How many marriages end in divorce in the UK? Is it common for royals to divorce?
A ROYAL wedding is the stuff of fairytales, but with Prince Harry’s parents’ marriage ending in divorce, how common is it?
Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics for 2016 showed that a dismal 42% of marriages in England and Wales ended in divorce.
Around half of those who divorced did so within the first 10 years of marriage.
This year the number of divorces had increased by 5.8% from the previous year.
The divorce rate was highest among men aged 45 to 49 and women aged 30 to 39.
The number of divorces rose sharply from the 1970s onwards, partly because of more opportunities and being less concerned about apportioning blame.
It peaked in the mid 1990s, where 14 out of a thousand married people were getting divorced.
Divorces are not uncommon in the Royal family, as the Queen has seen three of her four children go through them after relatively short marriages.
One of the most famous Royal divorces in recent history is Harry’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
The end of their unhappy marriage was finalised in 1995.
With a 13 year age gap, lack of shared interests and Charles’ love for old girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles, it became too much to handle.
The same year, Charles’ sister and the Queen’s second child divorced her first husband, Captain Mark Philips.
The Princess quickly recovered after the split, marrying her current husband, Timothy Laurence, later that year.
Prince Andrew, the Queen’s third child, divorced his childhood sweetheart Sarah Ferguson in 1992.
Curiously, the divorces of the Queen’s children coincided with a surge in divorce rates in the UK in the 1990s.
During this time divorce was beginning to be normalised.
Whilst undesirable, divorces had gained a degree of acceptance from royals.
Henry VIII brought Royal divorce to the forefront of politics.
In 1527 he petitioned for an annulment of his first marriage, and he was able to marry Anne Boleyn.
However, divorce was already common for Royals in Europe.
For example, Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine already divorced a few hundred years previously.
There was a public outcry in 1976 when Princess Margaret announced she would be divorcing her husband, the Earl of Snowden.
Meghan Markle, who will marry Prince Harry on Saturday, is herself a divorcée.
In 2002 the Church of England dropped their provision against remarriage for a divorced person.
Luckily the stigma of divorce has faded away, meaning Harry can wed his American actress.
Source: EXPRESS CO UK
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