Some aspects of marriage breakdown in Britain during the last thirty years

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Abstract
Following the five-fold increase in divorce petitions during the Second World War, there has been much publicly expressed concern with marriage breakdown. The voluntary marriage guidance movement started just before the war and in recent years has greatly extended its activities with the object of reducing marital disharmony and reconciling estranged couples. 1 The official history of the movement and an analysis of its activities has been compiled by J. H. Wallis (Training Officer of the National Marriage Guidance Council) and H. S. Booker under the title Marriage Counselling, 1958. View all notes Some statutory authorities, such as the Probation Service, have also become increasingly concerned with resolving marital difficulties. Unfortunately the intimate character of such problems and, in some spheres, a reluctance to examine how far the existing legal requirements for divorce and lesser reliefs are based on twentieth-century matrimonial realities have discouraged research workers from undertaking representative inquiries into the circumstances of marital disharmony. However, an opportunity recently arose to include some questions on this topic in a wider socio-demographic study of marriage in Britain: this survey, initiated in 1959, was carried out by the Population Investigation Committee in collaboration with Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) Ltd. primarily with the object of examining some of the factors associated with the trend towards earlier marriage. But, at the suggestion and with the encouragement of the National Marriage Guidance Council, the scope of the survey was extended to include several questions; first, on preparations for, and adjustment to marriage; and, second, on pre-marital attitudes to divorce and on some of the circumstances in which cases of marital breakdown occurred. The former topics are the subject of an earlier paper; the latter, relating to marital difficulties, are considered here.

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