Summary
Why marry? Jane Austen began her novel Pride and Prejudice with the observation "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics show less than half the adult UK population are married or in a legal partnership and predictions are that by 2050, only 3 in 10 people in the UK will marry.
Shahidha Bari hosts Radio 4's round-table discussion programme Free Thinking, which brings together philosophical and historical insights in a conversation about issues resonating in the present day. Her guests this week are: columnist Zoe Strimpel, who has been considering the history and current state of the family in a 5 part series running on Radio 4 this week Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, biographer of Thomas Cromwell and author of Lower than Angels: A history of Sex and Christianity Dr Reetika Subramanian from the University of East Anglia, who hosts a podcast called Climate Brides. Reetika is one of Radio 4's current researchers in residence on the New Generation Thinkers scheme run in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Psychoanalyst and literary scholar Josh Cohen Philosopher and film scholar Catherine Wheatley
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it. |
| 0:13.3 | But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go? |
| 0:19.2 | I remember having this very sharp thought |
| 0:21.7 | that what you do right now, |
| 0:23.6 | this is it, this defines your life. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm ready to talk and ready to listen. |
| 0:28.3 | I'm insulted by how little the medical community |
| 0:32.1 | is ever bothered with this. |
| 0:33.9 | Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, |
| 0:35.6 | is my new podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, |
| 0:42.6 | podcasts. This is the Arts and Ideas podcast with me, Shah Hadabari. Hello, it is a truth universally |
| 0:50.9 | acknowledged that a radio presenter in possession of a good Jane Austen quote |
| 0:54.8 | about marriage must mangle it in want of a clever introduction to their program. Sorry about that. |
| 1:00.4 | But since it is 250 years since the birth of everybody's dear Jane in December, we're celebrating |
| 1:06.1 | that great chronicler of courtship by popping the big question, as it were, asking what is a marriage? |
| 1:13.3 | Also, why do we marry and does marriage still matter? Off the back of this week's budget, |
| 1:18.6 | you could say that successive chancellors of the ex-chaquer have generally thought it does still |
| 1:22.5 | matter in the UK, at least, dangling various married couples' tax allowances over the years. So what is marriage |
| 1:29.2 | and what is it for? What do our guests think and will tonight see a marriage of their true |
| 1:33.8 | minds or an acrimonious split? Let's find out. Josh Cohen, psychoanalyst and author of How to Live, |
... |
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