Posted on 06/28/2005 9:50:36 AM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
When Rachel Bendtsen walked through the doors of a New York City bar on a Thursday night, she was greeted with a cake and a standing ovation. She said hello to friends she hadn’t seen in three years, since she got engaged and stopped traveling frequently from Minneapolis to New York to visit.
“I am so happy to be a free agent,” Bendtsen, 27, said as more cameras flashed. “And I am accepting applications to make out.” Several single men were on hand to apply.
As divorce parties go, this one was tame — no caterer and no band, and the cake was homemade. It was certainly nothing compared to the $20,000 wedding she and her parents paid for just two years earlier, the one at which 200 guests watched as she pledged to love and cherish her husband forever.
“Once you say you are going to get married, it is hard to get out of it,” Bendtsen said. “So the divorce puts us both back on course. In my case it is definitely cause for celebration.”
The divorce party, a hybrid of a bachelor-bachelorette party and bacchanalian exorcism, is emerging as a celebratory occasion, complete with gift registries and a set of social protocols. Once a source of shame, divorce has become its own peculiar rite of passage, so commonplace that more people are looking to commemorate the occasion with friends — and in public.
Experts see a combination of factors at work, including a growing acceptance of divorce and society’s need for rituals to mark important life stages. “Fifty years ago divorce was almost a forbidden thing,” said David Popenoe, director of National Marriage Project, at Rutgers University. “Today you do not think of a divorcee as an outcast; you extend your sympathy and sometimes offer your congratulations.”
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
I noticed the cost too especially about sticking the folks with the bill and two years later, a divorce. Selfish twit that she is.
LOL! I'd have to rephrase it in words of one syllable.
Damn, that was the best laugh I've gotten today!
A child of mine who did that would get a bill. (Just kidding - no child of mine gets a $20,000 wedding, unless they've got somebody other than me to pay for it!)
I can't WAIT to be divorced. I can't stand my husband.
At my E school the hotie rating was in the negative territory.
"Divorced" and "husband" each have two syllables.
How utterly stupid this is. Why waste all this money on a party???
Essentially that's what one couple did in Canada. Two lesbians , together for 10 years got married as the first homosexual couple to do so. One or two days later they filed for divorce.
It was a calculated and purposeful move....
I hear you and wholeheartedly agree.
President Reagan's divorce was finalized exactly 56 years ago today. It didn't stop him from being a great man, and it didn't stop anybody here from voting for him, I presume.
You know, I read that very thing somewhere the other day in some column or other.
Can't remember and don't know if it was a valid study or something like my studies (that I make up myself).
I grow more and more grateful that my daughter chose to have a simple wedding with a justice of the peace. I wasn't that happy about her wearing shorts, but she looked cute.
The marriage seems to be holding up (ten years and counting)
LOL! Good luck with that.
And New Yorkers can't figure out why their views don't relate to the red states.... Please, at least it appears no children were involved in this one, thank God.
Dear highball,
"Most people in our society have been divorced or will be divorced in their lives. It's as much a rite of passage as anything else we do."
Although I haven't seen any good formal statistics on this, I don't think that's true. About 45% of marriages end in divorce. But I've seen research that shows that folks who divorce once and remarry are more likely to divorce again than those who have not been divorced.
Thus, it's more likely that about a third of the folks who get married ultimately divorce, but that because some of these folks remarry and divorce again, about 45% of all marriages wind up in divorce.
sitetest
Divorce happens... right or wrong.. but the act of elevating it to a right of passage.. instead of a source of shame that is truly dispicable.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.