Islam & the Modern World · Family, Marriage & Divorce
Marriage is disappearing
Handle with care. Handle with care: many people are divorced, single or cohabiting. Speak about the system, never about their situation.
In short
- 1.The Office for National Statistics reports marriage rates for opposite-sex couples in England and Wales at or near the lowest levels since records began in 1862.
- 2.Cohabiting couple families are the fastest growing family type in the UK, and cohabitations break up more often than marriages.
- 3.Islam treats marriage as worship and instructs the community to remove the barriers to it.
The claim being examined
Marriage is increasingly treated as an optional lifestyle choice, a ceremony people have if they can afford it, rather than the foundation of a household.
The Islamic position
In Islam marriage is half the religion, an act of worship and a contract with defined rights on both sides — and the community is obliged to make it easy, not expensive.
Analysis
The Office for National Statistics publishes marriage rates for England and Wales going back to 1862; its recent bulletins record rates for opposite-sex couples at historic lows, with a temporary pandemic distortion in 2020-21 followed by a partial rebound. The same office reports cohabiting couple families as the fastest growing family type over the last two decades. Research from the Marriage Foundation and analyses of the UK Millennium Cohort Study consistently find higher relationship dissolution rates among cohabiting than married parents, though researchers disagree about how much of that gap is selection (who marries) versus the effect of marriage itself — quote the disagreement, do not hide it. Islam's framing is different from both the sentimental and the contractual Western readings. The Qur'an calls the marriage bond a mithaqan ghaliza, a solemn covenant (Q 4:21), the same weight of word used for the covenants with the prophets. The Prophetic instruction is practical: marry the one whose religion and character please you (Sahih al-Bukhari 5090 on the criteria of choice), and keep the dowry and the wedding modest so that marriage stays reachable.
From the Qur'an
وَأَخَذْنَ مِنكُم مِّيثَاقًا غَلِيظًا
And they have taken from you a solemn covenant.
وَأَنكِحُوا الْأَيَامَىٰ مِنكُمْ وَالصَّالِحِينَ مِنْ عِبَادِكُمْ وَإِمَائِكُمْ ۚ إِن يَكُونُوا فُقَرَاءَ يُغْنِهِمُ اللَّهُ مِن فَضْلِهِ
Marry off the single among you and the righteous among your servants. If they are poor, Allah will enrich them from His bounty.
From the Sunnah
O young people, whoever among you is able to marry, let him marry; it lowers the gaze and guards chastity.
A woman is married for four things: her wealth, her lineage, her beauty and her religion. So choose the religious one, may your hands be rubbed with dust.
Sources
ONS, Marriages in England and Wales · ONS, Families and households in the UK · Marriage Foundation research briefings · Office for National Statistics, "Marriages in England and Wales" bulletins
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