Marriage Today

I, too, have heard the ~40% figure. However, I want to know who these 40% are. I'm in my 30s now, and I know many people my age who have got married. I know of a couple dozen marriages of people either my wife or I are friends with, or people in our family. So even taking a conservative number of 20 marriages of people around my age, only one of them HAS ended in a divorce, and one MAY end in a divorce (though they are trying to work through the problems - time will tell). Still, the 40% figure seems entirely too high. Somewhere between one in two and one in three? I have to wonder if these statistics include people who get married on a whim, or people who "have to" get married because of a pregnancy or what not. It seems to me that the percentage of people who entered well-intentioned marriages is far lower than 40%.

I suppose I should give a little more background on myself too. I have been married for almost 4 years now, have a kid on the way, and I have never even considered getting divorced from my wife. I also have to say that my life is better since I'm married than when I wasn't married. Of course, presumably all couple feel that way at some point or they wouldn't get married in the first place. I definitely agree that you shouldn't even consider having kids if everything is not going smoothly in your marriage.

One thing they never tell you - when you're wife gets pregnant, the man gains weight too. In fact, I've gained as much weight as my wife since she has got pregnant. There's so much food in the house because of my wife's ever-changing food cravings that I eat more without even realizing it! My weight was 180 pounds for the first 3+ years of our marriage. I got on the scale the other day and I weigh 187! WTF?

 

That's what I meant. I grew up catholic (and my mother was a Catholic music minister before she retired). My point was that the church doesn't penalize you for getting a divorce. They just don't let you marry again.

 

I think people have a romantic notion of what marriage used to be like and what pre-marriage life used to be like. It wasn't that long ago (five decades) when the accepted thing to do for college guys to hit up the local brothels while searching--elsewhere--for a prospective wife. It wasn't that long ago (couple centuries at most) that marriages were based on tangible benefit--money, social status--rather than something silly like 'love'.

So now instead of young men having sex with hookers in lieu of 'respectable' young women (and respectable young women doing their best to be sexless), 'respectable' young men and women are having sex with each other. I fail to see the problem.

As far as marriage,the problem is very simple; too many people get married who shouldn't. When they realize their mistake, they divorce. Hence the high divorce rate. This has less to do with feminism and egoism and whatnot than it does with marriage being about love rather than social status.

You want a low divorce rate--and don't want to go back to loveless marraiges--then you want to discourage early marriages.

 

@TGS:

Yeah. They also call it the Singles Culture. Actually, we had a conference on that some time ago at our university. It must be quite a wide-scale problem if even the law department noticed.

Nay. The happy switching is every bit unnatural and, in fact, it's not that happy. It's an external reflection of the internal disorder producing some kind of morbid frantic search that never ceases.

@BTA:

Yup. Some also govern the division of assets before divorce. Like what is not shared, who gets what etc.

@Morgoroth:

The 50/50 division is not obvious. Sometimes there are different rates. This depends on the contribution of each spouse to the assets.

@NOG:

Well put. Theologically, it's also stressed that love is an act of will primarily, rather than a feeling. Of course, it's a good thing when feelings follow that will. I'd never want to dispense with the feelings, but it's not about getting a quick fix or always living in a hype. People don't seem to understand the long-term thing anymore. Commitment, honour, bond, lost concepts this age.

@AMaster:

True that, although brothers are objectively evil and intrinsically disordered. Therefore, I'm not looking back at that. Actually, marriage based on love is what it should be, except that love should not be understood as a chemically induced hype, but as something bigger than that. Shall we say, an integral love: feelings, reason, will... you get the idea. And commitment.

Wonder which causes more damage: the going to hookers or having it for free within the same group from which one draws marriage partners. At any rate, both are wrong behaviours.

Actually, I think there is a wrong understanding of love, in addition to all the -isms. Marriage for social status is an egoistic patology as well.

I think I disagree. People are meant to breed young, not when they're already past their thirties. What you need to encourage is responsibility, commitment and good choice. But most of all, once the choice is made, the responsibility to stick with and by that choice, instead of finding 10000 ways and loopholes to get out of it and try again.

EDIT: I've just read an article quoting a certain British survey that says above a half of people asked say they invigilate their partners. In the age group of 25-34 years, that's 77%. Then, 42% for reading e-mails and 39% for searching the pockets. Not many go for GPS or cameras, but well, some obviously do. If it's not about sex, then why are they together if there's such a level of distrust?

 

My parents are divorced, my step-mother was previously divorced, my (deceased) step father was divorced. Most of my mothers friends are divorced (her current fellow has been divorced three times.) One of my uncles is divorced in all but name (he "converted" to Roman Catholic but she ran away with another bloke after about 12 years).

