Less than half of the adult population is now married, figures confirmed for the first time yesterday.
The watershed for marriage is the culmination of 30 years during which cohabitation has become the norm and successive governments have ceased to offer tax breaks, legal privileges or state approval to the married.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that 21.6 million of the 44.9 million adults who live in England and Wales are married – 48.4 per cent of the population.
