with Prof Laurie Taylor

Laurie Taylor : I was talking there with Stuart Hall,and I suppose that we might say in a rather less elevated way that many of our regular listeners have been addressing themselves to diversity as they struggle to find an explanation for last weeks inexplicable statistic.The news that while in Britain nearly 40% of all children are now born out of wedlock,the comparable figure for Iceland is 65%. Well a bumper entry.There was strong support for the psychological boredom hypothesis -"With nothing else to do Icelanders have sex".Well I found this a tad simplistic.I mean is Iceland boring to Icelanders? Less predictable the geological explanations favoured by Nichola Vell and Steven Casson, both found their answers in the Icelandic geyser,a B for Nichola,but a B plus for Steven who takes the idea to a wonderfully symbolic conclusion.It all goes back,he insists,to the free hot water and central heating which Icelanders receive courtesy of the Icelandic geyser.

Steven Casson : Every child in arms is constantly told that this gift comes from nature.It is from the fiery cauldron of heat,steam and sighing which deeply stirs within the stark geysers earth.Once the nubile Icelandic girl is in the full surge of teenage hormones,and enticed by the ruggedness of her beau,she's seduced by that prototype cauldron image.She experiences the hot kiss,the romantic coupling,and a pregnancy.She is caught by the magnetic attraction to her geezer.

Laurie Taylor : Geezer?! Climate and biology are neatly linked by David Hart,a solid middle range B minus.

David Hart : It must be that sperm jump about inside to keep warm,so making their habitats restless. Then,when they're let out they travel fast and furiously to get to the alternative warm place.In hotter countries they're more laid back.

Laurie Taylor : But I reserve my top mark for Sam Nelson,a straight A minus.The first ever given on this programme.

Sam Nelson : Icelandic surnames are patronymic,and hence one can't tell just from the surname whether someone's married or not.So when Heidi Bjornstotter goes into hospital to give birth all they know about her is that her father is called Bjorn,and the fathers surname doesn't match hers,and no one expects it to.So in Iceland,because by definition,people don't get confused over surnames when you aren't married,people don't bother getting married as much,which accounts for the high percentage of out-of-wedlock births.The slightly higher rate of out-of-wedlock children in Wales, compared to the rest of the UK,might be a result of there being relatively few surnames to go round.If Price and price,Jones and Jones,Reece and Reece and Evans and Evans get together and have children, perhaps they just don't bother getting married any more,because no one can tell the difference any way.

Laurie Taylor : Isn't it nice to have the world sorted out? Well done everyone.Now sink your analytical teeth into this:Why are so many middle aged people racing around dangerously on motorbikes? According to the Henley Centre,motorbike accidents involving 17-19 year olds have fallen by 57% in the last few years,but there has been a 41% increase in accidents among the 30-40 year old age group,why?
Our address :Thinking Allowed,BBC Broadcasting House,London W1A 1AA or you can Email us at thinking.allowed@bbc.co.uk.
[The population is getting older so it is obvious that there are more older people to have accidents -LB]
But now we turn to a topic closely associated with out-of-wedlock births,the decline of modern marriage in the United Kingdom.Take your pick of the statistics.in the 60s, 6% of the population co-habited before marriage,that figure is now 70%,our divorce rate is the highest in Western Europe.The average length of a marriage is now down to 9 years and 10 months.So how do we react to all this? Give more respect to non-marital associations,say like Jack Straw that there never was a golden era of marriage,or introduce policies which would make the institution more appealing,less readily dissolved? Well I'm joined in the studio now,by Jane Lewis who's Professor of Social Policy at Nottingham University,and author of a study of marriage and individualism [Ref: Ayn Rand "Anthem"] for the Lord Chancellor's Department,and by Helen Wilkinson who's a member of DEMOS and research fellow at the Families at Work Institute and author of "Giving Marriage Back to the People".
Now before I ask you to consider solutions,or perhaps we don't need solutions,let's grasp this causal nettle,if we would.Even if there never has been a golden age of marriage,why Jane does it seem so unstable,so undervalued today,compared to say 30 years ago? Is it the 60s that did it all?

Jane Lewis : Well,of course politicians always reach back for the 60s! Especially when this topic is raised,that's the first decade,in fact that's a very conservative decade in terms of behaviour.In fact it's my decade,I got married in the 60s,and so did everybody.Everybody got married as early,as quickly as possible in the 60s.Of course later it's quite possible that they then got divorced,which would explain to some extent the increase in the divorce rate,10-15 years on,but I don't think we can go back to the 60s for behaviour,I think there probably was a change in mentalities in the 60s.

