Children of divorce still saying ‘I do’ to marriage

A massive 80 per cent of women whose parents divorced still want to get married, according to a survey for a women’s magazine.

Asking 2,000 women in their mid-twenties, the Marriage and Wedding Survey for More magazine showed 78 per cent see marriage as the “ultimate commitment”.

And most young women believe marriage is the best foundation for children, the survey also showed.

Commitment

Chantelle Horton, editor of More magazine, said of the women: “They no longer see living together or even having a child together as a firm commitment, they want marriage and life-long togetherness.”

Over half of the women said couples give up on marriage too easily while 46 per cent thought that divorce is too easy.

In February a study showed married parents are four and a half times more likely to stay together than cohabitees.

Attention

And according to a book released in the UK in the same month, parents who want to raise happy, successful children need to prioritise their marriages not their children.

To Raise Happy Kids Put Your Marriage First’s author David Code said: “Today’s number one myth about parenting is that the more attention we give our kids, the better they’ll turn out.

“But we parents have gone too far: our over-focus on our children is doing them more harm than good”.

In 2008 children under ten said divorce would be the first thing they would get rid of if they ruled the world.

Crushing

Speaking about marriage breakdown, commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said last year: “Divorce hurts – hurts badly – and leaves crushing debilities”.

“For millions, the injuries are so serious they may never fully recover.”

Mrs Alibhai-Brown was abandoned by her first husband when her son was not even ten.

Trauma

Last year a survey revealed a third of children whose parents divorce seek solace from the trauma in drugs or alcohol.

The poll of 2,000 individuals who had experienced divorce as a child in the last 20 years also discovered that one in ten turned to crime and eight per cent considered suicide.