Marriage and statistics

Nick Clegg criticises tax breaks for married couples as social engineering.

The Tory Centre for Social Justice think-tank's  Gavin Poole said: "Nick Clegg's stance flies in the face of all the evidence, completely ignoring national and international data demonstrating how important marriage is to the health and well-being of children and families."Marriage is important because one in three couples who live together when a child is born split up before that child is five, compared to only one in 11 married couples."

The logic then is that if more people are bribed to marry, they will stay together longer. I am not against marriage, having been married 43 years and counting, but am against the abuse of statistics. Those couples with a deep commitment tend to stay together longer and tend to get married. Those who don't get married may have a deep commitment (2 out of 3 stay together on these figures and some would marry over time) leaving a comparatively larger number (as compared with the married group) of insecure couples in this non-married group. These are not suddenly going to become more secure because they have a marriage licence.

The argument is therefore statistical nonsense.