“Why is it there are so many unmarried women in their thirties these days, Bridget?” – the dinner party scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary is excruciatingly familiar to anyone who has ever found themselves, alone, surrounded by a room full of married friends.

While psychologists may not have fully resolved the question of whether marriage makes people self-satisfied like Bridget’s paired-up friends, or if instead smug people are just more likely to get married, research suggests the experience of committing to and settling down with another person really does change our personalities for better and for worse… until death do us part.

It makes sense that it might – after all, publicly binding yourself to another person takes loyalty and forward thinking, not to mention a radical change of lifestyle for some, and of course living day in, day out with the same person requires a certain degree of patience and diplomacy.