In Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale cousins Arcite and Palamon fall instantly in love with the same woman, Emily, with disastrous consequences.

A duel involving 100 men on either side takes place and ends with Palamon grievously wounded by a sword thrust. However, Arcite’s joy is short-lived as his horse rears up and falls on him ending his life. Palamon duly walks off with his glittering prize. Not one for the boys but definitely one for the Gods! (Saturn on this occasion.)

I was reminded of this yarn concerning blind, medieval passion by the recent marriage of the nation’s favourite sweetheart Cheryl Cole to her French beau. They too appear to have fallen blindly in love, with the marriage taking all of three months to nurture.

It would be churlish not to wish the couple a long and happy marriage but with the best will in the world it’s hard not to ignore my old friend Neil Beecham’s wise words on these occasions: “It’ll end in tears.”

Even couples who love one another deeply can find the sometimes cauldron-like atmosphere of living contentedly side-by-side, day after day, year after year, difficult to say the least.

Whirlwind celebrity romances have included those of Britney Spears, whose marriage to a childhood friend in Vegas lasted just a matter of hours while ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell’s marriage to an Italian tycoon lasted slightly longer – a whopping three months. The madness extended to Bridget Jones’ Diary actor Renée Zellweger, who married country singer Kenny Chesney after a four-month courtship. More than 100 days later it was all over.

Cheryl Cole showing her wedding ring after she confirmed that she had married her French boyfriend a week ago
Cheryl Cole showing her wedding ring after she confirmed that she had married her French boyfriend a week ago

Best of all was the embarrassing spectacle of Tom Cruise leaping on to Oprah Winfrey’s sofa and dementedly declaring his love for Katie Holmes, following a two-month romance. Well, that lasted almost six years so not too bad. My grandparents’ generation had a rather different take on taking such a solemn step. It wasn’t quite a case of marrying the first boy who spoke to you but not far off. And those marriages lasted decades as divorce was almost unheard of.

At one time homosexuality, divorce and bankruptcy had a certain stigma. This meant in the case of the latter two that people did not enter those states without a certain trepidation.

Now divorce is so common as to be almost unremarkable while even bankruptcy has lost much of its sting. Arranged marriages cut across western notions of making such serious choices but given the number of people who get divorced in the west it’s hard to argue against it. So why do so many marriages end in a matter of months or just a few years? As the romantic poet William Blake said: “To generalise is to be a fool.” But these are some of the best and most common reasons put forward: boredom, he’s not the man I thought he was, he’s become really irritating and boring, he prefers the pub and his mates to me and so on.

Mary Killen, the waspish social critic, once said that women who remarry were missing the point that their new husband would simply become irritating too – but just in a different way. Another well-known reason is the plight of women who hope to change men for the better. Doomed to certain failure that one.

But passion, lust and the craving to be with a soulmate are such drivers that commonsense often goes out of the window.

And sometimes one half of a couple simply doesn’t see the great split coming.

More common than you might think.