Overview of changing patterns in marriage and cohabitation

Over recent decades, marriage rates have declined while cohabitation – where couples live together without being married – has become more common. Singlehood, or remaining unmarried and living alone, has also increased. These shifts reflect broader societal changes, with several key explanations: changing social attitudes, the decline of traditional family values, individualisation, and changes in women's roles and attitudes.

Changing social attitudes towards family and relationships

Social attitudes refer to the shared views and norms within society about acceptable behaviour. Up until the 1960s, these attitudes were highly conservative, often shaped by religious influences that promoted strict moral standards.

Conservative attitudes in the past

• Society expected couples to marry before cohabiting or having children, with strong disapproval for alternatives.
• Sex before marriage and having children outside wedlock faced moral and social stigma.
• Pregnancies outside marriage often led to 'shotgun weddings' – hurried marriages pressured by families to avoid embarrassment or shame.
• Unmarried pregnant women might be sent away to live with relatives, and there was pressure to give babies up for adoption or have them raised by grandparents, sometimes disguised as siblings to the mother.

Shift to liberal attitudes today

These rigid views have largely faded, replaced by more accepting perspectives.

This change has normalised:

• Same-sex relationships.
• Sex before marriage.
• Having children without being married.
• Cohabitation as a common alternative to marriage.

As a result, couples now feel less pressure to marry, contributing to the decline in marriage rates and the rise in cohabitation and single-parent families.

The decline of traditional family values

Traditional family values emphasise the nuclear family – a married couple with children living together – as the ideal structure. However, these values have weakened, leading to greater acceptance of diverse family forms, including cohabitation and singlehood.

Connection to secularisation

Secularisation describes the decline in religious beliefs and practices, such as Christian traditions in the UK, which has occurred sharply over the past several decades. This process has reduced the influence of religion on family norms, making society more open to non-traditional arrangements. Families no longer feel compelled to follow the nuclear model, and cohabitation is now seen as normal.

New Right perspective on family decline

The New Right is a political movement that shaped Conservative policies from 1979, promoting individualism (personal responsibility and self-reliance), free markets, and competition over state control.

New Right views on family changes:

• Moral decline - New Right thinkers, like Patricia Morgan, argue that the rise in cohabitation, same-sex marriage, and children born outside marriage indicates a moral decline.
• Cohabitation as weak institution - They view cohabitation as a 'weak' institution compared to marriage, less stable for raising children.
• Government bias - They see government policies, such as the Labour government's abolition of the married couple's tax allowance under Gordon Brown (1997–2010), as biased against nuclear families and traditional values.
• State failures - These changes are viewed as failures of the state to protect family stability, leading to broader social issues.

This decline in traditional values has normalised cohabitation and reduced the appeal of marriage.