Divorce and the institute of marriage are on the agenda again after the recession appeared to have caused a temporary standstill. TakeLegalAdvice.com has conducted a survey showing a significant increase in divorce applications in the New Year is to be expected, with the economy’s recovery and a rise in housing prices tipped as contributing factors.

The New Year is already shaping up to be one of change for family law, with the Law Commission proposing new rights for cohabitating couples and two thirds of lawyers surveyed by TakeLegalAdvice.com agreeing with such a move.

One law firm has actually offered ‘divorce vouchers’ over the Christmas period as the gift to give the person that ‘needs a change’ – a move which has received much criticism from other divorce solicitors who viewed it as a ‘gimmick’.

Finally, we have just seen the launch of ‘due-diligence for marriage’, a pre-marriage approach to help find out how ‘sound’ your marriage venture will be. In much the same way as you would approach the purchase of a business, the couple each answers questions on relationships, sexual history, mental health, their views on family and each other. If this seems a little less romantic than you would like the surveys creator, relationship coach Roy Sheppard, is adamant of its importance, telling journalism.co.uk that “marriage is the biggest ‘deal’ most people will ever enter into, it makes huge sense to conduct ‘due-diligence’ on your partner”. And unfortunately it relies on both partners telling the truth – which is not always guaranteed when questions delve so deeply into their private lives.

In the same way the last decade was about the ‘big London divorce’, the coming decade may be about to counteract it with the ‘rise of the pre-nup’. By the end of 2009 we saw an increase divorce cases taking into account the existence of a pre-nuptial agreement. Despite not having legal standing in the UK, pre-nuptial agreements are commonplace in parts of Europe and the Law Commission is expected to produce guidance on them by 2012.

For the hopeless romantics it would seem that the decade ahead isn’t going to be full of fateful encounters resulting in fairy-tale weddings. Instead, it would appear that level-headed decision making and those ‘less than romantic’ conversations with your partner are likely to become inevitable before you say ‘I do’.

-Adrian Trotman