Laurie Taylor : What about the idea...one of the reasons for this...I've heard this mentioned that the 60s did in a way separate sex from marriage,I mean rather more conclusively than had ever happened before.

Jane Lewis : Yes,it's very tricky to talk about these changes simply,even though that's what everybody wants to do,because everybody wants to understand what seems...the great change that seems to be happening.But yes you're right,I mean sex did separate from marriage,not least as a result of the pill, technological change,with birth control and the rest of it,and there has been a real change at the end of the century,when it's not so much separating sex from marriage,as separating marriage and parenthood,and that is a real change.I mean we have to face the fact that we have seen a very rapid pace of change,in...with regard to the family,at the end of the century.

Laurie Taylor : And has that happened simply because people have recognised that you can now do it.I mean they are now allowed to have sex outside marriage,they're now allowed to have children in the ways those moral taboos aren't so strong,so this is if you like,people's desired behaviour coming out, whereas previously it was repressed?

Jane Lewis : Mmm,I think,well,there's.....everybody has their favourite cause....ideally....

Laurie Taylor : Yes,what's yours currently?!

Jane Lewis : Well,I like to put them together,I think it's a real problem when you see one cause as the issue,and that' s what we've been seeing in some recent material in Fukiyama's book that was published this week for instance.But a lot of people would finger growing female autonomy, whether it be sexual autonomy,the pill,or whether it be economical autonomy.Others would say male irresponsibility.Others will say "Everybody's more selfish and nasty and just pursuing their own self interest,whether they are male or female [Ref: D.Zohar "The Quantum Self " {"I" centred culture}; M.Laver "The Politics of Private Desire"],and going for whatever they want.It's extremely hard to tie down actually.....to tie down that cultural change,although I think probably the cultural change is more important than the economic change.

Laurie Taylor : Yes,yes.

Jane Lewis : But it's undoubtedly a mixture of all of the above.

Laurie Taylor : Helen,would you subscribe to.....I mean would you say as well it's very difficult to pin down a single cause,or would you want to add to the list that we've already....?

Helen Wilkinson : I think there are multiple causes,and I think sort of women's changed economic role is a major factor,because I think it gave women freedom to exit from unhappy marriages,it also meant that they could pursue independent lives without needing......marriage was no longer the only career option available,and then I think linked to that is the culture and the value shifts,and I think the other thing I would want to factor into the discussion actually is that,whilst the 60s may have been the decade in which people acted conservatively and got married,it was that generation who then became part of the kind of divorce epidemic,and I think if you look at that from the perspective of the next generation on which is the generations born in the 1960s and the early 1970s,who I've called "freedoms children" in the study that I've done,I think they've inherited both the freedoms of that era,and also some of the costs,so I think linked to that is,amongst young people...many young people say they would like to get married,or that they value marriage,but they're very,very afraid of failure, and they don't want to do something or commit to something that they can't succeed in,and I think that's one reason why you see that what I would call this much more of a "wait and see" attitude,this contingent mentality,which is much more transactional,and really based on the fact that they've been through an experience and seen their parents or the friends of their parents divorce that institution,not be robust and deliver on the promises that it was meant to deliver.

Laurie Taylor : How far would you want to go along with what Jane had to say.I mean because you've been doing the study of individualism,and I mean the vulgar version of that is people have become much more selfish,they've got some money,they want to live by themselves,they want to get around, they don't want to be tied down with one person,I mean what's your reaction to that selfish thesis?

Helen Wilkinson : Well I think that it's one of the things that certainly does get,kind of,put up as one explanation.I think that it's a misreading in some way.I mean I think that greater individualism does mean that people feel less tied into the institution and therefore leave the relationship if they're unhappy and so on,and linked to that is the fact that they know they can...you can live together now and nobody is going to be morally disapproving of you,in the way that would have happened a generation ago.But I think that there's another way of looking at the trends in you know,heightened divorce and so on,which is really that we've come to a richer sense of our expectations of what relationships are about,and so I think alongside all the so-called negative trends,in break-up,declining marriage rate,we also need to recognise that actually,relationships today are much more communicative,they're more egalitarian than they were,there's greater intimacy.If you ask people today about what they're looking for from their partner,they're looking for much richer things.So in the eyes of somebody like Theodore Zeldin [Ref: Protext Files:Zeldin.txt],you know,he would argue actually the divorce rate one reading is that it is also a symptom of progress,as well as decline, because it's about people saying "I can expect something better".

