Posted on 10/01/2012 11:23:26 AM PDT by nickcarraway
IT makes little sense to explore a new era of family values based around Hollywood couplings. Or, worse yet, around mere rumors of the way movie stars conduct their marital affairs.
But might there be seeds of something worth considering in one such rumor, that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes signed a five-year marriage contract?
It’s a dim data point but not an isolated one, suggesting people are rethinking marriage, at least around the edges. Prenuptial agreements, a different sort of contract, are on the rise, as is vowless cohabitation. The ages at which people marry have hit record highs, 28.7 years for men and 26.5 for women. And gay marriage has provoked widespread conversation about the institution’s meaning and place.
Last year, several lawmakers in Mexico City proposed the creation of short-term, renewable marriage contracts with terms as brief as two years. The idea was to own up to the reality that marriages fail about half the time.
Is marriage headed for an overhaul? A fundamental rethinking? Is it due for one?
When the Mexican legislators proposed their idea, which was not passed, the archdiocese there called it “absurd” and said it was anathema to the nature of marriage. I decided to put the questions to a different group: the people who study marriage and divorce. I was motivated not just by trend lines but, as a child of divorce, by ghosts.
I asked whether society should consider something like a 20-year marriage contract, my own modest proposal that, as in the one from Mexico, acknowledges the harsh truth that nearly half of marriages in the United States end in divorce and many others are miserable. The rough idea: two people, two decades, enough time to have and raise children if that’s your thing; a new status quo, a
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Congrats. And hoping you make it to 50 anyway.
The problem here is that marriages that disintegrate do so in the first decade, not the third. In general if a couple makes it to 20 they’ve found a way to live with each other. It might be worth considering changes in the legal aspect of marriage that acknowledge the changes in the social aspect, the fact is people don’t go into marriages looking to die with that person anymore, but 20 years is totally missing the point.
Marriage is three parts.
Commitment
Friendship
procreate
If you do not give 100% of yourself to it then you have issues to work on.
Funny how people want to describe what marriage is. All you have to worry about is what God calls marriage. Its in the Bible.
Omg .. I can just imagine the activity of a marriage which lasts for a period of hours. Very creative. Some motels have been known to rent rooms by the hour not the night.
I don’t think it’s an agenda, it’s just convenience. It would be nigh on impossible to calculate the true divorce rate. Every marriage would have to be individually tracked to truly arrive at an accurate number. The 50% divorce rate is calculated by subtracting the number of divorces granted in any given year from the number of marriages in that same year.
It’s obviously flawed, but not as flawed as some would think. Those who’ve been married 8 times like Mickey Rooney are simply too small in number to skew the statistic when calculated this way.
Rather than taking it as gospel that half of marriages end in divorce, or disputing the statistic entirely, we should simply glean from the down and dirty comparison of marriages and divorces in any given year, that we do indeed have a problem.
Maybe it’s higher than you think? I won’t pretend to know jack about marriage survivability with special needs children, but I can offer that the chances of divorcing within a year of bankruptcy is four fold of that of a marriage where the finances haven’t completely collapsed. Stress obviously plays a significant role here.
While the folks on their 8th like Rooney are an outlier there is something to be said for how serial divorcers mess up the numbers. Almost everybody I know that has a divorce has more than one. That seems to be where the 40 somethings are on that front, they’re either on their first marriage or 3rd, maybe 4th. Who knows, those that live as long as Rooney might be on #8 by then. That just seems to be how the population is divided, there’s those that stay together, and those who wind up on a first name basis with divorce judges, there’s a very small group who apparently got it right the second time.
Mutual aid is a secondary purpose of Holy Matrimony.
Friendship would be something that should grow in marriage that most likely would have already been there.
While the folks on their 8th like Rooney are an outlier there is something to be said for how serial divorcers mess up the numbers. Almost everybody I know that has a divorce has more than one. That seems to be where the 40 somethings are on that front, they’re either on their first marriage or 3rd, maybe 4th. Who knows, those that live as long as Rooney might be on #8 by then. That just seems to be how the population is divided, there’s those that stay together, and those who wind up on a first name basis with divorce judges, there’s a very small group who apparently got it right the second time.
Though Rooney is an extreme example, averaging ordinary divorces is what really fouls the stats.
Think of it like classroom test grades in which students can only get A’s or F’s. But if they get F’s, they can take the test over to try and get an A.
Only on the first try if half the students get A’s and half get F’s, does the class get 50%, a C average. This is how most people imagine the statistic, as just what happens in a discreet year.
But every time thereafter, anyone who makes an F in a retake lowers the class average against a *different student* who made an A.
So instead of thinking Mickey Rooney, with 8 marriages and 6 divorces, think of the vast number of people out there who have had 2 marriages and 2 divorces. In their case, the total of three people with two divorces makes the divorce rate 50% for 7 people.
The divorce stats do NOT consider remarriage to the same person. So if a couple marries and divorces and then remarries to each other, that counts as two marriages and one divorce as if all done by stangers rather that one married couple still together.
I think it is something like 15% of all marriages are to a previous husband/wife.
Hubby & I have been married 29 years today. Hasn't been easy and definitely not all fun filled. But learned a lot of lessons about commitment and working things out.
I love my husband more today than I did 29 years ago. And as each day goes by, I am so very thankful that we found each other.
Husband and I just celebrated our 22nd Anniversary. I am far too tired to train a “new” one and he will readily admit that no one else will put up with him. Guess we’re in it for the long haul.
It'll be a frosty day in hell before I look to two filthy worthless Hollywood scumbags for guidance on matters of decency or morality.
There’s already a term for this, Mut’a, the marriage contract in Islam. And it was rejected by much of Islam as fostering prostitution.
Now while I realize that is anectdotal, I'd like to look at that more. I was married briefly in my very early 20's, and I've been married to my second wife for well over 20 years now. I know lots of folks in that particular boat.
Oh I hear what you’re saying loud and clear. It doesn’t change the fact that divorce is far too common. I agree that the 50% statistic isn’t very realistic, but I disagree with any notion that a more valid interpretation of comparing divorces in any given year to the number of marriages say anything positive.
Could be a matter of social circles too. I’m in the software industry, my wife is in education, lots of liberals all around us. Even non-libs in the software industry tend to have commitment issues, lots of job changes, lots of buying new toys, not to mention the work hours that can be hard on relationships.
“I love my husband more today than I did 29 years ago. And as each day goes by, I am so very thankful that we found each other.”
We are the same.
Thank you.
Me too. ;>)
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