New data from the Office of National Statistics shows that by 2031 three out of five adults in Britain may be unmarried. The shift reflects significant changes in social and family structure.

Religion and culture are abused when they are employed illegitimately to justify the suppression of women and the denial of their equal humanity, human rights lawyer Chrie Booth argued yesterday in a lecture at Chatham House in London.

Deirdre Good says that reflecting on Jesus' family values can help Christians understand a changing world where being single will be normal for longer periods of time and where more single women are heads of households.

In the light of current arguments within church and state over the definitions of marriage, civil partnerships and other live-in relationships, the Christian think-tank Ekklesia is suggesting that 'serious consideration' should be given to the abolition of legal 'marriage' and its replacement by a variety of civil partnerships through which couples could specify the type of legal commitment they wished to make to one another.