Yesterday’s Telegraph (UK) ran a story about divorce trends in the UK, which don’t seem to follow the convention of the seven-year-itch.

The paper reports on new patterns in the UK:

While the old saying refers to couples separating after getting the “seven year itch”, the Office of National Statistics figures appear to suggest that in Britain that is slightly longer.

Of the 144,220 couples who divorced in 2007, the average length of a marriage in Britain was 11.7 years, the figures showed.

The divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1981, with experts putting it down to the fact that fewer people are getting married.

The figures came as a study claimed marriage should be viewed as an “economic partnership”, where relationships failed during times of emotional and economic decline.

One scholar notes:

Malcolm Brynin, co-author of Changing Relationships, a new Economic and Social Research Council book based on five years of research into family life, said the costs and benefits of a relationship were “more fluid than in the past”.

“People come together and stay together only when this is to their individual advantage,” he told The Sunday Times.

But the sociologist adds…

However, sociologist Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University and author of Paranoid Parenting, said: “When you get married, if you make this kind of statistical calculation saying, ‘Well, I’m getting married, the chances are we’ll only get to 11 years’, the whole ritual becomes entirely pointless.

“If you adopt the idea, we might as well give up on the concept of durable relationships altogether.”

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