I met an English lady recently who was temporarily renting a local, former shepherd's cottage with her husband, who had got a job in the area but didn't want the risk of a bridging loan. He had wisely decided to sell his own house first, before buying one in Scotland.

After a few short weeks of staying in her temporary home she had decided that living in the countryside was not for her. "It's a very peaceful, beautiful area, but it's so lonely and isolated that I couldn't live there full time," she declared.

As she was used to living in a town she had found the move to a rural location overwhelming, although the cottage isn't really that remote. There are over a dozen families living within a couple of miles of it, and the nearest town is about three miles away. The snag with the location of this particular cottage is that you can't see any other houses from it - hence her feelings of isolation.

Despite the fact that many country folk live some distance from each other, rural communities tend to be very close knit and often seem to know their neighbours' every moves. Not for them, as sometimes happens in a bustling town or city, the shame of living next door to someone who has been dead for weeks and never missed.

More than a quarter of farm couples come from a rural background, making farming the top industry for having marriages where both partners have been brought up in families with similar occupations.

At one time young farmers had plenty of country lasses to court. Many happy love matches began at the village hall dance or a young farmers club meeting.

Sadly our country-born lasses are moving into towns and cities nowadays to attend universities and colleges or to find work, and this poses a problem for farmers looking for a suitable wife.

The personal columns of farming papers are full of ads from dating agencies as well as lonely hearts. There is even a popular dating show on TV, presented by farmer's daughter Sara Cox, called "The farmer wants a wife", that matches singletons in the countryside with city dwellers looking for romance - as well as a new way of life.

Sadly, modern young farmers suffer a double handicap when looking for a wife - fewer country lasses to court and the risk of marrying a "townie" who, try as she will, just can't adjust to life on a farm. That may be one of the reasons for the rising divorce rate in farming.

Farmers work very long hours alone dealing with a range of pressures. On a typical farm, there are so many things that don't always go according to plan, due to bad weather, machinery and equipment breaking down, disease or lack of cash.

Often young farmer's wives are left alone in the farm house to deal with the children and then a stressed husband when he comes in from outside for a meal. Farmers don't always eat at regular times and come in to eat when the jobs are done. After all, who stops baling hay or combining grain when the sun is shining just because his wife has a meal ready? Put simply, a good farmer's wife is often expected to prepare a wholesome meal at short notice and without complaint. If they are not brought up to it, the pressures of being involved in a farming business can lead to stresses the marriage can't cope with.

About 40 per cent of all marriages now end in divorce and a third of married couples divorce before their 20th anniversary. Farming is little different.

The prospect of a hefty divorce settlement leading to the sale of part or all of a farm has led to an increase in the number of pre-nuptial agreements south-of-the-border.

One of the main differences between English and Scots divorce law is the amount of assets available for division in a divorce. Under "fairer" Scots law, only the assets accrued between the date of marriage and the date of separation are taken to be matrimonial property.

In England all assets, including property, pensions or investments are added to the mix, even if they have been accrued before the marriage or after separation. Under Scots law, gifted or inherited assets are usually kept out of the pot for division upon divorce.

I read somewhere that a good marriage is like a good farm. It is work in progress that can never be left unattended - not even for one day.