Marriage should be promoted by the Government to end the 'social anarchy' of family breakdown, a senior judge said. Mr Justice Coleridge accused mothers and fathers who fail to commit to each other of engaging in a game of 'pass the partner' that has left millions of children 'scarred for life'.

In a hard-hitting speech in Parliament, he called for a change of attitude that would attach a 'stigma' to those who destroy family life and said a National Commission should be established to devise solutions for the 'epidemic' of broken homes. 

He said: 'The reaffirmation of marriage as the gold standard would be a start.'

Currently, one in three marriages ends in divorce. One in ten children lives with cohabiting parents and a quarter live with a single parent. Children from single-parent families are far more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, fall into crime, drug abuse, binge drinking and teenage pregnancy.

In his speech to the Family Holiday Association charity of which he is a patron, Mr Justice Coleridge said: 'I am drawing attention to the endless game of "musical relationships", or "pass the partner", in which such a significant portion of the population is engaged.'

Condemning the 'endless and futile quest for a perfect relationship', he said many parents were in 'a complete and uncontrolled free-for-all where being true to oneself and one's needs is the only yardstick for controlling behaviour'.

He added: 'The children are caught up in the conflict of their parents' unresolved relationship issues and it can leave them scarred, sometimes severely scarred, for life.'

Read the rest of this story in the Daily Mail

Mr Justice Coleridge also features in the DadTalk article Family Breakdown & Global Warming