EMBARKING ON matrimony in the twenty-first century appears as wise as taking to sea on a raft made of blotting paper. Fifty years ago, one in 80 marriages collapsed; now, the figure is reaching two out of three. Is this a permanent flight from commitment? Or, in the middle of extreme social change, can couples inject new maturity into matrimony? All last week, the Daily Mail ran what it termed 'The Great Divorce Debate'. Its aim was the survival of that rare and endangered species, the contented male spouse. The paper initiated its 'debate' with a contribution from lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt. Under the headline- 'Divorce: Why We Women are to Blame', she insisted that females have 'changed beyond recognition ... They are volatile, hard and distant. .. ..' Hence the epidemic in divorce'. A wife should revert back to the post war rules of assuming that the husband is the boss. 'You should not be over-critical. You should praise your man,' Lloyd Platt instructed on Wednesday. The following day Helen Kirwan- Taylor agreed. 'Men have simple needs,' she explained patronisingly.' 'They want to be fed, they want to be looked up to and ... they want to feel in control...' Ironically, woven into this Frankenstein attempt to graft the Fifties on to Y2K is the kind of sensible advice that marriage counsellors offer: the need for empathy and courtesy, the ability to put oneself in the other person's shoes. Except that counsellors assume both parties will make the effort. Lloyd Platt's supporters argue that since men are incapable of much change, it's women who have to accommodate - and take a step back in time. It is a view that has its fans not least because it reduces the complex to a simple equation: marriage is in a mess because females have got above them- selves. If wives reverted to old-fashioned femininity, happy-ever-after would begin again. Laura Doyle, American author of The Surrendered Wife, an American bestseller is about to publicise this thesis here. It has many flaws, not least among them is that it treats matrimony as private business, cacooned from outside forces. But when was it ever thus? Penny Mansfield of One Plus One, the relationship and marriage research organisation, describes the three driving forces which encourage commitment as the personal ('1 want to'), the moral ('1 ought to'), and the traditional ('1 have to'). In the post-war years, the most fragile marriage was kept miserably intact, bound by the steel wires of tradition and morality which had a particular impact on women . Tradition was reinforced by economic demands - men worked full- time outside the home women worked inside. In the 1950s, couples were asked to describe what made a marriage work. The most common answer then, was each spouse performing their allotted role - home-maker and wage-earner. By the Seventies, the response was 'liking each other'. By the late Eighties, the most common answers were fidelity, respect, understanding and tolerance. Now, much of the morality and all of tradition have gone. '1 want to' stands alone and vulnerable. At the same time, external forces continue to have a huge influence - but now they batter rather than reinforce. Capitalism, for instance, eats up relationships - yet no mention of it was made in the Mail's great divorce debate. For instance, many of the 51 per cent of mothers with a family under five who have jobs, work because they must. British men hold down the long hours in Europe yet, when they first have children, they still only bring in an average wage of less than 300 a week. The pressure on couples to earn isn't the only way capitalism undermines commitment. In The Corrosion al Character. Richard Sennett, professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, demonstrates how good workers make bad spouses. Fifty years ago, a man married for life until retirement; one pattern reinforced the other. Now insecurity rules. An individual in the US will change his skill base three times and make at least 11 changes of job. 'Flexibility' means work hard and you'll still be a victim of downsizing. How we behave at work, Sennet argues inevitably impacts on life outside the office walls. how can long-term purposes be pursued in a short-term society? He asks. … 'How can a human being develop a .. life history in a society composed of episodes and fragments…? The surprising answer is that many married couples do stay the course- but research tells us that it's a lot more tricky than a matter of simply allowing the man to act the boss. Studies give some clues. Marrying in your teens, with poor or no qualifications and little in the way of 'social capital' are predictors of failure. Capitalism again; the posh divorce less. Another challenge is the way individuals deal with the gap between what men and women seek form marriage. According to research, put crudely, men often see 'togetherness' as a physical concept, sharing the same roof as their partner. Wives interpret it as an emotional connection. One male divorcee voiced his confusion. He preferred no to open up much, he explained. 'But she never went without…' In truth, if anyone is required to make the extra effort to avoid divorce, it should be the man and not the woman. In one study, almost 50 per cent of wives said they wouldn't choose the same man to marry again; in contrast, three out of four male spouses said they'd stick with the woman hey had. After divorce, males often decline; women (although poorer) frequently bloom. According to research conducted by Bristol University, divorce is often initiated by the woman, not to terminate the relationship but to sound a wake-up call about the state of the relationship. And then, the lawyers step in. Marriage is at an ebb. Yet, still, most of us seek a relationship which enriches. 'In helping couples to fly on their own' Penny Mansfield writes, 'it is essential to recognise that flying conditions vary and that not every bird flies in the same way; the hawk hovers, the wren flits. The crucial thing is to help the partners to know their strengths and weaknesses and to discover their own mutual styles of staying aloft.' A recipe for nostalgia that isn't.