Just how "religious" is marriage in Scotland?

Today is your last chance to contribute to the Scottish Government's consultation on same-sex marriage. To put you in the mood, I thought it might be of interest to pose a simple question: just what is the state of marriage in Scotland anyway? It is often suggested or implied that religions enjoy or ought to enjoy a sort of priority when it comes to defining marriage.  As I've remarks on a number of occasions, the basis for religious bodies making such claims are various. Some will seek authority by dint of divine command. Others will make their case based on their apprehensions of the content of the natural law.  Still others will speak about a Judeo-Christian leeching of the bride-and-bridegroom concept of marriage into Scotland's the general culture, which they contend should be jealously preserved, whether out of generic conservatism, or fears of social calamity if popular understandings of marriage are permitted to expand.  

None of this particularly heeds the simpler question. To press a rather worldly metaphor into service, just what sort of "market-share" in the marriage business do churches enjoy at the moment? How religious is marriage in Scotland now? All the data can be found on the General Register Office for Scotland website.  Rather than leaving you all to shuffle through the reams of data, a few colourful charts more briskly map contemporary Scotland's matrimonial shape and its changes over the last half century. Let's begin with the elementary stuff. How many marriages? In the period from 1946 to 2010, we can see that the largest number of marriages were entered into in the half-decade between 1966-70, with 42,832 marriages being conducted. Since, the number of marriages has generally been decreasing, slumping to its lowest ever figure in 2006-10, when just under 30,000 marriages took place - a fall of around 13,000 on the figures from the middle of the 1940s.

 

Civil partnerships were introduced in December 2005, limited to couples of the same-sex.  Over that period, the number of partnerships conducted in Scotland was as follows (the total number of partnerships, also being disaggregated by sex of the partners...)

But back to marriage.  We see from the overall totals that the number of marriages being entered into is falling. Mirroring that overall trend, how has the character of celebrants changed in Scotland since 1946? In line with general shifts in religious attitudes, and evaporating piety, we might expect religious celebrations to decrease and the number of civil marriages to expand. The next couple of charts plot the detail that confirms that hunch.  The first plots the total changing total number of marriages carried out by different denominations across the period from 1946 - 2010.  As the total number of marriages has decreased, only the number of civil and other religious marriages has increased, with Church of Scotland weddings in particular, plunging from over 25,000 in 1946-50 to just under 7,000 in 2006-10.

This second chart shows how the balance between the various different forms of marriage celebrations - Church of Scotland, Catholic, Civil and so on - has shifted over the years.  Although civil marriages constituted less than 20% of marriages in 1946-50, by 2006-10, they constitute a majority (51.5%) of all marriages conducted across the country.

 

That's a longer term historical picture. Now let's be a little more specific. Take 2010.  That year, some 28,480 marriages were conducted, of which the majority (just) were civil weddings.

It is also worth burrowing a little further into the category of "religious" marriages.  As you will all know, the Kirk's committees and the Catholic bishops and Cardinals have been particularly vocal about same-sex marriage. Just how many unions are either institution conducting anyway? "Religious" celebrants come from a bewildering array of denominations, many of them conducting only a very small number of ceremonies.  Some of the more unusual appearances in the full religious tables include the Salvation Army (43 weddings in 2010), the Spiritualist National Union (31 weddings), the Findhorn Foundation (30 weddings), the Pagan Network (15 weddings), and those salty sea-dogs, the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen (11 weddings).

As some of these minor celebrators of marriages suggest, an attentive look at the data shows that we should approach the language of "religious" weddings exceedingly gingerly. A single example eloquently demonstrates the point. In 2010, the second most common "religious" form of marriage in Scotland was Humanist, whose ceremonies numbered some 2,092 that year, or 15% of "religious" marriages and 7.3% of all marriages conducted that year.  To add a little surrounding context, Humanists actually conducted 316 more marriages than the third most active denomination - the Roman Catholic Church. (By the by, most of you will likely be thinking that to categorise Humanist marriage ceremonies as "religious" is madness. I agree. Describing their ideals, the Humanist Society of Scotland make clear that they are specifically non-religious in outlook).

So how does the category of "religious" marriages otherwise break down? How many Episcopalian weddings, Mormon unions and the like? There is such a profusion of data, to produce a readable graph, a certain degree of lumping together is indicated. For those curious about the full tableau of religious bodies conducting marriages, the fuller tables are here.  If we emphasise the "religious" bodies that are most active in conducting marriages in Scotland, the total "religious" figures break down like this:

So just how "religious" is marriage in Scotland anyway? Res ipsa loquitur...