Archbishop criticises UK govt for marriage erosion

LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) The Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, criticised the British government today for failing to halt the ''long process of erosion'' which he said was destroying marriage.

Dr Rowan Williams told the Sunday Times newspaper that government plans to give legal rights to couples who are not married but who live together would add to ''a prevailing social muddle'' about marriage and its role in society.

''The concept of cohabitation is an utterly vague one that covers a huge variety of arrangements,'' he told the newspaper.

''As soon as you define anything, you are creating a kind of status that is potentially a competition with marriage or a reinvention of marriage.'' Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has ordered a review of the laws governing the rights of unmarried cohabiting couples in areas such as property, child benefits and inheritance.

The Law Commission, the statutory law reform body, has outlined possible changes and wants the public to give its views before the proposals are presented to parliament.

The Commission wants to simplify the law and try to make it fairer for cohabitees. But it says the plans would not give Britain's two million cohabiting couples the same rights enjoyed by married couples who divorce.

Williams said the proposals demonstrated the government's ''very proper concern for vulnerable people who are left stranded at the end of a partnership breaking up''. But he said those who were worried about the needs of a cohabiting partner could already make wills and legal contracts.

''Marriage is something that law and society and religion have for centuries affirmed on the basis of experience as well as belief,'' he said.

REUTERS SHB PM1413