A clear majority of women, 60 per cent, are opposed to tax individualisation, according to an Irish Times/Behaviour and Attitudes poll released on Saturday. The poll showed that 14 per cent of women were extremely concerned about the issue, 24 per cent were very concerned, while 24 per cent were somewhat concerned.

The US state of New Jersey has stripped the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of its tax-exempt status for part of its property, it was announced last week. The Methodist camp made the news earlier this year after it refused, for religious reasons, to allow a lesbian couple to hold a "civil-union" ceremony at a pavilion on the camp's property.

Schools operating Catholics-first enrolment policies are not breaking the law, according to legal advice received by the Catholic Primary School Managers Association (CPSMA). The body says that Catholic schools are in compliance with both Irish and European equality legislation.

Almost half (42 per cent) of women work outside the home work because of economic necessity, and not choice, according to a new Irish Times poll. More than half, 53 per cent, did work out of choice. However, it is not known what proportion of each figure consists of women with dependent children.

A lesbian mother in Australia is battling to stop the gay father of her child from having his homosexual lover declared one of the child’s parents.

The highest court in the US state of Maryland has upheld a 34-year-old state law banning same-sex marriage, rejecting an attempt by 19 gay men and lesbians to win the right to marry. The decision reversed an earlier ruling by a lower court.

More than half of Americans who might have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversaries since 2000 were divorced, separated or widowed before reaching that milestone, according to the latest US census data, released last week.

“We know that somewhere between 40 percent and 50 percent of marriages dissolve,” said Barbara Risman, executive officer of the Council on Contemporary Families, a research group. “Now, when people marry, everyone wonders, is this one of those marriages that will be around for awhile.”

However, David Blankenhorn, president of marriage research and advocacy group Institute for American Values, said that what struck him was the fact that the percentage of people who celebrated their 15th anniversary had declined. “This seems to be saying more recent marriages are more fragile,” Mr. Blankenhorn said.

Figures show that 80 percent of first marriages that took place in the late 1950s lasted at least 15 years. However, among first time marriages in the 1980s, only 61 percent of the men and 57 percent of the women were married 15 years later.

The 2004 US Census showed that most Americans eventually marry, but they are marrying later and are more likely to marry more than once.

These latest figures showed that these trends continued. However, the latest numbers suggest an increase in the divorce rate among people married in the most recent 20 years covered in the report, 1975-1994. The proportion of all Americans who have been divorced, about one in five, remained constant, however.

Among Americans married in the 1950s, about 70 percent were still married by their 25th anniversary. Only 49.5 percent of men and 46.4 percent of women who married in the late 1970s were married 25 years later.

In 2004, among people in their late 20s, a majority of men — 54 percent — had never married, and 41 percent of women had not. In 1996, the comparable figures were 49 percent among men and 35 percent among women. In the latest analysis of people age 15 and older, 58 percent of women and 54 percent of men had married only once. In 1996, the figures were about 60 percent for women and 54 percent for men.

One statistical constant has been the so-called seven-year itch, as popularised in the 1950s play and film about errant husbands. Couples who separate do so, on average, after seven years and divorce after eight. The duration of first marriages that end in divorce appears to have increased slightly among men. Among adults 25 and older who had been divorced, 52 percent of men and 44 percent of women were currently married.

Those born between the mid-40s and early 1960s, known as baby boomers, recorded the highest divorce rates. Among people in their 50s, 38 percent of men and 41 percent of women had been divorced. In 1996, the comparable figures were 36 percent and 35 percent.

One factor that also affects the marriage trends is that people are living longer. As a result, the median age at which women in a first marriage were widowed rose from 57.8 in 1996 to 60.3 in 2004. Among men, the median age increased from 59.6 to 61.3.

Census results released last week also confirmed the finding by demographers earlier this year that more American women were living without a husband than with one. Among women 20 and older, 51.2 percent said that they were divorced, separated or their spouse was temporarily absent or that they had never been married when the American Community Survey was taken in 2006.

The proposed referendum on children's rights may be held next year, even thought there is still no agreement on the controversial topic of the age of sexual consent, the Taoiseach has said. Mr Ahern said the referendum could be held on the same day as a vote to ratify the new European Union treaty.

The Irish Government has filed arguments with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in support of the UK government against a pair of elderly spinsters who are challenging the UK's tax inheritance rules.

The unmarried father who is seeking the return of his twin boys to Ireland has won an Irish court order declaring that their removal from Ireland was unlawful. The boys, both two, were taken out of Ireland in January by their mother, without the father's consent or knowledge. The man, known as Mr G, is hoping to have them returned to the State by the end of the month.

Faith groups are lining up with the UK Government to argue that religious schools make a positive contribution to community cohesion in England. A joint statement, from groups representing the five faith groups in the state sector, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu and the Government, said that faith schools were "valuable, engaged partners" in education and in the wider society.

A new family research body, with 20 full-time staff and and PhD students, has been launched today by President Mary McAleese. The Child and Family Research Centre says it aims to “improve outcomes for children and their families and advance practice and policy in Ireland”.

Educate Together, a group promoting multi-denominational education, has backed Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in the row over school places in Dublin. Paul Rowe, a spokesman for the group said that the Catholic enrollment policy was not responsible for the acute shortage of school places in parts of north county Dublin.

Fathers who do not live with their children are to get more equal access to them, Social and Family Affairs Minister Martin Cullen has promised. A growing number of fathers are reporting problems with establishing relationships with their children because of lack of visitation rights.

Poor planning by State agencies, not Church enrolment policy, is to blame for the shortage of school places in north and west Dublin, according to Dr Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin.

Polk County in Iowa is to appeal against a lower court ruling that the state's ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. Judge Robert Hanson ruled last Thursday that the ban, passed by legislature in 1998, breached the due process and equal treatment provisions of the state's constitution.

Irish farmers fear losing their farms in the wake of divorce. A new poll by Macra na Feirme, an organisation representing young farmers, has revealed that a massive 80 per cent of farmers believe that prenuptial agreements should be recognised in Ireland.

People who think about God are three times as generous as those who do not, according to psychology researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In a study to be published in next month's issue of Psychological Science Journal, researchers investigated how thinking about God and notions of a higher power influenced positive social behaviour. Specifically, the researchers looked at cooperation with others and generosity to strangers.

The number of divorces in the UK is at its lowest for 22-years, according to statistics that suggest that married couples don't see it is a quick fix any longer.

The Supreme Court in the US state of Maine has opened the way for gay adoption. On Thursday it overturned a lower court decision and allowed a lesbian couple to adopt two siblings who were their foster children. And in Colorado, a lesbian couple have become the first to avail of the state's new law allowing gay couples to adopt.