriage rates and the increasing practice of cohabitation.'

Mr Clulow added: 'The regulation of marriage by church and state is
receding. Two-thirds of weddings will be civil rather than religious events.

'A quarter of these will take place in "approved premises" other than
register offices - hotels, stately homes and so on.

'This deregulation is also evident in the lessening of social sanctions on
divorce. Around two in five marriages are predicted to end in divorce, which
will affect approaching one in three of all children by their 16th
birthday.' 

The Marriage Guidance Council was founded in 1938 by clergyman Dr Herbert
Gray to help husbands and wives sort out their problems.
 
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TACKLE JUVENILE CRIME 'BY STRENGTHENING MARRIAGE'

More from Great Britain.....

www.anonva.com 
19th April 2002

Tackle juvenile crime 'by strengthening marriage'

Juvenile crime can only be tackled by taking steps to strengthen the
institution of marriage, a conference on adolescence has heard.

Family breakdowns are a major contributory factor in crime committed by
young people, Dr Clifford Hill, research director of the Family Matters
Institute, says.

He told the conference in London that children from broken homes experienced
"incalculable suffering" which was "child abuse on a massive scale".

The rate of teenage pregnancies in England, currently the highest in Western
Europe, and the number of sexually transmitted diseases in young people, can
also be traced back to the failure of parents communicating with their
children, he says.

The Family Matters Institute published a report last year on underage sexual
behaviour which questioned 2,500 young people aged 13 to 15 across England.

It found nearly three-quarters of parents of sexually active 13-year-old
girls were unaware their daughters were no longer virgins.

Dr Hill said: "When are we going to recognise that only by taking strong and
positive steps to strengthen marriage and to promote faithful, committed
relationships in the family will we see a reduction in the anger and
frustration that drives many young teenagers from fragmented families to
crimes of violence and anti-social behaviour?

"Britain has the worst record in Europe for divorce and relationship
breakdown, yet we refuse to recognise the facts that these failures of adult
relationships are disastrous for children.

"The suffering of children from broken homes is incalculable and needs to be
recognised for what it is - child abuse on a massive scale."

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