Sir, – Brianna Parkins is quite wrong to dismiss marriage so lightly (“Fairy tales about marriage are a way for rich people to feel as if they deserve their charmed lives”, People, March 2nd).
I do research in precisely this area. It is true that marriage has increasingly become the preserve of the better-off throughout most western countries. But I can name three recent major international studies, plus my own PhD research in the UK, that found married parents are more likely to stay together across income and other groups. Stability is what protects family resources and shields couples from the risk of poverty. The reason the act of marriage encourages stability is because the psychology of commitment is automatically built into the process. If you want to stick at anything, you commit to it by making a clear decision, setting out a plan that removes any lingering ambiguity, and letting everyone know that’s what you’re going to do.
Marriage has all this built in.
It’s not a guarantee of success. But societies throughout the ages have regulated some form of marriage because they have known the psychology stacks the odds in favour of making it work, in the best interests of couples and their children. It still does. – Yours, etc,
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HARRY BENSON,
Research Director,
Marriage Foundation UK,
London.
