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"This sucks. I'm calling my lawyer."
ege02
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Topic: Divorce Rates in America
According to divorcerate.org, 50% of all marriages in the USA end in divorce.
According to Divorce Magazine, America has the 12th highest divorce rates in the world. First and second places are held by Belarus and Russia, respectively.
Let this be a thread where we discuss some of the reasons for these high divorce rates and how they impact the US culture and society.
First, is a high divorce rate a bad thing?
Second, are couples less likely to think it through before they get married, knowing they can get a divorce if they don't like it?
Third, New York Times reported in 2004 that divorce rates are noticeably lower in blue states than they are in conservative Christian states. What do you think are some of the reasons for this contrary-to-expectations trend?
Fourth, what are some of the societal, economic, cultural, and psychological factors that contribute to high divorce rates in the United States?
Obviously there are more venues than these that are worth exploring, so feel free... but without derailing the topic please.[/u]
And finally, a lovely message from truechristian.com LOL!
According to divorcerate.org, 50% of all marriages in the USA end in divorce.
According to Divorce Magazine, America has the 12th highest divorce rates in the world. First and second places are held by Belarus and Russia, respectively.
Let this be a thread where we discuss some of the reasons for these high divorce rates and how they impact the US culture and society.
First, is a high divorce rate a bad thing?
Second, are couples less likely to think it through before they get married, knowing they can get a divorce if they don't like it?
Third, New York Times reported in 2004 that divorce rates are noticeably lower in blue states than they are in conservative Christian states. What do you think are some of the reasons for this contrary-to-expectations trend?
Fourth, what are some of the societal, economic, cultural, and psychological factors that contribute to high divorce rates in the United States?
Obviously there are more venues than these that are worth exploring, so feel free... but without derailing the topic please.[/u]
And finally, a lovely message from truechristian.com LOL!
ege02 on
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And I do think the ease of divorse is trivialising marriage. Why bother planning or thinking through a decision that you can just undo as easily?
I'm sure people will counter with arguments along the line of "divorse is important for people in abusive relationships and/or spouses." That's true, and that's one of the benefits of divorse. But the downside are, well, those in ege's post.
So some of the people who get divorced get divorced multiple times. So while 50% of marriages may end in divorce, something like 60 - 65% of people who get married stay married without experiencing divorce.
I imagine divorce is higher in America than other western nations because our population is more mobile, making extended family relationships and life long friendships more rare. Too much emphasis is placed on the marriage relationship, which in a large number of cases is the only deep emotional relationship in a persons life. There is less of an emotional support system/community surrounding married people.
I imagine it is higher in red states because:
1. A higher percentage of their populations get married.
2. They are generally poorer and financial difficulty, especially real poverty, puts an immense strain on a relationship.
The problem with idiots is that they don't think things through. They don't appreciate the significance of their decisions. As my sibling said, "I may be making a giant mistake....but it's my life...."
And when one operates with that mindset it's not surprising that 50% of marriages end in divorce.
People cling to these ideals that they fabricate. "He'll change one day. He'll respect me one day. He can't really be that much of a god damned fat ass shitmongering dolt."
And refuse to accept the reality that yes he can, in fact, be that much of a dolt.
People don't think. People don't sit back and weigh their decisions. They just go along with the moment and continue to go along with the moment and then wake up six years later to some idiotic want to be lawyer who isn't worth a damn and doesn't respect her and wonder, "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?!?!"
It's good that people have the option to be in control of their own lives, to get out of situations that are bad for them, and to strive for their own happiness.
It's bad that people are getting into bad situations in the first place.
I doubt it. I think most people know that divorce is a bad, stressful thing. It's a word that's always prefaced by adjectives like, "nasty," "stormy," "painful," etc.
I think that there is substantial proportion of people whose judgment is very poor when it comes to picking life partners. They honestly believe that they're getting together with The One but due to overly idealistic thinking or unreasonable expectations or a lack of self-awareness they repeatedly get involved with people who turn out to be bad for them. These are the multiple divorcees that Shinto mentioned who are driving up overall divorce rates.
I'd like to see some stats on the average age of marriage by state. I think that not only do more red-staters get married, but they get married at younger ages when they're less likely to make good relationship choices.
But is a divorce better or worse for children than growing up in a family where the parents are unhappy and barely tolerate each other?
I'm not sure I have an easy answer to that question.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Makes sense, but "slightly lower" doesn't sound like having children or not is really a huge contributor to the overall statistical level of divorce.
we are talking about divorce rates. Like, percentage, so that would have no effect.
Now, if you wanted to say that there is more social pressure on people to get married, so they undertake it with less thought and forsight, leading to a greater rate of divorce.
Well... I wouldn't have a problem with that, but attributing it to the actual percentage of people getting married is an indefencible, illogical and ignorant argument, which I wouldn't expect from someone I respect as much as you.
errr.... like the causal relationship is not between the percentage of people getting married and the percentage getting divorced. That's just a correlation due to them both having the same social cause.
or whatever.
I wasn't very clear.
When I said that, I meant that more marginal couples were probably getting married in the red states.
My mother has been so much easier to deal with since she ditched my douchebag stepfather, it's not even funny. I have to wonder how much better off my sister and brother would be now if she'd done it back when she should have instead of waiting until we were all grown.
Being raised in a stable, loving family is the ideal. There are plenty of stable families that can't stand the sight of each other--for whatever reason, you'll see them in hell before they split up. My in-laws are like that. I'm being entirely serious when I say that if we get a call someday about one of them having had a murder-suicide party, we're going to have to pretend to be surprised. That's not somehow a better environment to raise a kid in than a single-parent home where the single parent is emotionally healthy, particularly seeing as kids pick up most of their ideas about how relationships are supposed to work by watching their parents.
