Marriages at lowest level since Queen Victoria's day

THE number of marriages taking place in Scotland has dropped to its lowest since Victorian times.

There were just 27,524 weddings in last year. The last time it was so low, in 1893, Thomas Edison was building the first motion picture studio in New Jersey, and Rudolf Diesel received a patent for the diesel engine.

The number of Scottish births also fell in 2009, the first decline in seven years.

Professor Robert Wright, of Strathclyde University, an adviser on population projections to the UK government, said: "This clearly shows the impact of the recession has been very serious

"Marriage is not cheap and is something people postpone. It's common sense that a young person, possibly in danger of losing his job, is not going to spend 10,000 on a lavish wedding.

''Marriage has also become less popular generally. A lot of people are cohabitating and there's been a longer term decrease.''

The figures, from the General Register Office for Scotland, also 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," Prof Wright said. "It increased recently because of the good economic times. People are going to be very suspicious and cautious now after such a big recession.

"That will accelerate the ageing process (of the population] and will put more constraints on the working population."

A spokesman for the Scottish Catholic Church criticised the UK government for not making it more financially attractive for couples to marry.

"In such an aggressively secular society it is not surprising that in recent years the number of couples marrying in church has dropped," he said.

''However, 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."

Alex Johnstone, Scottish Conservative MSP for North East Scotland, added: "Under Labour, Britain is one of the very few countries in Europe which doesn't recognise marriage in the tax system. A UK Conservative government would change that.

"Under Labour, the UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe.''

Professor Lynn Jamieson, of the centre for research on families and relationships at Edinburgh University, said:

"People do not feel forced into marriage anymore. People who do choose to get married are doing so because they really want to, which was not always the case."

Registrar General for Scotland Duncan Macniven said: "The number of divorces fell to 10,131. That was expected, because the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 reduced separation periods before divorce from May 2006. So there was an increase of over 2,000 divorces in 2006 followed by decreases in 2007, 2008 and 2009."