Summary

We have reccorded the domestic living arrangements and maritial status of residents in your neighbourhood.

Definition

A household is defined as, people living alone (excluding those persons living in a “communal establishment”) or as a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address, who share cooking facilities and share a living room or sitting room or dining area. This allows measuring the prevalence of households bound by a union (i.e. as a couple) irrespective of their legal status.

Why the metric matters from a commercial inhabitant’s perspective

Commercial inhabitants will be interested to know the living arrangements of the residents living in their immediate vicinity because this will inform them of how traditional or otherwise the area is. For example, if the majority of persons aged 30 - 44 in an area are married it is likely to tell you that the populace does not live an alternative lifestyle and therefore would respond better to corresponding goods and services. For example, if you are going to start an all-night cereal café, a neighbourhood of London with one of the highest proportions of married couples is unlikely to be the area where such an offering will be most successful.

Conventional forms of accommodation and housing will also be most widely taken up in areas where a high proportion of the aforementioned age group are married and vice versa - e.g. commune-style living is far rarer in areas that are heavy in this demographic. If a high number of people cohabit when they are separated or divorced this can also tell you something about competition for housing in the area.

Why the metric matters from a residential inhabitant’s perspective

Residents will be interested to know the living arrangements of their immediate neighbours because this will tell them how conventional or otherwise their neighbourhood is. Areas with high proportions of people who are married or in a civil partnership will be likely to contain neighbours who come and go at fairly standard times and are more likely to want to contribute to the local community. This is probably the more ideal set up for someone in the same stage of life, whereas if you live in a flat share you will want the amenities that are more commonly required by people who also live in the same circumstances, such as more late-night services and a higher degree of late night entertainment.

Further, cohabitation before and after marriage, or living as a couple with one set of parents, might tell you about local market forces such as a poor supply of affordable housing which is preventing people from living in separate family units.

Similarly, high rates of divorce and widowing in the immediate vicinity may indicate particular local issues causing disproportionate pressures on marriages or life-expectancies such as poor housing standards, low levels of employment locally and low levels of job availability locally.

Why the metric matters from a residential inhabitant’s perspective

Residents will be interested to know the living arrangements of their immediate neighbours because this will tell them how conventional or otherwise their neighbourhood is. Areas with high proportions of people who are married or in a civil partnership will be likely to contain neighbours who come and go at fairly standard times and are more likely to want to contribute to the local community. This is probably the more ideal set up for someone in the same stage of life, whereas if you live in a flat share you will want the amenities that are more commonly required by people who also live in the same circumstances, such as more late-night services and a higher degree of late night entertainment.

Further, cohabitation before and after marriage, or living as a couple with one set of parents, might tell you about local market forces such as a poor supply of affordable housing which is preventing people from living in separate family units.

Similarly, high rates of divorce and widowing in the immediate vicinity may indicate particular local issues causing disproportionate pressures on marriages or life-expectancies such as poor housing standards, low levels of employment locally and low levels of job availability locally.

Trivia

The tradition that brides wear a white dress in the western world was started by Queen Victoria in 1840. Until she set the trend, brides wore their finest gown to wed their groom. Japan happened to be way ahead of Queen Victoria as white was always the preferred colour for brides.

History

1753 marked the year that marriage came under the purview of the state as it became a legal requirement to be married in a church or chapel by a minister, otherwise, the union was void. Couples also had to issue a formal marriage announcement, called banns, or obtain a licence.

The Marriage Act of 1836 allowed for non-religious civil marriages to be held in registry offices and for people to marry in their own places of Worship - until this point regardless of religion the Church of England had to oversee the marriage.

Before 1858, divorce was rare and required an act of Parliament. It was only in 1858 that divorce could be carried out via legal process. Even then divorce was too expensive for most people, and there was the added challenge for wives of proving “aggravated” adultery - that their husbands had been guilty of cruelty, desertion, bigamy, incest, sodomy or bestiality.

In the late nineteenth century, the introduction of the first more widespread contraceptives meant that marriage and procreation did not have to go hand in hand at least within the Anglican and Church of England religions.

In the 1960s divorce suddenly became more common after the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, because couples could cite marital breakdown as the reason for the split rather than having to go to lengths to gain evidence of one of the previous grounds.

The Marriage Act of 1949 as amended by the 1983 Act gave legal recognition to Jewish or Quaker marriages in any building as long as they took place under a registrar’s certificate or licence and the certificate was delivered to the registering officer, and to Roman Catholic, non-Church of England and Muslim weddings as long as they took place within a certified building. Many couples do not necessarily wish to get married within these buildings, and these buildings are not always certified so they will need to register their marriage in a registry office after the event.

The first ceremonies under the Civil Partnerships Act took place in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales in December 2005.