I got a little intrigued about the status of my own generation, so I checked out my old school year group on friends reunited (marital status available on about a quarter of them) and my close friends from uni.
In our early 30's, about a third are/have been married, of which about 7.5% have ended in divorce.

Edit:
Fun with the National statistics
About 50% of the population (~60 million) is married = 30 million.
Average divorce rate is about 1.3% per year of the married UK population (and has been for the last 17 odd years) = 390,000 people getting divorced per year.
Marriage rate has been steadiliy declining in the lasy 17 years to about be now about 1% of the total population = 600,000 people getting married per year.

[ April 03, 2007, 15:29: Message edited by: Carcaroth ]

 

It is kind of interesting if I look at my mother's three best friends. All three are/were married and have two children apiece. Two of the three are now divorced - one after being married for nearly 20 years and the other after being married for 25 years. In both cases I would say that they were waiting for the kids to be grown up before kicking their husbands to the curb. So if you include my mom we have a 50% divorce rate in her circle of close friends.

Of my best friends from high school only one of us has ever gotten married. He is happily married with three children now. The rest of us are umarried in our early thirties with no children. I guess that means that we have a 0% divorce rate but I would say that the lack of marriages and children is much more of a concern - but that is an entirely different can of worms.

 

I think that statement is too general. Some people obviously feel that way. Just look at the number of people on these boards who are happily married - me, HB, Rally, T2B, and many others. I don't know - maybe my family and my wife's family (she has a really big family) are unique in the low number of divorces. Then again, both of our families are Catholic, and just because people remain married, it doesn't necessarily mean they all have good marriages either, so maybe the surface seems OK, but everything we don't see isn't OK.

Followed by:

I think that entirely depends on what you define as "young". It's completely legal to get married at 18, but I do not think most people are mature enough to handle marriage at 18. I'm not saying it would NEVER work, but I think your odds are better if you're a bit older and more mature. Other people may wait until they are 40 to get married, but chances are, they didn't wait that long due to some maturity issue. From what I have seen, most people have matured by the time they reach 30. Or at least they are as mature as they are ever going to get. While it isn't set in stone, as some people mature quicker than others, my gut feeling is that it probably is a good idea to wait until you are in your mid-20s before you get married.

Well, one way to have a really low divorce rate is to never get married in the first place!

 

We're not actually disagreeing here; when I said early marriage, I had in mind around age 20 (to be clear, I'm not condemning people who do marry around this age). Age 30 is certainly old enough, in my judgement. I tend to think that people closer to 30 are better able to make that choice than people closer to 20 are.

Though I could be wrong.

 

As someone who didn't "breed" until age 36, I take umbrage at this:

Interesting that the above is promptly followed by:

It's been my experience that youth and the three named virtues are largely mutually exclusive.

And I won't even get into the discussion of who is maintaining this intention regarding human breeding patterns.

Regarding the topic of why marriages fail, I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said.

 

Marriage can be difficult, and you really have to be married to understand what that means - it seems there are always new wrinkles - and I don't mean the wrinkles under my wife's eyes either. Like the time my wife came home from work late at night and parked her car in our driveway. The next morning I looked out the window and saw her car in our neighbor's yard. I quitely got my morning coffee, sat down at the kitchen table across from her, and asked her why she had parked her car in the neighbor's yard when we had a perfectly good driveway. She glared at me, ran out into the street and stood there for a moment. Then she came back inside and announced angerly that I should go tell our neighbor that it was my fault that her car was in his yard. "How so, dear wife?" I asked, fool that I was.

"Because you made me forget to put my parking brake on," she added heatedly. And she was serious, of course....marriage is like that.

 

Like what? Complete Irrationality?

// Adds it to list of reasons for not getting married. //

 

Marriage is great. I love it. And my wife.

 

@Aldeth:

These days personality lags a lot behind physique as far as maturing goes. In ages past, people died before the age some mature now. It's not normal or natural.

@AMaster:

Yeah, but that's because they have more experience. Add 10 more years and you'll have even more experience.

@Rally:

I'm not talking about specific people's specific histories but about general trends. While it's normal that for some people some things come earlier and for some they come later, it would be worrying if everyone started having children at age 35-40 not because of finding a spouse late or having served in the army before or whatever, but on principle. That would be like double the age at which nature makes us able to procreate and procure offspring. Doesn't look right, intuitively. People should be able to make the right choice and stick by it in early twenties or even a bit earlier. What we have these days is delayed maturing, plus everyone seems to need to have some sex, climb up the ladder a bit, get a(nother) house or car and TV and computer and home cinema and microwave and hyperduperomatic dishwasher before finally having children, who are seen as a burden more and more. It's a recent thing. Things weren't like that before.

