To have and to hold, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish ’til death us do part”.

Many couples say this when they take their wedding vows, but just how seriously do they take it when it comes to dealing with the rough and smooth of a relationship?

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge, who sits in the Family Division, hit out at the “celebrity magazine approach” to marriage, which he claimed has led to the dramatic increase in divorce and family breakdown.

He says some magazines promote unrealistic expectations about marriage, and people need to understand the importance of working at relationships to make them work.

Sir Paul said he felt compelled to speak out because of the unprecedented scale of the problem, and is now taking the unusual step for a serving judge of launching the Marriage Foundation to make the case that stable, long-term marriages are best for individuals, for families and for society.

“There comes a time when sometimes you have to speak out in circumstances where you feel you know more than anybody involved in the debate,” he said on the programme.

“I happen to think that the family judiciary have a contribution to make to this debate. Most of us have watched as the situation has gradually got more and more and more appalling and out of control, and there comes a time when it is, I think, irresponsible to remain quiet.

“In terms of the impact that family breakdown is having on society, nobody – and I emphasise that – nobody has the experience that the family judiciary has.

“If we remain quiet, it is like doctors who see epidemics going through their surgeries and say, ‘we can’t make a comment on that because it might be said to be commenting on the way people are living’.”

Sir Paul insisted he was not mounting a moral campaign but simply wanted to set out the facts in a “non-preachy, non-didactic way”.

He criticised the “Hollywood approach” to marriage for leading to a “completely unrealistic expectation” about long-term relationships and marriage in particular, and said that anyone who has been in relationships for a long time knows that they need to work at it.

The Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Rev Nick Baines, says: “Glossy media often portray a fantasy of marriage as if it were a reality.

“Expectations are frequently unrealistic – the wedding being more important than the marriage. It is no bad thing that a judge, experienced in such matters and fed up with seeing the aftermath of the disappointed fantasy, has drawn attention to it.

“Marriage – like anything valuable – needs attention, commitment and hard work.”

Liz Williams, head of the family department at Eatons solicitors in Bradford, believes the meaning of marriage has changed. “People’s perceptions and expectations have changed over the years, but I think that is how society is now,” she says.

“There is so much media coverage now of celebrity lifestyles and so many celebrity magazines out there that people aspire to it rather than thinking about the nuts and bolts of a marriage and what making a relationship work is really about.”

At one time it was seen as a social stigma to get divorced, which goes some way to explaining why there were so few divorces in previous generations. There is also an argument that the older generation worked through it and didn’t give up at an early hurdle.

Liz encourages couples to think it through before ending a relationship.

“I think people make decisions very quickly when a relationship is at an end. We do encourage them, if they seem not to have given it time, to think it through and to think about whether splitting up is the right thing.”