Review of the year: Society

So it wasn't, as it turned out, the year when world poverty ended, nor when wholesale religious jihad engulfed the West, nor even the year when Jude married Sienna. Nevertheless, two pieces of legislation changed the fabric of British society for ever.

The Civil Partnerships Act gave gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as their heterosexual counterparts - a watershed in the acceptance of gay people in the UK, but also a chance for same-sex couples to formalise their relationship, proclaim their fidelity and devotion, and generally embrace conventional marital virtues as fervently as any breathless Home Counties bride.

A spate of "gay marriages" broke out in December, led by the £3m nuptials of Sir Elton John and David Furnish. Instantly, several questions were raised. Is it actually, legally, a marriage? (No, it's not.) Should there be "wedding" presents? Will the newspapers go on putting inverted commas around the words "marriage" and "married" and "wed" and "wedding"? What are the legally conjoined parties called? ("Civil partners.") If your partner is a knight, shouldn't you become something approximating to a lady? Should the occasion be explosively camp or serious and downbeat?

In the Western Isles, councillors on Stornoway supported the registrars who refused to perform the civil partnership ceremonies on moral grounds (although they're still required to record the partnership, through clenched teeth). Apart from the stern kirk elders, gay marriages had a high-90s approval rating - even in Sir Elton's old adversary, The Sun (although it managed to splash a report on the John/Furnish stag party with the snide headline "Elton's Big Bender".) And behind all the wedding-day flummery, something serious was achieved. Gay partners can now call themselves "next of kin" on official documents and exercise the same rights as heterosexual married couples regarding their partner's health, children, tax, pensions and inheritance.

More than 1,000 civil partnership ceremonies are scheduled by the end of this year. The days when conducting a homosexual relationship was a thing of shame, guilt, social disapproval and criminal intimidation are consigned to history.

Meanwhile, an experiment began in November to change the climate of British night-time socialising. The Government envisioned an end to the traditional pursuit of drinking industrial quantities of beer by 10.59pm, just before the landlord with the red face shouts "Time!" and an oafish potman starts collecting the empties and ushering you on to the street. It was time to call an end to British Closing Time.

What changed on 24 November 2005? Only a deadline. From that date, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport informed us, pubs, restaurants, nightclubs and shops that applied for permission might be allowed to extend their licence until midnight or later - indeed, to go on serving liquor all night and all day if they so desired. It was a tiny, temporal adjustment, but it meant everything. For years, British people have endured the jeers of European neighbours and American cousins about the nannyish way they are required to cease their convivialising at 11pm. Nothing is more galling than to be told by a Parisian, Berliner or Barcelonan how in their city the bars stay open until everyone has finished their civilised discourse about church architecture, Piranesi and Islam. We floor three pints of noisome beer in the final half-hour before leaving, full of fight, heartburn and resentment, at 11pm, to start belabouring each other in the street and finding chip shops in which to urinate.

Would the change in legislation make us more Continental or more incontinent? For two months the nation debated the issue. Some warned that 24-hour availability would mean 24-hour debauchery. The police muttered about "stretched resources". Every newspaper covered the "binge-drinking" phenomenon, with pictures of young women in short skirts sitting on a pavement looking sorry for themselves. Others argued that greater choice of drinking time would mean greater personal responsibility.

In the event, the streets of UK towns were not filled with inebriated girls, hoodie-wearing thugs or Glaswegians with respect issues. Police reported that night-time streets were the same as normal, or (mirabile dictu) perhaps a little quieter. The nation breathed a sigh of relief and went back in the bar.

"Damn braces," wrote William Blake, "bless relaxes." He would have approved of these two life-changing shifts in the statutes. One permits people to confess their love for each other and celebrate the benefits of togetherness. The other permits people to go on enjoying themselves, and each other, as long as they like (landlord permitting). What took the law-givers so long?