Couples are staying married for longer before getting divorced, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The average length of a marriage ending in divorce reached a record high of 13 years in 2025 – the longest duration since records began and up from a record low of 8.9 years in 1985.

Divorce lawyers have suggested the reason couples are staying married longer before they split up is because they 'can't afford to get divorced and face the financial hand grenade that it results in'.

There were 105,002 divorces in England and Wales in 2025, comprising 102,879 opposite-sex couples and 2,123 same-sex couples.

This is lower than at peak divorce levels seen in the 1980s-2000s, when there were around 150,000 divorces per year, the ONS said.

Overall divorce rates are stable, with more recent marriages less likely to end in divorce within the first ten years than those which took place in the 1980s and 1990s.

The ONS said the changes were 'likely be caused by a range of factors including legislation changes, change over time in the average age at marriage, and changes in societal attitudes to divorce'.

It comes as Labour was urged to drop its plans for new wedding bureaucracy and instead adopt French-style rules to cut the cost of ceremonies and stop religious groups from conducting fake marriages.

A new report from the Marriage Foundation calls on the Government to instead adopt a simple, universal marriage system by using existing registrars.

The think tank said this would remove State involvement from wedding ceremonies – only involving officials in the legal act itself – and mean the minimum cost of a marriage would be as little as £155.

This would also legally standardise marriage and stop some religious groups from conducting fake marriages which are not recognised by British law, Marriage Foundation said.

Dr Harry Benson, the think tank's research director, said: 'The State has a legitimate interest in promoting and regulating the legal side of marriage, but it has no business at all in trying to regulate wedding ceremonies.'

Currently, a marriage or civil partnership ceremony must take place at an approved venue to be legally binding.

But under plans unveiled by former deputy prime minister David Lammy, Labour would transfer this legal role to individual celebrants so that people could get married almost anywhere.

This would create a whole new system of marriage bureaucracy, involving 'monitoring and regulating potentially thousands of marriage officiants… and training them how to spot coercion', Marriage Foundation said.

The think tank instead proposes simplifying this by using existing registrars for every wedding ceremony, as the infrastructure and expertise is already there.

This would lower the cost of a legal wedding to £155, or £167.50 if a couple want a marriage certificate. A similar system is already used in France, Germany and Switzerland.

The Marriage Foundation report added: 'Under such a system, every couple would complete the same civil registration process, including the necessary identity, eligibility, consent and safeguarding checks, and the marriage would then be registered by the existing civil registration service.

'The couple would thereafter be free to hold whatever religious, humanist, cultural or personal celebration they wished, wherever they wished and with whoever they wished.'

Labour's consultation on marriage reform, Tying the Knot: Reforming wedding laws in England and Wales, closes on Thursday. The Government would then need to pass new legislation to change marriage laws, meaning the reforms probably will not come into effect until next year.