Diamonds are for… the divorce lawyers

If you're getting married, don't splash out; do things modestly and your marriage is likely to last longer. That, at least, is the conclusion of two American economists, Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon, at Emory University in Atlanta, who found, in a study of 3,150 people, that "marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony".

They found, says The Sunday Times, that women whose weddings cost $20,000 (£12,450) or more were three and a half times more likely to end up divorced than those who spent $5,000 to $10,000. The economists also demolished the marketing slogan used by De Beers in the late 1930s that "a diamond is forever".

In fact, men who spent between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement ring were 1.3 times more likely to end up divorced than those who spent under $2,000.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

So why do we fall for the hype? Francis and Mialon blame the wedding industry for "commodifying" love and romance. Susanna Abse, chief executive of the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, told The Sunday Times that couples who go over the top to create a "perfect" day may be aware of an underlying problem in their relationship. "However much you have spent, when it's over it's just the two of you"

The economists' study will cheer up romantics who don't think it necessary to spend £8m on a wedding like George Clooney or the rapper Kanye West, who got through a similar amount in Florence in May when he married Kim Kardashian. (Kardashian's wedding before this, incidentally, was to Kris Humphries, a basketball star. It cost £6m and lasted 72 days hardly a dazzling recommendation for pricey nuptials.)

The "Big Wedding" is a "modern calamity", says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent. "It is stupidly expensive, showy, competitive, excessively demanding, unoriginal and shallow. Priceless love now has a big, fat price tag on it."

Clooney and Amal Alamuddin "certainly looked gorgeous over their four days in Venice, and one hopes the couple will stay together happily forever. But suchexcess is not good not for them, not for anyone.Certainly not for marriage."

No love lost betweenKohl and Thatcher

According to Helmut Kohl (quoted in a new book), Mrs Thatcher used to fall asleep during meetings. "She would doze off during summits and would then nearly fall off her chair, clutching her handbag."

In the former German chancellor's defence, he didn't want this story printed he'd asked a journalist to ghostwrite his memoirs, but then changed his mind. But the journalist has published anyway and the claim is plausible enough.

There was never much love lost between Kohl and Thatcher. On one occasion when they met he excused himself from the meeting saying he had to return to his office, only to be spotted later by Mrs Thatcher scoffing cream cakes in a tea shop.

Tabloid money: "take a bow, British public you got it right"

"Once we were told the euro would make us part of a brave new world," says Rod Liddle in The Sun. But the public was never convinced. All of our betters "told us how stupid we were being", but we were right and they were wrong. If the financial crises of 2008 didn't convince everyone of that, then the latest economic figures should.

"The British economic recovery is soaring ahead The International Monetary Fund has singled out Britain and the US as being the two countries where economic recovery has really taken hold. Europe, meanwhile, is in the doldrums. France, in particular, is going backwards When it came to the issue of ditching sterling, never was there a better example of the public knowing best and our betters knowing nowt. Take a bow, British public you got it right."

"Gary Barlow reckons fans don't give a damn about Take That's £20m tax scandal," says Carole Malone in the Daily Mirror. "Well, I'll bet some do. Maybe those who are dying because of an NHS which is on its knees, partly thanks to the super-rich who refuse to pay their taxes. Maybe the parents who can't get their kids into a decent school. Maybe the people who work but need benefits because they're paid a pittance and still can't afford to eat. Barlow, Jimmy Carr and other celebrities who use their vast wealth to avoid paying what the little people' have no choice but to pay, should be ashamed. Because every penny they dodge comes out of the pockets of those who already have nothing."

Business Secretary Vince Cable has registered donations to his office totalling £33,138.06 in the past three months, says Ephraim Hardcastle in the Daily Mail. "Handy sums should he look to oust Nick Clegg as Lib Dem leader."

Is that likely? Cable looked furious when Clegg ribbed him in his party conference speech. "Says my source: Vince is even more furious that Clegg is trying to anoint Danny Alexander as his successor. If he can't be king, he'll... be kingmaker and won't let Danny wear the crown."