ABSTRACT
Marital therapy in the United Kingdom as a separate discipline came to birth pragmatically to address the concerns which arose in the earlier twentieth century about perceived changes in marriage and family life. There was an increase in divorce. Families were easier to limit in size, and the changing social status of women, which began in the nineteenth century with the Married Women’s Property Act and continued in the twentieth century with female emancipation (not fully implemented until 1928), had a growing effect on the national consciousness.
