It seems that when Brad and Angelina got married last year after nearly ten years of unmarried bliss surrounded by their six children they sparked a social trend in the UK.
Dubbed the “Brangelina effect” by family lawyers, the UK has seen a decrease in the number of unmarried couples with children.
While the figures released from the Office for National Statistics point to a shift away from marriage and increase in co-habiting couples with children (as in Australia and other countries around the world), the rise of unmarried couples with children has halted, and might soon start to go into reverse.
The Marriage Foundation, a think-tank set up by a judge on the UK High Court, Sir Paul Coleridge, said the figures highlighted the stability of marriage for family life – a statement that Australia’s social services minister Kevin Andrews would agree with.
Mr Andrews stirred up debate last year with his comments on the instability of unmarried cohabitation.
According to 2012 research, 51.8 per cent of Australians over 15 were married and 10.4 per cent were living in a de facto relationship, and research has found that the most volatile groups in Australia were those who were separated or in de facto relationships.
However most cohabitating couples end up getting hitched, with 69 per cent of 50 per cent of de facto couples who changed their relationship status after 2004 ending up marrying (and 67 per cent of them marrying the person they were living with in 2004).
The other interesting thing about the new trends in marriage is that the commonly spouted ‘fact’ that a third of marriages end up in divorce is actually untrue. New research reported by The New York Times has found that the divorce rate has been steadily declining since the 1970s.
This is a fact that can be put down to people marrying later and choosing better mates. And according to yet another study, that would be marrying your best friend – which will make you the happiest of all.
