EVEN though it is designed to bolster that vital societal unit, the family, which the state has watched disintegrate over the span of barely a generation, the government's proposals for secular "baptisms" and pre-marriage counselling for couples will be greeted by a mixture of ridicule and scorn for nannying interference.

But it is not that there is a mighty job to be done to preserve the traditional family structure and restore it as the strong and positive social force it once was.

Indeed, with Britain now having the second highest divorce rate in the EU, one in five families being headed by only a single parent, cohabiting replacing marriage and illegitimacy so common it is no longer a cause of shame, some might say the task is impossible.

Yet if the government, while recognising these sweeping changes in morality and values, is searching to ethically encourage the stable, two-parent family unit, will it do so by introducing register office naming ceremonies for the children of married or unmarried parents or enabling registrars to give pre-marriage counselling to couples?

True, these measures may only civilly mirror their religious counterparts - of when a family gathers together to name and admit a new-born member to their faith, and of when engaged couples are given guidance and instruction by the minister who is to marry them.

But it may be hard for secular "baptism" to escape the kind of ersatz artificiality which many find clinging to register office marriage ceremony.

And it may even reap mockery - particularly as the new prayer-less baby-naming ritual's intended inclusion of poetry and music already smacks of some sort of New Age pagan rite.

And as for registrars giving pre-marriage pep talks to couples on their responsibilities, some might ask what job is it of the government to interfere in personal affairs.

Well-intentioned and even necessary though such family-strengthening steps may be, the government is, surely, usurping a role that has been not lived up to over a generation by those whose real duty it was to ensure the continuance of the stable family - the churches and the extended nuclear families that were the parents and relatives of today's parents.

Together, they once provided the rules, rituals and example that kept the traditional family intact.

Over a generation, they have failed.

Really, this departure should be their challenge, not the government's.

It is they who need to fight back for the traditional family and its values - while the state's hand-holding ought, perhaps, only be limited to crafting a welfare structure that supports it financially.

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