The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported last month that the marriage rate is declining. As someone who champions marriage, is married and thinks a wedding is lovely, I think it’s great news.

According to the data, the crude rate of registered marriages per 1,000 residents aged 16 and over fell from 5.5 in 2024 to 5.3 in 2025, with the largest falls occurring among the 25-29s and 30-34s.

Why do I celebrate? Because these figures remind us that Australia is a sensible, progressive nation whose liberal social institutions have given individuals the freedom and opportunity to make the best decisions for our own lives.

This includes exercising our right to divorce, an event also represented in the ABS statistics. Divorces granted rose by 4.1%, the crude divorce rate up from 2.1 to 2.2.

The process of relationship breakdown is always painful, the circumstances causing marriages to fail are often sad, and legal separation is usually a practical nightmare. Yet it was within my own lifetime that Australian law once compelled people in relationships that were unbalanced, dysfunctional, mistrustful, unhappy or loveless to stay married if they couldn’t meet narrow legal criteria to make a case for their divorce before the courts.

As populist right political movements all over the globe push nostalgia politics and regressive social policies along with them, it’s worth remembering that the “good ol’ days” of divorce law in Australia once meant that even........

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