Is Marriage Dead?

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Starwynd

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I think that marriage, at least in America, is either dead, or dying out. Here’s why.

Half of all marriges end in divorce. Many many people are married multiple times.

divorcerate.org/

California has legalise homosexual marriages and there will be several states that are sure to follow suit.

So I believe marriage is dead and has no rela value in America and part of the problem is the Secular nature of America’s morality and the constant attack on religious absolute and proper morality that affects the institution of marriage.
 
Starwynd said:
I think that marriage, at least in America, is either dead, or dying out. Here’s why.

Half of all marriges end in divorce. Many many people are married multiple times.

divorcerate.org/

California has legalise homosexual marriages and there will be several states that are sure to follow suit.

So I believe marriage is dead and has no rela value in America and part of the problem is the Secular nature of America’s morality and the constant attack on religious absolute and proper morality that affects the institution of marriage.
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Well I think I understand your dismay. California according to the latest polls suggests that the electorate there is now in favor of the Court decision that struck down bans on homosexual marriage in that state. NY’s governor has indicated that he intends that homosexual marriages that are valid in the states performed will be recognized in NY. Polls also suggest that young people, universally whether religiously inclined or otherwise are also hugely in favor of same-sex marriage being legal.

But what I cannot accept is that you drop this at the foot of whatever “secular” society is. The fact is that the issue of gay marriage has not been an issue at all until raised by the religious right in recent years. Divorce, moreover is highest among Christians and highest still in the bible belt, bastion of those who profess to be the “most religious.”

These numbers of divorce rates have been ongoing for several decades. These matters were simply not discussed until the reactionary right adopted them as their mantra of what’s wrong with America. What you refer to is the defense raised by the left in answer to the assault upon them by the right. It is the right who are calling for constitutional amendments and such.

In any case you are offering no proof to your assumed correlation. To say that the two things exist, more same sex marriage and more divorce does not prove any nexus between the two. You will have to present actual studies and facts to establish that.
 
Truth does not have to be backed by logic nor scientific evidence for it in order to be truth.

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The divorce rates haven’t risen because our society is more “secular”. I would estimate that the number of failed marriages is exactly the same as it was 50 or a hundred years ago. Its just now people have another option if they feel like their marriage is ending. People don’t want to be in a marriage that doesn’t work. We all want that perfect marriage we all think we’re destined for. Sadly it doesn’t always work out that way. In our more accepting society we don’t frown on people when they make a mistake, or make them live with it for the rest of their lives, we give them the chance to try again.
Starwynd said:
Truth does not have to be backed by logic nor scientific evidence for it in order to be truth…
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Sounds impressive but frankly if you’re going to put forward an opinion you ought to have at least something to support it. 🙂
 
I guess there’s two ways of going about responding to the current state of marriage:
  1. Oh, well…it looks bad, so just give up.
  2. Strehgthen our resolve to do what is in our power to strengthen the institution of marriage.
But the question is how? Well, first off, treat it as the sacrament that it is, at least Catholic marriage. Pay attention to our own marriages, help those who are entering into marriage, and those struggling with their marriages. Specifically how? Good question.
 
We live longer and eat more, meaning our hormones run higher, generally, from what I understand. Thus we must either marry sooner than we used to, to deal with our excess hormone levels, and regret it because we then have a long marriage ahead of us, marry later and have much mroe trouble controlling ourselves before marriage, or marry at the same age as in the past and have some of both problems.
In 1890, a woman in the US just marrying for the firs titme was probably 24. That’s the same as now. But at 24 she was probably at the 22-year stage of physical maturity by our standards, and likely as not had a hormonal balance we would associate with a teenage girl. She was born in 1866, and had a life expectancy of about 44. Her husband was born aroung 1863 and had a life expectancy of about 43. These were averages. In fact, one of them would probably have been widowed for eight to ten years, probably her, meaning that she would have been married only about ten years. Committing for ten years when both of you are at work all the time and you rarely see each other is a different ball game from marrying at 24 and being widowed ten years with a life expectancy of 80, which equals a 46-year commitment. I’m glad we live longer, but it is harder to see ahead 46 years than ten years.
 
What do you suppose ought to be done about it? Ideas?
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Well, personally I’d like to get rid of no fault divorce. I’m not against divorce but it seems to me that people have lost sight of knowing that marriage is a two way street and seems to think that marriage is only for themselves.

It seems to me that too many marriages seem to end on frivolous reasons.

