Scots becoming increasingly reluctant to tie the knot

LONDON LETTER:The country that gave us Gretna Green weddings has this year seen the lowest rate of marriages since Victorian times

PHILIP YORKE, the 1st Earl of Hardwicke, is not much liked in Scotland. He presided over Jacobite trials following the destruction of the rebels at Culloden in 1745, and tried later, without much success, to disarm the Highlanders and ban the wearing of the tartan. However, his actions led to one of Scotland’s most enduring traditions: Gretna Green weddings.+

In 1753 he authored legislation, known as the “Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage” for England and Wales, under which couples had to have the permission of their parents to marry if they were under 21. The law, however, did not apply to Scotland and the impatient headed north of the border, to villages such as Coldstream.

When a toll road was completed in 1770 it was easier to get to Gretna, and since then many thousands have married there. In centuries past, they did so in front of local blacksmiths – known as “anvil priests”– and before two witnesses under a Scottish law that did not require, indeed barred, the mixing of religion with the marriage act.

The 21-year rule laid down by Hardwicke is long gone south of the border, but Gretna Green is still Scotland’s most popular marriage location for Scots and others further afield. However, these days it seems the Scots are becoming increasingly reluctant to walk up the aisle, or enter the registry office in the Dumfries and Galloway village.

Ten years ago, 5,279 couples tied the knot in Gretna, under the civil supervision of registrar Gordon Wright. The number reached a peak in 2004 when 5,556 rings were exchanged, but dropped to 4,926 the following year and has fallen steadily since. Last year just 3,542 marriages took place, and those being conducted by a minister are a third of what they were a decade ago.

Figures this week from the general register office show that there were 27,524 weddings in all of Scotland last year, a fall from 28,903 in 2008. In Edinburgh, a city of 500,000 people, there were just 2,500 weddings.

Registrar general Duncan Macniven said: “We saw the number of marriages drop to their lowest level since Victorian times and the lowest rate per thousand of population in records going back to 1855.”

This week’s figures are new, though the trend is not. During the early Thatcher years in Scotland, when mines and mills were closing by the day, the number of marriages collapsed to 34,000 a year; a figure seen then as disastrous.

There is no doubt that the influence of London’s rule north of Hadrian’s Wall was partly responsible, but there were other forces at work, which only became apparent years later.

Marriage age rose quickly, with the numbers of men married by 20 dropping from 33 per thousand in the early 70s to just six per thousand in a decade. Likewise, the female statistics fell from 90 per thousand to 20 per thousand.

The taxation system has made marriage less attractive, and the issue has featured in election campaigning with the Conservatives promising to recognise marriage by offering tax breaks, should they be elected to government. Party leader David Cameron got into a dreadful muddle over what this actually meant, though it seems he favours allowing couples to transfer their personal tax allowances to each other.

The Catholic Church in Scotland, whose head, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, recently launched a withering attack on Labour, saying it had undertaken “a systematic and unrelenting attack on family values” during its 13 years in power, agrees with the Tories.

A church spokesman said of the statistics: “In such an aggressively secular society it is not surprising that the number of couples marrying has dropped. The Catholic Church believes that proper preparation for marriage and a sacramental setting are most likely to lead to long-term stability. Unfortunately, this government has penalised marriage through the tax system which has contributed to the present crisis.”

Prof Robert Wright of Strathclyde University, an adviser to the government on population trends, has long warned that Scotland is a demographic time bomb, with too few births, and too many dying early in life.

The declining marriage figures show that the impact of the recession, particularly in Scotland, has been very serious, and long-lasting. In hard times, people become cautious, he says.

Inside or outside of marriage, the Scots are producing fewer children. This week’s figures show that 59,046 births were registered in 2009 – almost a thousand less than in 2008.

“I think fertility is going to continue to decrease. It increased recently because of the good economic times. People are going to be very suspicious and cautious now after such a big recession,” said Prof Wright.

There was also a fall last year in the number of divorces to 10,000.

Back in Gretna, registrar Gordon Wright remains calm, preferring to think in terms of market share, rather than the falling numbers: “We seem to be holding our own here,” he said.