Bridging The Marriage Gap

A successful marriage, said Ogden Nash, was one of incompatibility. He has income; she is pattable. As advice, it is less and less pertinent. Marriage rates have slowed since the 1950s and '60s when the norm was to wed in one's early 20s, and the rise in de facto relationships is not within cooee of compensating. In 1971 a quarter of men and an eighth of women aged 25 to 29 had not married. Today, it is about 70 per cent of men and 55 per cent of women.