Marriage rates have fallen to the lowest level since comparative records began, opening up a fresh political row about why couples are failing to tie the knot.

Figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that marriage rates for men over the age of 16 were 22.8 per 1,000 of the population, and for women 20.5 in 2006, which are the lowest rate recorded since 1862. The number of marriages also dropped by four per cent compared with the previous year, to 236,980.

The drop is the culmination of a steady decrease in the number of marriages in recent decades, bar a brief rise between 2002 and 2004.

Pro-marriage pressure-groups, the Church of England and the Conservatives lamented the demise of marriage, with the Tories blaming the Government for failing to promote the institution, which they claimed had led to social problems.

Jill Kirby, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a centre-right think-tank, said: "It’s obviously worrying that they have reached such a low ebb but perhaps not surprising in view of the lack of Government policy over the last ten years encouraging marriage."

She said that the existing welfare system penalised against marriage, adding: "Marriage is in danger of being lost as the core institution of society.

"A clear reason for concern is that research demonstrates how important marriage is to maintain stability for children. The break-up of cohabiting couples is much higher than married couples. Co-habitation is clearly not a satisfactory arrangement as far as children are concerned."

The Church of England said that marriages within the church had fallen "against a background of increasing choice for couples as to where they can marry".

It said that marriage was the best way for couples to confirm their love for one another. "Marriage affirms the goodness and rightness of love between a man and woman, affirms this in the public sphere, beyond private arrangements, and is the best option for couples to grow together in mutual support," he said.

The Tories used the figures to relaunch an attack by the party on the Government's policies, which they claim contribute to social problems.

"This is a sad indictment of the Government’s policies which have penalised families and fuelled family breakdown," David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said.

"Stable families are the best formula for bringing up children and preventing delinquency, anti-social behaviour and crime. So a failed family policy is itself a major cause of crime."

Last year David Cameron, the Conservative leader, caused controversy by promising tax-breaks for married couples after the release of a 400-page report by Iain Duncan Smith that said society was better off if couples with children married rather than cohabited.

The report said that 70 per cent of young offenders came from single-parent families and levels of antisocial behaviour and delinquency were higher in children from separated families.

The Government had still to respond to today's by this afternoon, but John Hutton, then Work and Pensions Secretary, responded to Mr Cameron's policies last year by telling the BBC: "The idea that there's a tax break we can design that's going to keep families together is nonsense. We had this in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and divorce went through the roof."

As well as falling marriage rates, the ONS found that the average age for those getting hitched has gone up by aabout five years since 1991, and in 2006 the average age for a first marriage was 31.8 for men and 29.7 for women.

They also reveal that the sharpest fall in the number of marriages occurred in London (29 per cent) and the smallest in the North East (3 per cent). Divorce rates also fell by eight per cent compared with 2004.

The decrease in the number of marriages was attributed partly to a change in the law in February 2005, designed to crack down on "sham" marriages carried out for purposes such as securing a visa.

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