Divorce rates down marriage more stable

Divorce rates in the UK have hit a thirty year low according to figures released by the National Office of Statistics on Thursday. The numbers were down 4.5 percent to 148,141 between 2005 and 2006, the second fall in two years. Within that number one in five divorces are from a second or subsequent marriage.

 

While the number of new marriages is also at a 100 year low in the UK the indications are that those who make the choice to get married are more determined to make it succeed than in the past.

 

"This is a good sign," says Bernie Holford, Family Ministries director for the South England Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. "A stable marriage is the best environment for raising a family. If couples can work through their differences and strengthen their marriage they tend to be happier and more stable then those who give up and try with someone else."

 

In a world where more and more couples choose simply to live together rather than enter into a more long-term marriage relationship, Adventists believe that the added factor of God in the relationship can help marriages to succeed. "Marriage is much more than romantic love," Heather Haworth, Family and Women's Ministries director for the Adventist Church in the UK and Ireland states. "Marriage involves companionship, supporting each other and sharing common goals and ambitions. It also involves a good deal of tolerance and forgiveness. Having God at the centre can make a real difference."  "Marriages may be made in heaven," Holford states, "but the reality is that they often crash on earth because in our individualistic age people expect too much of each other but are unwilling to change themselves." In Marriage Enrichment Workshops, run for married couples and those preparing for marriage, Holford emphasises that the best marriages may still have quarrels and disagreements, but they succeed because they are based on the principle of all giving love that the apostle Paul expresses in 1 Corinthians 13 and the idea of building up and supporting each other found in Ephesians 5:21-30.