Colin D Gordon

Tony Curtis,  the American actor who died on September 29^th aged 85, once remarked that he “couldn’t imagine marrying a woman who was old enough to be his wife”. Throughout his life he remained mainly true to this philosophy. In addition to a reputed one thousand  “liaisons” ( including Marilyn Monroe, his co-star in his most famous film “Some Like It Hot, he married six times – the last being to Jill Vandenberg, 42 years his junior. Even this number is two less than 78-year-old actress Elizabeth Taylor’s eight husbands to date. Joan Collins (77) is behind them both with just five – though, as perhaps something of a consolation, her current spouse is thirty-three years younger than her. In the mid-twentieth century,the assumption appears to have been that living with someone invariably preceded “tying the knot” ,making an “honest woman”(or man) of your partner, even if this led to the frequent ringing of wedding bells.

Not any more. The most recent available figures from the ONS (Office For  National Statistics) ‘Population Trends’ publication indicate that since the 1970’s there has been a “steady increase in the proportion of adults cohabiting” and a corresponding decline in marriage rates. The ONS report concluded that this change in partnership behaviour is likely to continue. The “Daily Telegraph” has subsequently noted with evident concern that, on the basis of these demographic projections, the number of co-habiting couples inEnglandandWalesis likely to rise to 3.70 million by 2031 and that those who are legally married will fall from around 49% now to 41% by the same date. The (non-) marital status of the new 40-year-old leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, is perhaps the currently most high-profile example of this transformation in social attitudes. He has been quoted by journalists as saying that he was “too busy” with the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference last December and then with the General Election campaign at the beginning of this year to marry his partner, Justine Thornton (also 40) but that he was ‘planning to get around to it.’ Much of the media has characterised this as “commitment phobia” as well as being rather somewhat unromantic, though the principal speculation revolves around whether the British public is yet ready for an un-married couple occupying10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s official residence. Traditionally, there’s always been a wife around  (or, in Mrs Thatcher’s case, her husband Denis) except when  bachelor Sir Edward Heath was PM (1970-74).  The main criticism so far of Ed Miliband’s personal arrangements is that he omitted to put his name on his baby son’s birth certificate. He’s promised not to make the same error with the next one, due soon.

Many people, though, evidently still like the idea of a “wedding day” despite both the intimidating costs of the event itself ( the “Independent”has calculated that a reception with 300 guests incurs an average outlay of up to £70,000) and the apparent view of divorce court judges in the UK that  around eight years or more together constitutes a “long marriage”. Thirty-seven percent of the approximately 235,000 weddings each year in Englandand Walesare between divorcees people trying again and 67% of all the ceremonies are now civil rather than religious. An article in the “Sunday Times” on October 3^rd furthermore noted not only that the number of weddings is the lowest for more than a century but also that “many women these days feel no urgency about getting married”: The average age of  brides is now 33.8 and of bridegrooms 36.5. This also correlates with a projection by Lloyds TSB Bank ( quoted in the “Daily Telegraph”) that over the next ten years the number of single-person households will increase by two million: “Many will be under 35s and a sizeable number of them will be women”.  Meanwhile , the ONS anticipates that by 2012 over 50% of total births in the UK will be outside marriage. In the1950’s, the figure was just one in twenty. According to the “Daily Telegraph”, before the General Election in May the Conservatives “pledged to recognise marriage in the tax system, ensuring that spouses would not lose out if one wanted to stay at home to raise their children, on the grounds that stable families are good for society”. The fear of the right-wing media is that the cuts in Child Benefit for anyone earning over £45,000 pa, announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on 4^th October, could have precisely the opposite effect.

Some things, moreover, don’t seem to have changed ( at least not so far). Surveys suggest that men married to much younger women tend to live longer as a result. Prominent examples are Bruce Forsyth (82), the compere of BBC TV’s “Strictly Come Dancing”. His wife, Wilnelia Merced, the Puerto Rican former Miss World was 51 on October 12^th. There’s a twenty-five year gap between Michael Douglas (66) and Catherine Zeta Jones (41). Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood was dumped by his (now ex-) wife (54) for taking up with Ekaterina Ivanova (21) from Khazakhstan, who then left him and was replaced by Hannah Kamelmaden (26) from Russia. Women , however, do not apparently benefit from a considerable age difference – irrespective of which way round it happens to be. Indeed, it could even reduce their life expectancy. This might come as disconcerting news for celebrities such as Demi Moore ( 48, with a husband, Ashton  Kutcher,32) and Joan Collins (77) whose spouse, Percy Gibson, is 32 years her junior. Some ladies , nonetheless, are  for understandable reasons prepared to run the potential risks inherent in teaming up with someone who is not just “mature” but even discernably “crotchety”. As a young just-married bride was asked at her wedding reception: “What was it exactly that first attracted you to your billionaire husband”?

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