George Blair-West

They were much less likely to complete a university degree with daughters a staggering 58% less likely to do so.

And girls apparently more vulnerable to parental marital breakdown than boys were more likely to suffer from a range of psychological problems.

It is said that alcoholism is not a spectator sport.

Eventually the whole family has to play.

And the damage from a parental relationship breakdown is equally impossible to limit to just the parents.

And this is why having children is a big complication and a much bigger commitment than getting married.

So how am I defining marriage?

Well, I would see it as any relationship entered into by two people on the basis that will be long term and is recognised either legally or in common law.

But for the record,

I believe any two people of any persuasion of either gender or of no gender who wish to spend their life together should be legally able to do so throughout the world.

But for the purposes of this talk we're going to be looking at legal marriages because they're the ones more readily identified by researchers.

Now that definition of course includes arranged marriages.

For those of us who've grown up with love marriages and romantic love, we see that as the normal way of things.

I think I can predict that most of you here had parents who chose each other on the basis of romantic love.

I think I can more confidently predict that you're probably not gonna get those very same parents to choose your marital partner, a partner who you might meet for the first time on the day of your marriage, unless of course they're producers of reality TV shows.

But despite our sense that a love marriage is the norm, by a slight majority, from a global perspective, a marriage today is more likely to be arranged than not.

Moreover, for 95% of recorded history, arranged marriages have been the norm for the entire planet.

Until then,

Romantic love only accidentally overlapped with marriage.

Now, arranged marriages take many forms.