For Brit Divorces, the '7 Year Itch' Postponed to the 11th Year Of Marriage

Eventhough most divorced couples blame their failed marriages on the '7 year itch', official figures suggest otherwise. The itch, apparently settles in only in the 11th year in the UK.

The average length of a marriage in Britain of the 144,220 couples who divorced in 2007 was found to be 11.7 years, according to the Office of National Statistics.

The figures further revealed that the age of Brit divorcees was steadily rising, with 41.2 and 43.7 being the average age for women and men respectively.

The number of marriages had also fallen by 2.7 per cent in a year, to 270,000, the records showed.

"People come together and stay together only when this is to their individual advantage," the Telegraph quoted Malcolm Brynin, co-author of Changing Relationships, a new Economic and Social Research Council book, as telling The Sunday Times.

Sociologist Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University and author of Paranoid Parenting, added: "When you get married, if you make this kind of statistical calculation saying, 'Well, I'm getting married, the chances are we'll only get to 11 years', the whole ritual becomes entirely pointless.

"If you adopt the idea, we might as well give up on the concept of durable relationships altogether."

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Michael Buchanan, the twice-divorced author of The Marriage Delusion, explained: "In previous centuries people would get married early, have children and then be parted by the death of one or other, usually within a decade or two.

"Nowadays they can expect to live for four to five decades after marriage. It's unrealistic to expect most people to sustain love and interest in each other for such long periods, especially if their children have grown up and moved out."

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Source-ANI