Unfortunately, that's my experience too.

However, I think that's a new situation, not something that existed in the previous centuries but more of a phaenomenon of the sixties and on. These days people seem to be 20 years behind in maturity when compared to their ancestors at the same age. AFAIK the peak of reproductive capabilities for a human male comes at age 19. Now show me a 19 year old male able to pick wisely and stick by it. It looks like in some 40-50 years people will be balding before they mature mentally or intellectually.

Part of the problem, however, is that young people seem to think they are entitled to another chance with someone else rather than obliged to work on what they have. If they were set on working on the relationship and had it imprinted into their heads that they are meant to stick by the choice, they would actually work on their relationships and they would be happier. With the whole mentality of an easy leave, people find it extremely hard to commit fully (or commit at all) and the universal remedy to relationship problems seems to be a break-up. This includes married relationships these days.

I think much of the whole "not ready before 30" common impression is a myth. It's simply that it takes people years to learn to live with what they have, not to follow base impulses, to unlearn the drive towards immediate satisfaction of needs. Around that age, they are probably hurt enough to unlearn the bad boy or bad girl fascination as well. Additionally, their sex drives go down a bit, so they're more able to control certain things and avoid relationships based on sex alone.

Oh, and of course, the omnipresent sexualisation is guilty as well. People accumulate tons of hurts from what happens to them as a result of the non-committed mentality of free sex. They ultimately arrive at the conclusion that happiness actually lies in a marriage to one person and having children with him or her, but not until they're properly scarred (and my own collection is not a small one, either). It takes years to heal such wounds. Besides, the focus is changed. If people learnt from the beginning the proper use of human sexuality, they would behave differently. Take a look at those religions where people believe in marriage, exclusive marriage until death with no divorce, and no sex before, as well as that acts are not irrelevant to salvation (i.e. they don't believe that regardless of the amount of accounts of adultery they will yet commit they are saved already). Those people seem to marry earlier, have more children and... be happier.

I think if people got over the idea that they need to get as much sex as possible, dropped the false idea that they need to have a (large) number of sexual partners before they find out what they like (technically?) because it's of oh-so-crucial importance but instead learnt some responsibility and sticking by choices, then they would be happier.

@Chandos: /me throws Chandos a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds

 

Mmmm, lets look at Italy shall we, a recognisable Roman Catholic country. Balooning divorce rate and starting to worry about a baby shortage (The Death rate exceeds the Birth rate which is the 2nd lowest in the western world, The estimated 2006 figures shows a tiny increase of 0.04% in population caused by immigration). Oh yes, and the reputation of Italian Men as Lotharios hardly enhances your comparison.

Oh, and some info on Wiki regarding average no. of children per woman. Pretty much at the bottom are Poland (182) and Spain (186), also fairly Roman Catholic countries. Portugal just scrapes in with the same average as the EU.

And you don't need to married to believe and live like this.

[ April 04, 2007, 14:12: Message edited by: Carcaroth ]

 

Chev, you are aware that pretty much all animals switch partners, it is a succesful evolutionary trait to diversify your genetic heritage and try out different combinations.

My own theory is that marriage evolved in human societies simply as means for males to make sure we arent spending time and effort rearing offspring not our own as another quite common tactic among mammals is for the female to get impregnated by one male and then have another help with the upbringing.

I am also strongly on the side of those who say divorce is preferably to bad marriages and face it people. We are fallible human beings, most of us are to put it plainly jerks it takes quite special conditions for two such beings to be able to get along for years and years. I think children prefers to grow up with two separate parents than two miserable spiteful adults who hate spending time together and spend most of their fighting or ignoring each other.

Sure I think people get married way too easily, if I ever get seriously involved with someone it would probably take up to a decade or more and probably a child or two before I would consider marriage and then probably only to appease societies demands. The problem with "too high" divorce statistics arent divorce it is the fact that we are forcefed the kind of romantic nonsense and marriage obligations some people put forth here making people marry the first person they catch a fancy to before ever getting to know that person.

 

Oh and lets find something about "Happiness" as well.

Business Week (Scroll to the bottom & click for results)

Happiness is of course subjective, but this is one of the largest surveys I've seen (80,000 worldwide)

1 - Denmark,
2 - Switzerland
3 - Austria
4 - Iceland
5 - Bahamas
6 - Finland
7 - Sweden
8 - Bhutan
9 - Brunei
10 - Canada
11 - Ireland
12 - Luxenbourg

Of those, I'd only class Ireland, Bhutan and Brunei as "religious".

 

I'm glad my point wasn't lost on you....

 

I read in the news that they are planning on introducing a large fine in Poland for people who get divorced - to help discourage divorce. Is this true, or just another myth?