The conference was chaired by High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge.
According to research by the Marriage Foundation, 40% of marriages today will end in divorce. Despite this, 75% of young people still say they aspire to marry.
The foundation says that a discussion on Britain's "marital crisis" is "long overdue".
Harry Benson, communications director at the Marriage Foundation said: "It is not acceptable to let marriage go the way of the dodo.
"We need to be looking at what society can do to support the aspirations of the millions of young people who want to get married."
The Marriage Foundation said that couples with children were three times more likely to separate before the child's seventh birthday than married couples.
Mr Benson continued: "The social and financial costs of family breakdown are enormous.
"This costs British taxpayers billions every year – it is not acceptable to dismiss the consequences of divorce as detached from wider society."