The other night I went to see Avenue Q, a mad and hugely enjoyable musical featuring Sesame Street-type puppets, lots of singing and plenty of sex (done by the puppets, and unbelievably rude). The theme is of lost potential and unrealised dreams; the cast play misfit thirtysomethings who believe that “it sucks to be me”. Nothing has worked out as planned, and they yearn to go back to college because life was so much easier then.

In this, as indeed in so many other ways (it’s uncanny how quickly you suspend reality and become emotionally engaged in the fate of puppets stuffed on to the arms of four fully visible puppeteers), Avenue Q has proved itself ahead of the curve. It opened on Broadway in 2003, which is more than four years before the research, published in the US last week, that identifies a new social group, the Odyssey Generation.

The Odyssey Generation are people in their thirties who are restless both personally and professionally. They are unsettled in their careers, and they are unmarried.

Given their reluctance to grow up, it is perhaps not surprising that the Odyssey Generation cohabit rather than marry.

In 1970, only one 25-year-old in five – 21 per cent – was not married. By 2005, that figure had increased threefold, to six out of ten. More than half of all children are born today to women who cohabit; but of those, a third can expect to have broken up with their partner by the time the child is 2. This contrasts with fewer than one marriage in ten dissolving by the time the first child is 2.

It would be simple to put this failure to marry down to the Odyssey Generation’s immaturity. On the other hand, living with a partner and having a baby are still fairly high on the commitment scale – so might there be another reason for the disinclination to tie the knot?

I can think of one, and you’ve only got to look at the ugly mess that is the divorce of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills to understand what it is. Money.

Now, in the case of McCartney and Mills, we can only gasp in wonderment at the huge sums involved. She has reportedly turned down a settlement offer of around £50 million because the condition is her silence.

This left me idly speculating what thrilling secret about Sir Paul she might want to reveal, but a friend in the know assures me it’s nothing to do with that – simply, if she can’t go on chat shows, give newspaper interviews or write books, then how is she to keep her name in the spotlight?

Either way, I don’t think any of us are going to lose much sleep over Heather Mills and her millions. But we should be concerned, and here’s why: the more divorces there are involving huge sums, the more afraid men become to marry. And while that may not affect the man much, it’s very bad news indeed for the woman. I know of someone, I’ll call her Anna, who for the past ten years has lived with her partner, who I’ll call Harry. They have two young children. For years, Anna said to Harry she thought that they should get married, for the sake of the children if nothing else. Harry refused. Anna had a job when they first got together but gave up work when she had her first child. This suited her; she wanted to be at home. It suited Harry; he liked her to do the cleaning, the washing, the ironing and the shopping – indeed, he thought it was her place. He gave her £80 a week housekeeping money. She was never allowed more. If she wanted to buy something for the children, or a birthday present for a friend, or new clothes for herself, she had to scrimp and scrape each week in order to save sufficient money to do so. You might ask why Anna accepted this situation. The answer is because she is a gentle, fragile soul with no stomach for a fight. She pretended to herself for a long time that everything was all right, and then she went to see her GP, who gave her antidepressants.

Whether because the antidepressants have given her new energy, or whether because every dog has its day, Anna has now decided she has had enough. She wants to leave Harry. When she told him, his response was that it was his house, his money and his children. She could leave by all means. But she would be homeless. She would be penniless. And if he had his way, she would be childless, too: he would fight her for custody, using her depression as his weapon. It was her choice, he said.

The law as it stands offers no rights to cohabitees: no rights for maintenance, or asset sharing. The concept of the common-law wife remains a popular myth, and the Civil Partnership Bill offers no protection to anyone who has not registered their relationship.

What should Anna do? I am not sure, other than never leave the house without the children (lawyers, your thoughts would be welcome here). But I do know what the rest of the Odyssey Generation should do, the female element of it, at any rate.

Don’t have children if he won’t marry you or enter into a civil partnership agreement. If he can’t commit to that, then how do you expect him to commit to being a good father? Get a career. Work at it. Do not give it up, not even if you have children – not even if you get married, actually, because it will still be there as a protection and succour should your husband die, become disabled or leave you.

Anna’s story sounds like it comes from decades ago: it doesn’t, it’s happening now, here in Britain, and it is probably happening to thousands of other miserable thirtysomething women too.

As the audience at Avenue Qtap their feet to the petulant thirtysomething anthem, It Sucks To Be Me, they do so in the knowledge that a musical generally has a happy ending. For the rest of the Odyssey Generation, the outcome is less certain. One thing’s for sure. It certainly sucks to be Anna.

Coming soon . . . a ban on living itself

Oh, the joy! How long we ex-smokers have waited for the news that is as satisfying as a long, deep drag on a Marlboro Light used to be. Obesity is deadlier than smoking. Yes! It kills you quicker! All those carbs will send you to the grave three years earlier than the fags will. Ha-ha!

But wait – it gets better. Let’s say you’re one of those really smug people who don’t smoke and aren’t fat. I bet you like a nice glass of wine in the evening with your high-protein steak, no chips, green salad, hold the dressing, don’t you? Well, be afraid . . . because that’s going to kill you too! Oh, yes. And if you’re middle class to boot, you may as well order your coffin now and be done with it.

It can only be a matter of time before the Government that has spent ten long years telling us all how to live our lives bans anything made with sugar or flour. No more crusty loaves. Chocolate cake will be a dirty word. And the very idea of alcohol will be abhorrent.

They’ll have to move on to censorship after that, of course. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam has survived a millennium, but it’s going to have to go. “A loaf of bread beneath the bough, a jug of wine, a book of verse and thou beside me singing in the wilderness . . .” Outrageous. Can you believe that people used to write poetry about that sort of thing?

Wise words

The reason I am never going to read Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach (which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year but didn’t win) is because his previous novel Saturday received rave reviews when it was in fact mediocre. The sense of betrayal when you buy a book because of the review, only to find it dull, ill-written or unreadable, is huge. Which is why, despite never having met him, I now worship Sir Howard Davies, chairman of this year’s Man Booker, for saying what the book-buying masses have known for years: never judge a book by its review.

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