Marriage heading for the rocks

Marriage will face "virtual extinction" by the year 2030 as the vast majority of couples reject it, according to a relationships expert.

Duncan White, in charge of Relate's 2,000 counsellers, believes only one in five - or 20 per cent - of long-term couples will be married, and "at least" eight in 10 births will be outside marriage.

Nine per cent of men and women now in longterm relationships are unmarried. Twenty years ago, one in eight babies was born outside wedlock, but this rose steadily to four in 10 by 2000.

Mr White was today telling the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy that couples will eventually marry only "to make a social statement, or gain a tax break". Before the conference, he said: "It will be seen as an esoteric choice, rather than the norm. Our counsellers are seeing vast changes in the way people view marriage."

Instead, he predicts a boom in "constellation" relationships, where couples have a series of long-term relationships, with children from each.