Alice Thomson today writes in The Times about marriage, in response to Baroness Deech’s latest decree about the crumbling of this institution in modern society. In basic terms, Deech has said that the concept of marriage has become so blurred nowadays that it hardly has any meaning anymore.
Personally, I think that’s a pretty cynical approach. Like any social concept, be it voting or sexuality or racisim, we have moved on a long way since the 1950′s. Social attitudes change- you can either sit around complaining about it or accept it and think of innovative ways to address the new norm.
But there was one interesting passage in Alice Thomson’s article which really got me thinking:
Gordon Brown admits that marriage has worked for him, transforming his appeal to the electorate: “It’s marriage that’s changed me; I don’t think it’s PR techniques.” But at the same time Ed Balls has persuaded him to fight the election on an anti-marriage platform, painting the Tories as discriminating against those who don’t tie the knot.
This idea of discrimating against those who do not want to marry. If the Tories win the next election and carry through a pledge to give tax breaks to married parents, can you imagine the furore? I guarantee it would not be too long before some smart alec tries to take the government all the way to Strasbourg over their ‘anti-unmarried couples’ policies. Watch this space…
