Marriage has fallen out of favour with millennials, who are turning their back in droves on the prospect of wedded bliss. Marriage, according to our younger generations, has become irrelevant and unnecessary in the modern age - with less than four in 10 millennials married in 2016, compared with six in 10 in the 1980s.

At the same time as this shift away from the altar, this week the government announced it is to make it easier for unhappy couples to divorce, largely by removing the blame element from the process.

While many - including lawyers and the judiciary - agree that removing the potential for acrimony from the divorce process is a step in the right direction, I can’t help feeling that, with fewer young people choosing to tie the knot, it is not necessarily an entirely wise move to make divorce an altogether easier process.

Getting married is a big deal - and so should ending a marriage be. I come at this argument from two sides. Two weeks ago I celebrated my silver wedding; and I come from a family where no one in it is, or has been, divorced. My parents were married for more than 50 years and between us, my three siblings and I have notched up 110 years of marriage, each to our first spouses. My husband is the only exception to the non-divorce tradition in our family, having given Henry VIII a run for his money during his earlier life. Put it this way, he’d been down on bended knee to so many women before I met him that he had to have a knee replacement in his 50s.

As even our royal family know well, marriage isn’t always (if ever) a fairytale. It can be a hard slog for many couples and with modern stresses and conventions it’s hardly surprising that so many marriages fail.

But as a society we should do everything possible to uphold the institution of marriage, not least because it is a comprehensively acknowledged (if these days un-PC) fact that children do far better when they are raised in stable, marital homes.

Of course they do - children need security and boundaries; and they are far more likely to get that in a home where the parents are united by a firm, legal bond.

As for taking the blame element out of divorce, while I can see the logic,it seems odd to remove something that is so fundamental to a marriage. I spend my life blaming my husband for things - from unmown lawns to unwormed dogs - and it’s all part of the cut and thrust of married life.

I feel sad for the millennials turning their backs on marriage: it’s one of the most life-enhancing experiences we can have. But should we make divorce easier? Less painful, yes, but easier, no.