Cross Talk
What is happening to marriage?
FALLING in love, courtship, nuptials, bridal parades, guests, gifts, illuminations, dowries, honeymoons and consummations are still lined up. There is motion and speed in today's marriage, but the momentum gives away as quickly as it picks up. Sooner or later, a large number of marriages run out of steam, because men and women who are eager to take the vow do not have patience till death do them part.
In 1891, a Cornell University professor had predicted that if divorce continued to rise at the existing rate, then within the next hundred years more marriages were bound to end in divorce than in death. The prediction has been stunningly accurate. Divorce is now a menace to marriage.
Start with the United States, which has the highest divorce rate in the world. It's twice as high as the next highest country Sweden and 50 times higher than some low incidence countries. China's divorce rate has soared more than 700% since 1980. Between 1999 and 2003, the number of marriages became almost half in Chile. In countries like Italy, Singapore and Japan, a much larger percentage of women avoid marriage and childbearing altogether. Even in predominantly Catholic Ireland, one out of three children is born out of wedlock.
Divorce rate has also shot up in countries where it was previously discouraged through legal, religious or cultural means. These countries include Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa. The billow of that wave has also reached our shores. It's hard to find any statistics, but a growing percentage of marriages even in this country are going kaput.
So, what is happening to marriage? It's definitely shrinking as people live longer, marry later, exit more quickly and choose to live together before and after marriage, between marriages and as alternative to marriage. Among young men and women, social confidence in marriage is wavering. They don't show the same strong commitment to marriage as their parents. By and large, married people are less happy today compared to their ancestors.
Historically, marriage has transformed from time to time. Between ancient times and the Renaissance period, love had nothing to do with marriage, because politics and money trumped emotions. In ancient Greece love was honoured, especially between men. Wife-swapping as a career move was common in Rome. French scholar Montaigne reflected the spirit of his time. Any man in love with his wife must be so dull that no one else could love him, he wrote.
From the 16th century to the Victorian era love started taking lead in marriage, although people still turned to family, lovers and friends for intimacy and passion. It wasn't considered polite if couples openly showed attachment or used endearing nicknames to call each other. It was in the mid-19th century that the tradition of honeymoon was introduced to replace the old custom when a newly-wed couple was required to visit those relatives who couldn't attend the wedding.
But the 20th century concentrated on love. Intimacy shrank to encompass just the lovers and love took the center stage in marriage. In the 1920s, Saturday night started in the USA as a dating craze spread across the country. Marriage flourished as the ultimate expression of love and emerged as a mandatory thing.
The irony is that just when love was recognised as the foundation of marriage, marriage started to wobble. Here, at last, marriage was liberated from the confines of money, power and survival. Finally, it was salvaged from the neglect of the Enlightenment and Victorian eras when adultery and friendship were more passionate than marriage. That is when it plunged into a new contradiction. Love spread as the cause, not the effect of marriage.
It can be explained from many angles. Young men and women don't have enough patience. They are more impulsive in love than committed to it. Then there are the financial burdens, social pressures and family compulsions. Marriages are made in heaven, but married people go through hell.
Social scientists have worked hard to understand this contradiction. While causes remain subject to social debates, there are some interesting effects. Each 100 additional divorces worldwide cause two additional suicides, one additional murder, 6 additional rapes, 33 additional armed robberies, and puts another 100 men in prison. There is a disturbing connection between people and their planet. Unhappy marriages create social unrest, which is also true the other way around.
A survey conducted by Dr. Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University shows that the connection runs deeper. Increasing number of divorce increases the number of households, which has a negative impact on earth's environment. More households require more use of land, water and energy, three of the world's most critical resources.
Some data to back up the claim! In the USA, 15% of households are divorced, and in 2005 the country could have saved 627 billion gallons of water, 38 million rooms and 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity if the divorced people weren't divorced. Extrapolate and apply this calculation to rest of the world, you will be convinced that broken marriages are a threat to the world.
First thing first, why are marriages breaking up? The hero in Ayn Rand's fiction The Fountainhead says that to say "I love you," one must first know how to say the "I." Romantic love is a selfish passion, when two lovers are ready even to leave their families to become happily married. Unhappy marriage is when lovers recover from love's heady influence. It's a rude awakening that life is more than long hours on the phone, furtive glances, secret rendezvous in parks, cafés and movie theaters, and anxious wait for conjugal union.
There is one thing common between marriage and earth. Selfishness depletes both. When more is taken out than given, they become hollow. Marriage breaks and the earth snaps, while minds crumble in a vacuum. Men and women can be unhappily married or happily unmarried, but happy marriage is down to earth. Love without marriage is a tragedy. Marriage without love is a disaster.
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