Recent research shows that gay marriages are less likely to end in divorce than straight ones.
Gay couples have been able to enter into Civil Partnerships for some years now, although technically this is not defined as marriage, even through the legal differences between them are minuscule. The government has indicated that it is likely to amend the law so that gay people will be able to marry in a civil ceremony (and may even allow straight couples to have Civil Partnerships).
The Office for National Statistics has announced that dissolutions of civil partnerships happen at a lower rate than straight divorces. (Civil Partnerships end in Dissolution, rather than divorce, but again, there is virtually no difference between the two things). So what conclusions can we draw from this?
Well, we could perhaps conclude that maybe gay couples are better at making relationships work than straight people. Do a couple of gay men, for example, have more in common than a straight husband and wife?
Perhaps, but I doubt that is the reason behind the apparent success of Civil Partnerships. They have only been possible for a few years and it is just too early to assess whether or not they are likely to have greater longevity.
I suspect that the real reason for this is that many gay couples who have entered into Civil Partnerships were already in long term stable relationships. Many of them had waited a very long time to be able to “marry”, in contrast to straight couples who may have been together for a shorter period.
The ONS also says that a period of living together before you marry helps marriages to succeed. That tallies with my theory about why civil partnerships are doing better.
It’s also encouraging to hear that a period of living in sin helps a marriage work. For years, the consensus seemed to be be that it ought to, but for some reason didn’t. Cohabitation, whether gay or straight, helps create stable marriages/civil partnerships. It’s a shame, therefore, that the government recently announced that they did not intend to reform the cohabitation laws, which often lead to very unfair outcomes.
When Mrs Armstrong and I announced that we planned to live together, without so much as an engagement ring on her finger, my grandmother was less than pleased. She was very much of the old school. It was, she declared, “sloppy”. Cue much sniggering from the younger members of the family. We eventually tied the knot a few years later.
I’m all in favour of straight and gay marriage, civil partnerships and cohabitation. The government shouldn’t just reform the law to allow gay marriage, it should also update the cohabitation laws. Anything else is just “sloppy”.