The number of marriages has also been at a record low. So, there have been fewer divorces because few people have tied the knot. These trends reflect the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and it seems that residents of this island are losing faith in the institution of holy matrimony.

Why

There is no simple one-liner to answer why the divorce rate has gone up. This did not happen overnight. In fact, there has been a slow but steady rise in the number of divorces. In fact, England has quite a history of divorces. This is the only country where the monarch’s divorce was the reason behind the birth of the state religious system. Perhaps, it was the other way round. The historians may keep up the debate, but it remains a fact that the establishment of the Anglican Church and the divorce of King Henry VIII are inextricably linked. And the good old king divorces twice, remarrying each time with great promptness. He had, therefore, set a precedence for the tabloid celebrities to follow. Moving away from such juicy diversions, if we try to look at the reasons, we still won’t be able to isolate them. This is a build-up, not the case of sudden occurrence. Let us try to look at some of the most prominent reasons for the high number of divorces.

• Women’s empowerment is everybody’s favourite reason. It is true that a new generation of women is here, they are self reliant, powerful, and have worked their way to this position. It is not possible for a thirty-five year old CEO, be it a male or female, to find it easy to fit in another human being seamlessly into the folds of everyday life. Somehow, there is nothing called men’s empowerment. This is because men have always been powerful enough to take their own decisions. Those who can strike a balance between home and work and the lifestyle of a new partner are very few, and this is true irrespective of sex.


• The above argument has two fallacies. Young couples are getting divorced as fast as those who marry late, and the age of marriage has gone up greatly. So the wonderful picture of the ‘career woman’, with no heart under her designer coat lapels as the chief architect of divorce no more holds true. A youthful marriage is no longer the best option for a long term one, and no one wants an unemployed wife baking cakes and playing the piano at home. On the other hand, the country is crying under the burden of single divorced mothers with a child at home, and a job that is barely sufficient to keep body and soul together. If all the working women were so well placed, and were earning so much that they could unthinkingly walk out of a family, this picture would not exist.


• The working hours in the UK are the longest among all EU nations. Be it directly or indirectly, this does affect a marriage negatively. The long hours make people carry some of their work home. Ultimately, even in the moments of utter serenity in one’s bedroom, the workplace is always present by default. One cannot live with a spouse and boss all the time. This is no one’s fault, we all try to survive, and ultimately the winner is someone who can balance everything properly.


• There was a time when religion or rather the restrictions imposed by it used to play a major role in the way we led our lives. The concept of divorce is regarded as more or less sinful by all major religions of the world. While religion still continues to play an important role in people’s lives, it has boiled down to a belief in God, and the observance of certain festivals. In a survey conducted by the ONS, the majority of couples in the UK revealed that they consider their marital status a ‘private’ matter outside the jurisdiction of religion.


• Then, there are a host of other reasons such as the prevalence of chat room dating, the increasingly mobile nature of work, loss of faith in permanent relations, rising cost of bringing up children, etc.