Why has the divorce rate increased so much in 40 years?

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Along with the added health problems and reduced pleasure (less romance, too much of a good thing, reduced libido) associated with the pill, and the honeymoons spoiled be premarital sex and de facto unions, women have failed to make their husbands the head of their families.

Casti Connubii by Pope Pius IX
  1. The same false teachers who try to dim the luster of conjugal faith and purity do not scruple to do away with the honorable and trusting obedience which the woman owes to the man. Many of them even go further and assert that such a subjection of one party to the other is unworthy of human dignity, that the rights of husband and wife are equal; wherefore, they boldly proclaim the emancipation of women has been or ought to be effected. This emancipation in their ideas must be threefold, in the ruling of the domestic society, in the administration of family affairs and in the rearing of the children …
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  1. This, however, is not the true emancipation of woman, nor that rational and exalted liberty which belongs to the noble office of a Christian woman and wife; it is rather the debasing of the womanly character and the dignity of motherhood, and indeed of the whole family, as a result of which the husband suffers the loss of his wife, the children of their mother, and the home and the whole family of an ever watchful guardian. More than this, this false liberty and unnatural equality with the husband is to the detriment of the woman herself, for if the woman descends from her truly regal throne to which she has been raised within the walls of the home by means of the Gospel, she will soon be reduced to the old state of slavery (if not in appearance, certainly in reality) and become as amongst the pagans the mere instrument of man.
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(See the thread Politics, topic feminism for related Church documents)

**
“Under the Mercy” by Sheldon Vanaulken (an Anglican at the time) offers this description of a bible study group of Anglican women, from Chapter 8, Pp. 194-196, Ignatius Press **
…
Four women, close friends of hers and all in their thirties, had been meeting weekly to study the Bible. One evening they came to St. Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 11 about the headship of the husband. … Every one of these women – they all knew it – was the head in her marriage. They regarded their husbands as amiable and no doubt lovable blunderers who couldn’t be trusted to think of things and run things competently. … Someone else said, “We’ve got to do it.” Another said “They’ve got to – the men.” Resolved, they got the husbands together, and explained. The men took it quietly.
Code: 
     Then came the miracle. In less than a year the four women, with amazement and delight, were telling each other and every other woman that they knew what happened. The husbands, all four, had quietly taken over. Every one of them, so to speak, grown taller in his wife's eyes: bigger, stronger, wiser, more humorous. It was unbelievable, almost a miracle. And, with no exceptions, every one of the women felt that her marriage had come to a new depth of happiness
– a joy – that it had never had before. A rightness.
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Code: 
     Seeing this astonishing thing that not one of them had thought possible -- not with their husbands -- the four wives realised one day an astonishing further truth: they realised that their husbands had never demanded and would never have demanded the headship: it could only be a free gift from wife to husband. ...
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I agree with many of the posts here but I also need to add religion. The population is not 100% catholic. That said, we have different values place on marriage. Many couples prefer a civil matrimony why? because if anything goes wrong we can divorce. If they were married by the Church that would complicate things to much. There is no committment. So basically they are entering matrimony with no faith in the institution. When we get married by the Church we need to remember that is a very needed sacrament because it gets attack all the time. This extra blessing from the Father helps her withstand on safer ground all kind of attacks. I think the words that the priest say while blessing the marriage is a warning: I cannot remember them ( I know shame on me huh… ) something like: what God unites make no men separate? Please Help here! LOL but I see it as a warning because yes, men will try to destroy it.
 
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ProLifeAction:
It’s a combination of contraception & couples having sex before marriage creating all the divorces.

Today there is a 50% divorce rate. Those who were chaste until marriage have only a 2% divorce rate. Those who were chaste at least 2 years before they were married have a 5% divorce rate.

It’s not rocket science - Sex before Marriage inhibits a couple from really getting to know each other before marriage.
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Premarital sex puts the honeymoon BEFORE the commitment and the “adjustment period,” effectively spoiling the honeymoon.
The honeymoon smooths over the many difficulties of the first year of marriage. A period of abstinence before marriage restores some of that newness, I suppose …

( I’m sure I heard this at a Family Conference in Toronto some years ago, but I don’t remember the source. There was also a statistic about marriages where the family was practicing their faith succeeding well over 90% of the time)
 
Mistermerlin,

Do you have any statistics to back up your divorce figures for church-goers and Bible-readers? They seem to be rather low.

I believe that the root problem is an unwillingness to accept responsibility for one’s decisions that has permeated western society. We are becoming more litigatious (the barman should have called a cab for me, it’s not my fault that I walked onto the road and was hit by a bus). In many countries we can rely on welfare to help us through any financial problem that our behaviour may create (not an argument against welfare as a concept). We want to avoid the consequences of sex, so we use birth control. We want lots of sex without commitment, so we shack up. We do not want to deal with marital unhappiness, so we have no fault divorce.

To be fair, birth control seems to have been a big contributor; but I believe that, even if we were remainig continent through gritted teeth because of the dangers of pregnancy or disease, our society would still have these centrifugal forces running through it.
 