It's only easy if it's a mutual decision. You have a fucking hell of a time getting out of a marriage if one or the other of you is dead set against it, or unwilling to compromise about how assets are to be split up.
Edit: Beat'n. Damn you Shinto!
It allows people to actually not ruin their lives and the lives of their possible offspring with a single stupid mistake.
It would also be good for children to have private tutors in every subject, have there parents devote every waking moment to them, and to have their very own pony. Just because some magical thing would be great for children doesn't mean it has any particular bearing to what should be done in reality.
Who says marriage SHOULDN'T be trivialized? Human society (at least in developed countries) is no longer at a point where every single family unit needs a burly man to go kill some meat, and a meek woman to dote on the children and cook or else everyone involved is screwed.
Marriage is exactly as worthwhile as the benefits it provides to the people involved. Since divorce rates have gone up, there hasn't been a shattering of society and anarchy in the streets. There's no reason to hold it up on a pedestal as valuable in and of itself.
Hell, if such an outside emphasis wasn't placed on it, I can almost guarantee that the divorce rate would go down. If it wasn't something everyone felt a serious relationship had to end up as, then the marginal couples that won't make it wouldn't be as likely to get married, and then have to deal with the various entanglements that divorce brings.
I'd agree with that. I was just being pedantic pointing out obvious inaccuracy with your inital statement, less someone try to make it into more of an argument.
I don't have much of a problem with divorce. Some people change, and others do not. That leads to a fair amount of stress and can create an environment worse for child rearing than a single parnet home.
While a stable loving environment is probably the best for everyone, marriage only ensures the stablity part. Personally I find the other bit to be the important one.
Trivializing marriage defeats the purpose of it though. Now its just till death do us part or whenever one of us gets bored. Whats the point of marrying if it doesn't actually mean anything? its becoming a flaw of our society. It should be something that is thought over and not just marrying some random person because you can get out of it easily. Marriage is about commitment and with the way its heading its become meaningless. Unfortunatly, this isn't really a problem that can be fixed. The only way the problem could somewhat be lessened is if a small divorce fee was charged for holding up the courts unless the situtitation was proved to be abusive. Im sure a lot more people would be more hestitant about marrying someone, if they knew a fee would be charged if it didn't work out. it would probably not work out well though.
It's absolutely purposeless if two people actually truly love and are devoted to each other.
And it's absolutely foolish if they aren't.
So it's a waste of ceremony.
If idiots stopped talking about marriage, and religious fuckjobs killed themselves in a massive orgy of collective suicide from which we'd all celebrate, then maybe the divorce rate would get lower when we stopped saturating society with images and stories of how important marriage is and how totally worthless it is if you don't get married coz clearly you're not that serious about your relationship.
Eh? Marriage comes with a slew of useful legal benefits.
Dude.
Entirely different topic.
So different.
Thats why it would be based on both their wages. it was just a suggestion anyways, and I don't think it would be that effective.
But you replied to the person (me) who said that treating marriage as if it was important in and of itself is not only archaic and useless, but one of the root causes of the increased divorce rate.
More specifically:
The purpose of marriage is not to have a lovey-dovey lifelong commitment in the eyes of god, blah blah blah. The purpose of marriage is to provide the optimal support system for the propagation of the species. Back in the day you needed people to stay together their whole lives, the man to provide and the woman to take care of the house/kids, etc. That's not the case anymore. Single parent families are perfectly capable of raises productive and well-adjusted members of society, there's no longer a need to chain to people together for their entire lives just because it's expected of them.
I'm inclined to think that there's a healthy divorce rate. Some people just shouldn't spend the rest of their lives stuck with each other, and we've made a lot of progress from the Bad Old Days (tm), when a wife was expected to stay her husband's punching bag indefinitely. Short of magical machines that can keep all and only bad couples from making the wrong decision, a certain amount of divorces are healthy and unavoidable.
So, the question becomes, is a 50% or so divorce rate higher than the natural healthy divorce rate? Hell if I know. Maybe half the human race is just destined to end up loving each other at first and not wanting to stick to it long term. Maybe the healthiest divorce rate is less than this. Maybe it's more. There's insufficient data to make this kind of call. At best I think maybe society pushes marriage too as a one size fits all solution. It's a great institution for some, but I think it's equally possible that there are others who are more naturally comfortable going through a series of shorter term relationships, or multiple relationships at once or any of the other possible permutations of human love, for whom marriage is not now and never will be suited.
I don't think so. There's all kinds of nasty legal and financial repercussions that anyone who thinks it through would have to consider. A lot of people rush into it, yeah, but I think they'd be rushing into either way. Some people just plain don't think things through, and tinkering with the consequences doesn't change that.
I'm more curious as to why you expected something else. It seems fairly clear that young people are under more pressure to marry sooner in their relationship, and earlier in their lives, in more religious environments.
If two people want to divorce for stupid reasons, they're probably not the sort of people who are going to be supercapable of making their marriage work regardless of what the rest of society wants. If two people want to divorce for good reasons, the fewer arbitrary obstacles there are in their way, the better it's going to be for everybody but their lawyers.
If living in a stable, loving family seems as magically unrealistic to you as those things you've named, I am very, very sad for you.
I think that claiming the only way to give a child a stable loving home is to eradicate divorce and enforce marriage for all couples is unrealistic.
Statistically...
De Beers is obviously at fault here.