Britain’s families need fixing for the benefit of the nation’s children and society, a senior family judge said in a speech at Parliament to the Family Holiday Association last Tuesday.

“I fear that the current state of the family represents change for the worse—and those most affected, the children, are not considered in the maelstrom that surrounds them,” said Sir Paul Coleridge, who has worked in family law for 37 years, and spent the last eight as a judge. “There is no quick-fix solution, although the reaffirmation of marriage as the gold standard would be a start: Statistically, it has proved to be the most enduring relationship, and the best environment for children.”

Coleridge said:

There is a tendency, especially among the chattering classes, to assume that we have attained a social utopia, in which we are entirely and happily free from taboos, stigmas and other constraints on behavior. It sounds so beguiling: Let us all do what we want, when we want and sort out any mess as we go along.But surely the test of any social change is whether it enhances people’s lives or makes them more miserable. And this is where I take issue with the modern view of the family. If it is so successful, why are the statistics for separation so large? More significantly, why are the family courts overwhelmed with cases involving damaged, miserable or disturbed children? How do other children, caught up in less serious separations, really feel? Do they relish the endless changes of partner, or adapting to a new step-parent and step-siblings?

He recommended the government pursue policies to encourage marriage, saying, “Support for marriage makes pragmatic common sense because it is demonstrably in the public interest and ultimately saves money—like eating healthily.”

He pointed out that in inner London, on an average day there would be well over 100 family courts dealing with family breakdown. “Multiply that across the rest of the country, and you get some feel for the scale of the epidemic,” he said.

“As a family judge, I have witnessed the damage done by the endless game of ‘musical relationships,’ or ‘pass the partner,’ in which a significant portion of the population is engaged,” said Coleridge.

Marriage simply works. It is a God-ordained institution, and when done right will lead to happiness. The fruits of divorce are obvious, as Coleridge pointed out. For more on the divine purpose of marriage, read Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet Why Marriage! Soon Obsolete?