Tell Labour: don’t reward non-commitment

News

Just when you thought Government policy couldn’t undermine marriage any further, along comes a new way of diminishing its importance in people’s eyes.

Labour ministers are currently preparing plans to give cohabiting couples new rights that amount to marriage in all but name.

As things stand, unmarried couples who live together can only make limited claims to each other’s finances following a breakup.

But in fulfilment of a manifesto pledge to strengthen the rights of unmarried women in particular, amid concerns they are financially vulnerable, the Government is set to launch a consultation on changing the law later in the year.

C4M opposes this watering down of marriage by giving its privileges to unmarried couples. As I told The Daily Telegraph, by putting a legal framework around cohabitation all you do is make people commit to each other, formalise it and make promises – and you will end up with something we already have, namely marriage. So why not just get married?

With more and more couples opting to live together unmarried – reaching 5.3 million in 2022, up from 2.7 million in 2002 – you can understand why a government might think this would be a good idea. But in fact the data shows that married parents are more than three times more likely to stay together than unmarried parents. Marriage is the gold standard for commitment and stability, underpinning strong families, happy childhoods and healthy societies.

Some European countries like the Netherlands and France already allow couples who live together to register their relationship, giving them almost the same rights as married couples. Perhaps Labour will seek to introduce something similar here.

But what is the difference between ‘registering a relationship’ and getting married? The answer is commitment, and it explains why marriage is so much more durable.

The Government needs to think again on rights for cohabitees. Bestowing rights without commitment rewards the wrong things. The Government should be thinking up ways of encouraging couples to get married, promoting real marriage as best for all of us, not giving people more excuses to avoid it. No more pretend marriage. Tell your MP it’s time the Government promoted the real thing.