Marriage in freefall – why won’t politicians act?

Male pensioners in England and Wales are now more likely to get married than men in their early twenties. Read that again. It is not a typo.

A landmark report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), released on 8 February 2026, lays bare what it calls a “total collapse” in marriage. The full report is available here.

The figures are breathtaking. Just 224,402 marriages took place in 2023, the lowest since records began in the 1850s (outside Covid), despite the population growing from 56 million to 67 million. The marriage rate for men has crashed by 77 per cent in fifty years. In 1970, 62 per cent of men had married by age 25. Today: two per cent. The median age at which women marry has exceeded 33 for the first time in recorded history. An estimated 100,000 weddings lost during lockdown were simply never rescheduled.

This matters because marriage is not merely a nice tradition. The CSJ identifies it as “a major protective factor” against domestic abuse: cohabiting individuals are twice as likely to be victims. Cohabiting couples are almost twice as likely to separate during their children’s early years, regardless of income. The Relationships Foundation estimates that family breakdown now costs the taxpayer over £50 billion annually.

CSJ Programme Lead Dan Lilley did not mince his words: “This is devastating news. Marriage is one of the most important foundations of society with clear benefits across our country. Better outcomes for children, less loneliness, greater prosperity and birth rates.”

So what have successive governments done about it? Precious little – the Marriage Allowance is worth a pitiful £252 a year, while the benefits system actively punishes couples for living together. No government of any colour has fixed this.

Yet here is the good news. The desire for marriage has not died. Among unmarried under-30s, 86 per cent of women and 80 per cent of men still want to marry. The appetite is there. The problem is barriers, not will.

As Lilley put it: “People want to get married. We need to be helping foster good relationships and an environment where marriage is much easier.”

Coalition for Marriage exists because real marriage, the lifelong union of one man and one woman, is the foundational institution of a healthy society. C4M is actively developing pro-family policy proposals for future administrations, because the couple penalty must be abolished, housing must be made accessible, and the scandalous cross-party silence on marriage must end.

The facts are unquestionable. Marriage works. The tide can turn. It must.