But other than that I have absolutely no idea for teaching people how sacred marriage truly is. People have to feel it in their hearts and the truth is people just don’t.
 
SpiritMeadow said:
Divorce, moreover is highest among Christians and highest still in the bible belt, bastion of those who profess to be the “most religious.” These numbers of divorce rates have been ongoing for several decades.
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So why would it be significant that divorce is more prevalent among Christians than others. It is the religious that get married. The others don’t bother, so divorce among them is a moot issue. Not? 🤷
 
strngrnrth said:
In 1890, a woman in the US just marrying for the first time was probably 24. That’s the same as now. But at 24 she was probably at the 22-year stage of physical maturity by our standards, and likely as not had a hormonal balance we would associate with a teenage girl. She was born in 1866, and had a life expectancy of about 44. Her husband was born aroung 1863 and had a life expectancy of about 43. These were averages.
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Interesting ages of marriage, but I am under the impression that a girl of 20 or more still unmarried, was already being considered an “old maid” (someone who would likely never marry. Many of the laws reflect the notion that girls in their mid-teens were old enough to marry.

At 18 a male was out of the house and earning a living. Life span was shorter, health problems more prevalent, a 50 year anniversary extremely rare. And yes many were so busy grubbing to stay alive that their was little time to reflect on whether they were still in love. Industrial work weeks for all but the wealthy were 70 hours per week. No overtime, no unemployment, no health insurance. Children as young as six worked in the mines and textile mills. That is the Western world that only started to change for the worker in the mid-1930’s.

Consider the working class wife. Clothes and dishes to wash by hand, most food prepared from scratch or from canned goods put up by the woman herself who was responsible for the vegetable garden. Cows, goats milked by hand. Refrigerators, electric, and gas stoves a rarity. No telephone, probably no automobile and if so only one. For many rural people, no electricity.

I was alive in the late 30’s and I remember well what life was like and the stories of my parents and grandparents. We have come a long way, baby! Maybe our problem is too much leisure. 🤷
 
Starwynd said:
I think that marriage, at least in America, is either dead, or dying out. Here’s why.

Half of all marriges end in divorce. Many many people are married multiple times.
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Do you see an inconsistency in your above statement? If you back out of the 50% figure those who divorce multiple times (and are not fit for marriage in the first place) the 50% figure falls. Add in those marriages that are entered into for frivolous or hasty reasons, and all marriages between people under probably the age of 25 (not to say there aren’t 21 year olds who are mature enough to marry permanently) and the statistic, or at least its interpretation changes.

People who marry because it seems the thing to do, or because it’s a way to “legitimize” a reason for hopping into bed together, enter into a liason, not a marriage. For those who perceive marriage to be a union of man, woman, and God, a sacrament, and are emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically mature, the statistic isn’t as bad as it looks.

These statistics are for marriage, not the sacrament of matrimony.

It’s odd, but in my parish, and I know most of the people who regularly attend Mass weekly and participate in the life of the church, there have been few, if any, divorces.
 
Marriage is dying because people forgot where marrige comes from, that is God.
 
I’ve never been convinced that marraige is worth less now than it used to be. What *has *happened is that the stigma attached to divorce has lessened.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there just as many unhappily married 50 years ago as there are today. To me, that’s the real issue here: that your marriage is happy and well-balanced, and you both still love each other. Higher divorce rates now don’t mean that people love each other less than they used to, or that they treat marriage differently. All it means is that people are more willing to get out of a bad marriage than they used to be.

Isn’t that what you would want? Or would people rather see bad marriages continue because people are afraid to get a divorce? And for what? I suppose if you put the importance of keeping the vow above the happiness and well-being of you and your spouse, I guess it makes sense. But that seems to me to be a recipe for miserable people.

Ty
 
Starwynd said:
Truth does not have to be backed by logic nor scientific evidence for it in order to be truth.

.
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What you wrote doesn’t even make sense.

If someone is going to claim that marriage is dead based upon the high divorce rate and Gay marriage…they had better back up their premise with some proof.

Its nothing but a cop out to claim that your ideas are the truth and therefor are not subject to scrutiny or critique.
 
Starwynd said:
I think that marriage, at least in America, is either dead, or dying out. Here’s why.

Half of all marriges end in divorce. Many many people are married multiple times.

divorcerate.org/

California has legalise homosexual marriages and there will be several states that are sure to follow suit.

