Most believe marriage is still for life

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - 'Til death do us part. Or at least that's what most people on the planet still believe.

Seven out of 10 people across the planet still think that marriage should last a lifetime, according to a Valentine's Day survey released by global research firm AC Nielsen on Tuesday.

Muslim and Catholic strongholds in Asia topped global rankings in favor of lifelong marriage in the poll of 25,000 people across 46 countries.

Indonesians were the keenest on marriage for life. The survey showed that 97 percent of them believed in the concept, followed closely by Turks at 92 percent as well as Filipinos and Malays, both 89 percent.

In the West, Americans turned out to be the strongest believers in marrying for life, while Europeans from Catholic and conservative countries showed an unexpected lack of enthusiasm for the concept.

"Record high divorce statistics combined with rising co-habitation rates and an increasing number of children born to common-law couples in the past 10 years have certainly made the western world wonder if the age-old concept of "to have and to hold till death to us part" is fast becoming a dying tradition," AC Nielsen Europe President Patrick Dodd said in a statement.

Although interestingly, more American men believed in the marriage for life concept than American women.

Asian Muslim countries of Indonesia and Malaysia also ranked globally as the most in favor of marriage as a life goal, while at the other end of the love and marriage barometer, 74 percent of Greek consumers said marriage was not a lifetime goal.

Less than half of Europeans polled said that marriage is one of their lifetime goals.

Instead of marriage, 77 percent of Europeans said a stable, long-term relationship is as good as marriage.

Dodd said that across Europe, especially western Europe, for the first time in history women are chasing careers instead of husbands and valuing independence over marriage as a life-long ambition.

"And the majority of men in these countries are in agreement too. There appears to be an equal rejection of the traditional concept of marriage across both sexes," he said.

Asian and Muslim nations were naturally not in favor of replacing marriage with long-term relationships, and neither were half of Americans, Russians, South Africans and Hungarians.