Nobody gets married thinking it will end in divorce. Sara Robinson, 28, certainly didn't. She got married aged 22 to Chris, a man who proposed to her within two weeks of their first meeting.

'He was five years older than me and worked in sales. He was so funny, intelligent and entertaining, I had never met anyone like him,' she says.

'When he proposed, he told me how much he loved me, and that we would be together for ever. I said yes instantly.'

Their wedding took place two days before Christmas on a beautiful snowy day, which Sara describe as 'so romantic'. But in two years, it was all over. 



Although the divorce rate overall has just dropped for the fifth successive year to the lowest rate for 29 years, younger marriages, like Chris and Sara's are failing at a higher rate than ever.

For the fourth year running, twenty-somethings had the highest divorce rate of any age range, peaking in the late 20s at around twice the average rate of any other age groups.

Most, like Sara, who lives in Cardiff and works in marketing, begin their married lives in a spirit of faith and optimism, only to crash and burn in the divorce courts a few years later  -  a trend reflected by the high-profile short-lived marriages of celebrities such as Cheryl Cole, Jordan and Peaches Geldof.

It's a phenomenon that's even been given its own name: The Starter Marriage  -  a phrase that glibly implies a fundamentally dismissive attitude to marriage, as 'not necessarily something you go into for life,' as Peaches Geldof so memorably said of her own disastrous six-month union last year.

It's become a fashionable analysis: dismissing an early divorce as 'one of those things' and chalking it up as a useful life lesson.

But however much young people might think a failed marriage in your 20s can be a good experience, nobody comes through the process without scars. There are serious consequences, personally and socially, to young divorce.

Behind superficial chatter about 'starter marriages' lies some stark realities: many young marriages have produced children, so the divorcing couple have to face their future as single parents and their children as the product of a fractured family.

So why is this generation so doomed when it comes to tying the knot? There may now be little social stigma to divorce, but many young divorcees admit to feeling embarrassed and ashamed by their experience.



While Miss Geldof may dismiss marriage as less of a commitment than one of her tattoos, back in the real world the rest of her generation feels quite differently  -  at least to begin with.