So I believe marriage is dead and has no rela value in America and part of the problem is the Secular nature of America’s morality and the constant attack on religious absolute and proper morality that affects the institution of marriage.
Click to expand...
Who was it that said “Society goes the way of the family.”
 
rwoehmke said:
Interesting ages of marriage, but I am under the impression that a girl of 20 or more still unmarried, was already being considered an “old maid” (someone who would likely never marry. Many of the laws reflect the notion that girls in their mid-teens were old enough to marry.
Life was less regulated then, so yes, the law allowed kids to get married but their parents usually forbade it. Most women inthe 19th Century were married the same ages most are married now, anout 20 to 29 and on average 24, while men were a little older. So though many women complained of feeling like old maids at 20, they were being dramatic. It was even more commont hen than now to wait until age 30 or older, to get financially ready first. The range was broader but the average was the same.
At 18 a male was out of the house and earning a living. At 11 a child was earning a living but still at home. People left home for various reasons at ages ranging from early childhood to never. They didn’t have the sense of going through life in lockstep with age-mates as we have now,a nd couldn’t afford to try to live in lockstep anyway.Life span was shorter, health problems more prevalent, a 50 year anniversary extremely rare. Industrial work weeks for all but the wealthy were 70 hours per week. Those were children’s hours. Women worked longer and men longer still. A man worked 12-18 hours/day, 6-7 days/week, totalling usually about 80-100 hours/week. Women got a little time off to raise kids, and kids got a little time off to grow, but not much.No overtime, no unemployment, no health insurance. Children as young as six worked in the mines and textile mills. Factories took them as soon as they could walk.We have come a long way, baby! Maybe our problem is too much leisure. 🤷
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Or failure to appreciate how good we have it and how much our forebears sacrificed to give us so much. But my main point was that a great blessing can still be mixed. We have a far better life now. Incomparably so. As a side effect, though, we must figure out what to do with all these years and all this extra energy.
 
Decado said:
I’ve never been convinced that marraige is worth less now than it used to be. What *has *happened is that the stigma attached to divorce has lessened.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there just as many unhappily married 50 years ago as there are today. To me, that’s the real issue here: that your marriage is happy and well-balanced, and you both still love each other. Higher divorce rates now don’t mean that people love each other less than they used to, or that they treat marriage differently. All it means is that people are more willing to get out of a bad marriage than they used to be.

Isn’t that what you would want? Or would people rather see bad marriages continue because people are afraid to get a divorce? And for what? I suppose if you put the importance of keeping the vow above the happiness and well-being of you and your spouse, I guess it makes sense. But that seems to me to be a recipe for miserable people.

Ty
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I agree. I’m divorced I have never seen the value of two people staying together when they were both miserable, clearly not cut out for each other, etc. To me marriage means you’ll try, you’ll do your best - but you might not always make it. Staying in a miserable relationship is like bailing water on the Titanic - just get into a life boat and move on. There is very likely someone else out there for both of you, someone you could be happy with - as was my case. The longer we were together the more we disliked, even hated each other. Where was the valor in that? I just don’t see it. 🤷
 
The huge numbers of children now living with single parents instead of with their natural mothers and fathers has come at a cruel cost.

Children in single parent households: are sexually and physically abused at a rate of 40% higher than children raised by their own mothers and fathers, have a hugely increased rate of suicide, dropping out of school, sexual promiscuity, becoming alcoholics, and getting involved with drugs.

Divorce and illegitimacy drive children relentlessly down the socioeconomic ladder. The average child suffers a 50% reduction in living standard after divorce.

All of which may pale to the emotional problems caused. Children raised in a single parent households will achieve less, be educated less, have shakier marriages, and suffer emotional problems, depression, and loneliness at far higher numbers than those raised by their actual mother and father. Boys are more likely to be aggressive and end up in prison. Girls are more likely to be aimless and promiscuous.

The costs to society have been staggering, both economically and morally. For all these statistics, pick up a copy of “Abolition of Marriage” by Maggie Gallagher.

The fact is: we have pursued happiness for adults at the cost of our children’s happiness.

As usual, if only everyone has listened to the church…

Sadly, and may God bless you all, Annem

The costs to society are staggering.
 
Do you have electronic references for any of that? Not that I don’t believe you, I’d just like to see it written down some where.

Decado
 
Also, did the author do any research on how kids turn out if the parents stayed married but were all screwed up?

I’m thinking marriage isn’t some magical fix. Screwed up people will raise screwed up kids, whether married or divorced.

Ty
 
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