Tim Dieppe reflects on the chaos that has resulted from society’s rejection of God’s pattern for marriage, as the government moves to give cohabiting couples legal rights similar to those enjoyed by married couples
The Government is consulting on proposals to give cohabiting couples legal rights similar to those enjoyed by married couples.
This represents the latest significant step in dismantling the unique legal and social status of marriage.
Britain has already witnessed the steady erosion of marriage over the past half century. Marriage rates have been in continuous decline since the early 1970s. In 1972 there were 84 marriages per 1,000 unmarried men; by 2023 that figure had fallen to just 18. The consequences are visible throughout society. In 1973, 91% of babies were born to married parents. By 2025, that figure had fallen to just 53%.
All of this has been exacerbated by successive governments legislating to rob marriage of its unique status in society. First divorce was redefined with the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Then divorce was made meaningless with legislation for no fault divorce in the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020. This made marriage easier to get out of than some rent or phone contracts. It robbed marriage of its meaning.
We also undermined marriage with the Civil Partnership Act 2004 which gave legal rights to same-sex couples equivalent to marriage. Then we legislated to redefine marriage itself so that two people of the same sex could be ‘married’. This move essentially destroyed the meaning of marriage. Then we went further and allowed opposite sex civil partnerships as an alternative to marriage, again undermining the status of marriage. Marriage in law is no longer real marriage in fact.
The result has been profound. Britain is now among the world leaders in family breakdown, with millions of children experiencing the instability that often accompanies fractured family life. The social and economic costs are immense, but the greatest cost is borne by children, who flourish best where they enjoy the security, permanence and public commitment that marriage is designed to provide.
Rather than asking how to strengthen marriage, the Government is now asking how to make marriage even less distinctive.
If cohabitation carries many of the same legal rights and obligations, what practical incentive remains for couples to marry? But perhaps we should ask, if marriage is destroyed, so what?
Marriage is not simply a private relationship between two adults. It is a public lifelong covenant that establishes clear legal responsibilities, provides stability for children, and benefits society as a whole. It begins with a clear, public commitment, witnessed and documented. Cohabitation is fundamentally different. There is no public vow, no universally recognised starting point, no clear legal framework, and no equivalent lifelong commitment.
That difference matters because behaviour follows incentives. If the law increasingly treats marriage and cohabitation as interchangeable, fewer people will choose marriage. Yet the evidence consistently shows that cohabiting relationships are, on average, significantly less stable than marriages. Greater instability inevitably means more family breakdown, greater hardship for children, and increased pressure on public services.
The Government should not be blurring the distinction between marriage and cohabitation. It should be asking why marriage has declined so dramatically, addressing the cultural and legal factors that have contributed to that decline, and actively promoting true marriage, between one man and one woman, as the foundation of stable family life.
We are now witnessing the chaos that results from our rejection of God’s pattern for marriage.
He designed and instituted marriage. It is not a social construct that we came up with and can change to fit the zeitgeist. We abandoned it by our behaviour (pre-marital sex, adultery, pornography, homosexuality…) and then by changing the law to fit with anti-marriage, anti-commitment attitudes.
The government is trying to fix a problem by creating yet more laws that will only make it worse. What it should be doing is promoting real marriage as best for society. We need to go back to marriage between one woman and one man for life. Legal recognition of other kinds of relationships only serves to undermine the unique status of marriage. The government should give tax benefits to married couples and teach children that marriage is best.
We have just over a week to respond to this consultation.
Please take the opportunity to tell the Government that marriage is between a man and a woman. Marriage is distinctive and special and should be privileged in law. Promoting marriage is the only way to get a stronger more stable society.
At a time when marriage has already been weakened, this is not the moment to remove one of the last meaningful distinctions between marriage and simply living together.
Marriage is one of the foundations on which strong families and a flourishing nation are built. It deserves to be strengthened, not steadily emptied of its meaning.