A columnist at The Herald newspaper has praised the institution of marriage following a study by pro-family group the Marriage Foundation.
Colette Douglas Home said that we have had time to measure different approaches to raising children and “it seems clear that marriage is the best”.
She also stressed that both men and women benefit from being married to one another.
Stable families
Mrs Douglas Home said: “It could be argued that we have recently been living through a social experiment. Children are being born and brought up in all manner of arrangements. We are now in a position to measure what the comparative effect has been.
“Instead of looking at what is acceptable or what answers to this teaching or that, we can simply measure what works best.
“And whether we like it or not – and however many exceptions there are to the rule – we can see that children (and men and women) fare better in stable families.”
Role of fathers
The columnist stressed that children need a father figure. She said: “Fathers are important and their constant and unquestioned presence is a boon.”
She said: “The breakdown of marriage and the social ills that fall from it are reckoned to cost the state £47 billion a year. But worse is the emotional cost. If we can avoid it, we should.”
“We have had enough time to weigh and measure different approaches to the rearing of children and it seems clear that marriage is the best and marriage before children best of all”, she added.
Marriage is the best
She was responding to a study, conducted by the Marriage Foundation, which found that 76 per cent of mothers who were married before having their first child remained so 15 years on.
On the other hand, only 44 per cent of those who had a child outside of marriage remained together after the same length of time.