George Weigel wrote The Courage To Be Catholic in it he explains very well the melee that ensued after VaticanII and Humanae Vitae.

After reading his book, I’m convinced that the divorce rate can definitely be linked to birth control. Not for the stated reasons, but as Weigel points out, the failure of the bishops to enforce church law in the '60s and early '70s openned the floodgates for Catholic dissenters.

Had the bishops taken a strong stance against dissent from the start, Catholics would have been preserved from the maladies brought on by ABC, no-fault divorce, yada-yada-yada.

This would have greatly irritated the Protestants as the statistics scream “I told you so!” And in short order they would have come around.

So far it looks like divorce is extremely low among couples practicing NFP. As NFP becomes more popular within the Catholic Church, the divorce (anullment) rate should dramatically decline. This will perk up the ears of Protestants.
 
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Journeyman:
I told some friends of the Catholic position and they scoffed!! They think it is ridiculous to blame ABC. I need help to support the Catholic position!!
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Tell them that couples that practice Natural Family Planning have a less than 5 percent divorce rate; those who teach it are at an under 2 percent divorce rate.

Bernadette:twocents: :hmmm:
 
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Journeyman:
Why has the divorce rate gone up so much since the 1960’s? When I listen to Catholic radio or EWTN, it seems to be that artificial birth control is the root of the problem.
…
What do you think? Are the reports of the higher divorce rates, unmarried women with kids, etc… because of artificial birth control as Catholic sources report or is it closer to what the secular media might report? I told some friends of the Catholic position and they scoffed!! They think it is ridiculous to blame ABC. I need help to support the Catholic position!!
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Abortion Breast Cancer Link

lifesite.net
lifesite.net/ldn/2003/jun/03060508.html

nysrighttolife.org/

nysrighttolife.org/Beralpaperanalysis040804.htm

The original work on the Abortion Breast Cancer Link
is by Dr. Joel Brind who analysed the work of many studies worldwide to determine the results.

hli.org
nrlc.org

Finally, after anyone listens to the devastating effect on womens’ lives, I do not see how they couldn’t be moved to change their position.

Abortion Awareness Silent No More
 
I would say that divorce rate is sky rocketing not due to Birth Control or pre-marital sex rather than a slow break down of values in America, and possibly the rest of the world.

If the love, true love that is, for your spouse is there, then pre-marital sex and BC won’t really change anything, you love the #3!! out of your mate and would never ever ever leave them. However, people aren’t staying together.

This is because true love isn’t formed. Chastity helps weed out those who would not fit the bill and are just searching to get laid true, but I don’t believe that greater sexual freedom is so responsible for divorce rates. Instead of teaching our children to find a good partner to last a lifetime these days, we teach our boys to rack up as many girls as they can and girls to gold dig guys to death. Neither of these values aid in establishing marriage but if we taught our kids different things, regardless of ABC or PMSex then marriages would be stronger.

Blame shifting this problem to ABC or PMSex is merely covering up a greater societal problem methinks.
 
Our society in general doesn’t much care anymore. Watch movies or TV to see how much society in general doesn’t care. Divorce is acceptable if you’re just feeling unhappy (even though it is your own fault). How many movies lately, as the big romantic climax, had someone get left at the alter? I used to watch a soap opera casually with my ex girlfriend (I had lunch at her apartment with her every day while it was on) and it would never fail that when two people were “deeply in love”, that there would be conflict and one of them would marry someone else, only to leave them later. Adultery is okay if you feel like it. etc etc etc.

I also think the family courts have hurt marriage as well, particularly because of their bias against men, and their insult of women by painting them as helpless victims. Women initiate twice as many divorces as men, many of them for “general discontent” (they initiate these three times as often), have a 98% of getting custody of the children, usually keep most the “family” assets (especially the house), and recieve tremendous amounts of alimony and child support. My fiance has a former friend who cheated on her husband (caught on camera), and it was proven she was doing drugs and disgusting sex acts with 3 children around–she got full custody, the house, a new car, and $1600 per month in alimony and child support. I guess what I’m trying to say is the courts no longer punish bad behavior–and have eliminated the disincentive (in fact, often create a financial incentive) to divorce.

I’m by no means saying it is all womens fault, they are just who the courts happen to coddle and reward for divorce. Men are by no means innocent–as cited in the poll, men often divorce or don’t marry largely because they can have sexual variety without concequence. Sometimes they avoid marriage by using fear of financial consequences as their excuse.

I did have to generalize for discussions sake, so please dont’ think i’m giving an ad hominem attack against women or men either one (or divorce either–my fiance is divorced, and had very good respectable reasons for it). By no means do these things apply to all men or all women, they most likely apply to a minority. But the minority can do alot of damage.

Last note–I recently read an article in a family magazine that made a case for the traditional family. The very fact that the traditional family–and the fact that it is best for children to have a mother and a father–had to be defended in a family magazine is quite a sign of the times.

Bless you all
 
Here’s my analysis
Wide usage of artificial birth control as predicted by John VI
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Yes. Definitely.
Many more women now work giving them financial freedom
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Many womnen work out of financial necessity. Two incomes are required to pay the high taxes, high cost of living. I doubt there is any “financial freedom” anymore.
There have always been a lot of unhappy marriages. Easier to divorce now
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We have a society that says “selfishness is good” so many people, divorce because of that. Selfishness kills marriages dead. Period.
 
