What is Marriage Week?

The fundamental message of National Marriage Week is that marriage is worth investing in, because all the research shows that stable families make for happier children and grown-ups, and a happier wider community. Married couples who work at their marriage are more likely to stay together and be that stable family, leading to a happier society. At Marriage Week, we help people do that work.

Each Marriage Week has a theme.  The purpose of this theme is to provide a focus for couples to be able to join in. Our aim is for couples to regularly invest in their relationship and to keep caring for it.

One of our key messages is the value of doing practical things, and what we seek to deliver is help doing those practical things

We know it is relatively simple to buy into a vague notion of ‘investing in your relationship’ or ‘doing it for the kids’. But it is hard to know how to actually go about achieving these things – starting on a path and dealing with the difficulties that arise along the way.

Through the initiatives of Marriage Week and the expertise of its partners we offer encouragement that you are doing the right thing by seeking to make your marriage as healthy as possible, and we provide you with the tools to do this.

Marriage is a modern, relevant and vital commitment to your partner, your family and society more broadly.

We are not claiming that people who are not married are not committed to these things. We are not saying that people who are not married are always unhappier or that their children will automatically do less well and be less happy.

Our message is a generalisation. It is a generalisation backed by statistics and personal stories, but it is a generalisation nonetheless.

Children will do well and be well with supportive single parents, and parents will be unhappy or worse if they stay in genuinely abusive or miserable marriages that are beyond repair.

What we are saying is that the figures and the personal stories show very clearly that children are simply more likely to be successful and happy if their parents are married, and adults are more likely to be happy if they stay married.

There are no guarantees, because this is real life.

But at Marriage Week, we are seeking to help you by giving you information, inspiration and tools to give you and your loved ones the best chance of happiness.