Laurie Taylor : On the basis of you saying something....what you're saying now,in a way I wouldn't expect you to want to introduce really,any remedies for the current situation.You might say,when you come back I'll give you a chance to say that,but I mean what about you Jane,when you look at what's happening,you hear Jack Straw making this announcement,I mean do you yourself think "Well we should be doing something about marriage" ?

Jane Lewis : Well,it's....the problem is that when people say "What shall we do?" there's I suppose, two basic options.One you can say "Let's go back","Let's try and put the clock back",and that's what we saw in the political arena very much in the early 90s.....

Laurie Taylor : make divorce less...... tougher?

Jane Lewis : Let's make it tougher,yes,that's I suppose the main one,but also "Let's make lone motherhood harder" etc etc.,and that I suppose reached its high point around 93.Or you can say "Well we've got this social reality,we've got change,now what do we do?",and I think when the family comes up,there's a tendency to panic,a tendency to reach back,and let's promote traditionalism again.

Laurie Taylor : Because usually it's the children people have concern for,they start with the children don't they?

Jane Lewis : Yes.

Laurie Taylor : They say "Something's got to be done to save the children".

Jane Lewis : Yep.Yes,and that's a very fair point,and when you talk to people about what's going on, they want some measure of fairness,they want some measure of recognition of the problems that children have in these circumstances.But on the other hand they do not want to go back in terms of making divorce more difficult let's say,we've seen what's happened to the family law act in the last week,in terms of the pilot projects.

Laurie Taylor : Yes,yes,we're running a little bit out of time,so let me just ask you Helen,is there anything that you would want to do or am I right in thinking that your account,not glowing,but I mean you know,your relatively upbeat account of contemporary marriage....?

Helen Wilkinson : No I'm not upbeat about contemporary marriage.I think there is a problem. I think it's an image problem with marriage,because I think that you know,the perception is that it's a failure.I think that what government can do is begin to articulate a debate about why marriage is important and to start to promote a marriage culture.
[Why?,this presumes that there is some inherent good in marriage and there is no proof that this is true.On the evidence of "wait and see" the evidence seems to suggest that promoting marriage is not a good idea,since it runs counter to the individual to make dynamic life decisions and forces them into a constricted static situation at odds with a developing and changing human being -LB]
But the answer is not to make divorce harder,because that will actually also impact adversely on children, because we do know from the research on children that conflict ridden couples who remain together will have an adverse impact on their children,you know as well as the impacts we know about children when their parents have divorced.So I think the challenge is to engage a debate about why marriage is important,why the ritual and ceremonies are important [They're not!!! -LB],and at the same time to deal with families in all their shapes and sizes and that means non-married couples with children as well as married couples.
[What right has the state got to enforce Judeo-Christian ceremonies and traditions on individuals and couples who have made life choices that work for them? If they tried to enforce Mormon polygamy that would not be accepted,so marriage is as much a choice for people as is polygamy,bigamy, faithfulness or any other action.There is nothing especially "right" about marriage that makes it a credo to enshrine in government policy.In nature animals have every kind of stratagem for creating relationships,there is no reason to suppose that humans can't echo every one of them.Subjecting anyone's choices to an artifice of subject moral doctrine is absurd,since there is no way to show that it is better than any other.In fact as has been said not allowing divorce causes problems for both partners and children since the whole unit is subject to bitter disputes.It is much better to make a clean break and start afresh rather than try and patch something together that is broken -LB]

Laurie Taylor : Okay that's Helen Wilkinson and Jane Lewis thank you very much.A last word by the way for today about those out-of-wedlock births in Iceland.There were just two C minuses among the list of excellent entries.Nick Skyle and Simon Christmas who both came up with the same silly trope. This is Simon's version.

Simon Christmas : Surely the statistics for out-of-wedlock childbirths in Iceland are purely down to the type of people who work there.I'm absolutely definite you'll find the same statistics if you go to Tesco or Asda!

Laurie Taylor : Thank you very much indeed Simon.Not only C minus for you,but a very clear capitalised instruction "SEE ME".

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