The average duration of a marriage ending in divorce reached a record 13 years in 2025, the longest period since records began, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This marks an increase from the previous record low of 8.9 years in 1985.
Divorce lawyers have suggested that financial considerations, describing divorce as a "financial hand grenade," may be contributing to couples remaining married for longer periods.
In 2025, there were 105,002 divorces in England and Wales. Of these, 102,879 involved opposite-sex couples and 2,123 involved same-sex couples. The ONS noted that these figures are lower than the peak divorce levels observed between the 1980s and 2000s, when annual divorces approached 150,000.
Overall divorce rates remain stable. The ONS attributes the changes in marriage duration to a combination of factors, including legislative changes, shifts in the average age of marriage, and evolving societal attitudes towards divorce.
Proposed Wedding Law Reforms
In parallel with these trends, the Marriage Foundation think tank has advocated for reforms to the wedding legal framework. The organization is urging the government to abandon plans for increased wedding bureaucracy and instead adopt a simplified, universal marriage system inspired by French-style regulations.
This proposed system would leverage existing registrars to conduct all legal marriage ceremonies, thereby reducing state involvement in the ceremonies themselves. The Marriage Foundation suggests this approach could lower the minimum cost of a legal wedding to £155, or £167.50 with a marriage certificate. Similar systems are currently in place in France, Germany, and Switzerland.
The think tank argues that such a reform would standardize marriage legally and prevent certain religious groups from performing marriages not legally recognized under British law. The current system requires ceremonies to occur at approved venues to be legally binding.
Labour's proposals, spearheaded by former deputy prime minister David Lammy, aimed to transfer the legal authority to individual celebrants, allowing marriages to take place in a wider variety of locations. However, the Marriage Foundation contends this would create an extensive new layer of bureaucracy, involving the monitoring and training of potentially thousands of marriage officiants.
Instead, the Marriage Foundation proposes streamlining the process by utilizing the existing infrastructure and expertise of civil registrars for every wedding. This would ensure that all couples undergo the same civil registration process, including checks for identity, eligibility, consent, and safeguarding, before their marriage is registered by the civil registration service. Following this legal registration, couples would be free to hold their celebrations as they see fit.
Labour's consultation on marriage reform, titled "Tying the Knot: Reforming wedding laws in England and Wales," was scheduled to close on Thursday. Any legislative changes stemming from this consultation would likely take effect in the following year, pending parliamentary approval.