Why two parents are not a panacea

Paul Ormerod and Robert Rowthorn have some good ideas about stabilising the family through encouraging marriage and avoiding divorce. Preventing unsuitable marriages in the first place might go a long way towards that end.

One way of achieving might be to make premarital counselling a condition of obtaining a marriage licence, perhaps along the lines of a method developed by a minister in the south-west.

When a couple requests a wedding he asks both individuals separately to complete a questionnaire exploring their attitudes and expectations on a number of key issues, such as child rearing, division of labour in and outside the home and financial arrangements. These are then compared and discussed - often for the first time.

He claims that as a result, approximately one third of the couples decide to wait or not to marry at all, a proportion quite close to present divorce figures.

Ruth Jacob

Hermitage Avenue Borrowash, Derby