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BobCatholic:
We have a society that says “selfishness is good” so many people, divorce because of that. Selfishness kills marriages dead. Period.
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It also says that sacrifice for another is bad and sacrifice is the core of true love.
 
Count Chocula:
I would say that divorce rate is sky rocketing not due to Birth Control or pre-marital sex rather than a slow break down of values in America, and possibly the rest of the world.
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Yes, but Count, don’t that you see that birth control and pre-marital sex IS a breakdown in values??? There needs to be right and wrong. I’m thankful for the Catechism!!!

I’ve found that the ONLY church that dares to speak up for morality and against bending and swaying with the world is the RCC.

Did you know that Protestantism was formed on the basis that it meets the world’s expectations in each generation. It changes with the times, it gives MAN the sole authority to determine his life, what he wants to do, it claims he has the power to determine, not God. How sad indeed~~~~

The last Protestant church I was in, heard a sermon by the minister actually supporting divorce, “let’s be compassionate, be understanding, meet the person where they are”, etc. etc." sickening…Why didn’t he have the guts to say “Divorce is totally and completely unacceptable to God”?..I’ll never know. And then I know of a couple who are both elders, not married and live together. Nothing is done about it. Shoved under the rug.

Pitiful!

I Love the Catholic Church. It dares to teach the Truth.
 
I was divorced from my first wife, and there were lots of factors involved. In the end, she decided she wanted to “find out who she was”, hence the divorce. My second wife and I have been married 25 years, through thick and thin. I guess it just depends on how much you love each other, and how bad you want to make the marriage work. Also, the “me first” attitude prevails more today than it used to.
 
PS I saw a divorce in the paper the other day that said the couple was married on May 21, 2004, and were already getting divorced. Go figure!
 
Tell them that couples that practice Natural Family Planning have a less than 5 percent divorce rate; those who teach it are at an under 2 percent divorce rate.
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Bernadette:twocents: :hmmm:

Bernadette,

Where did you find these statistics? According to Tom Hoopes recent article in Crisis Magazine (July/August 2004 - Breaking Vows When Faithful Catholics Divorce) his investigation turned up no evidence as to where those NFP numbers came from. In fact, Judy Parejko, author of *Stolen Vows, *according to the same article, says she is skeptical about such claims.
 
The only divorce statistics that I have seen was an informal survey of CCL NFP users. The results were less than 3% or so. Doubling or tripling those results is still significantly less than the national figure. I think this is an area where more study is needed.
 
Thanks, Rascal.

You may want to go to the barna group. They do faith based research/polling (www.barna.org).

You are correct, it would be helpful to have an accurate breakdown of catholic divorce - assenting vs. dissenting / assenting NFP vs. assenting non-NFP.

Maybe someday.
 
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krazykatlady:
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I think that now people feel that they have a right to be happy all of the time, and if not, you bail out!
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This is the big thing combined with the drive for INSTANT gratification. People put their own needs and wants and desires first and formost. This is one of the reasons ABC has had such an insidious effect. It encourages the idea that you need to be a slave to your desires and seperated from the consequenses.

You hear about one or another spouse saying their “needs weren’t being met”. I’m sorry, but marriage isn’t about meeting ones individual needs. If both spouses are attentive to the needs of each other *******and ***** ** to the needs of their children, the community and society, that is extra special but it isn’t really the point of marriage.

In the debate on the marriage ammendment, you hear people talking about marriage as a fundamental building block in society. The problem is that many people don’t see marriage as having anything to do with society, only as a means to meet some personal need (sex, children, security etc).

Rant over. 😉
 
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Alberich:
I can’t speak for anywhere but America, but I really do think that it’s the spread of the “no-fault” divorce standard throughout the country. Now, no longer needing to show…well…anything, divorce is much easier to obtain!
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There are many factors of course, but I think you’ve pointed out the linchpin here. “No-fault” divorce demotes marriage from a covenant to a mere legal contract. Many people enter into marriage thinking that that’s all it is.

This is also the reason why homosexual “marriage” is taking root. If heterosexuals largely don’t think of marriage as being anything more than a temporary legal arrangement, who can blame the homosexuals for feeling they are being denied something under the law?

I wonder how many homosexuals would be bellyaching to get “married” if our society’s laws still protected the covenant of marriage instead of allowing no-fault divorces.
 
Family has become passe’. Unimportant. Children are a thing to be frowned upon. “You have four children? You know there’s a cure for that!”

As family becomes more degraded and less desireable, marriage becomes less important - even unnecessary. Marriage use to be *about * family. Now, it’s about love, and family has little or nothing to do with it. For some groups, it’s about forcing society to give legal and social recognition to lust.

I harbor serious doubts as to whether marriage will still be around in 50 years. Chances are I won’t see that happen, or God will bless me with Alzheimer’s. :whacky: (Not meant to be demeaning or disrespectful to those who have the disease, or to their loved ones…)
 
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