Divorce Insight Into the Quandaries of Marriage

Divorce

Insight Into the Quandaries of Marriage and Divorce

The American conundrum surrounding the institution of marriage (high marriage rates combined with nearly equally high divorce rates) can be summed up in one pithy proclamation: people get married for the wrong reasons. Love, once considered a prerequisite for a proposed lifelong commitment to another, is so much of a forgone conclusion in modern times that it rarely factors into the equation for today's marriage. A considerable number of other factors (including but not limited to extramarital pregnancy, societal expectation and a lack of viable alternatives) account for the vast majority of contemporary marriages in America; the subsequent high divorce rate and myriad ruptured homes attest to the transience of these reasons and their unions.

To better prepare Americans for the possibility of marriage by the time adulthood is reached would require grave reconsideration of the common reasons for marriage today. A willing bond with another for the endurance of life's duration is exceedingly rare; adequate marriage preparation must teach youths and adolescents to acknowledge this fact. By changing the regard for marriage from one of inevitability to that of a rare, fairly phenomenal occurrence (after all we see how little monogamy exists in nature outside of mankind), people would take the important initial step of respecting this institution for the rarified consummation of love, will, and work ethic which it ideally is. Further preparation would require separating the manifestations of these ideals into their realistic applications (which may be far from ideal for the vast majority of a marriage's duration) to give Americans a more profound understanding this institution's contractual obligations.

A large degree of the heightened rate of divorce in America can be attributed to the plethora of opportunities that exist for men and women in contemporary society that did not exist before. In previous epochs of American history, people routinely married directly out of high school or not too long afterwards. The increased rate of students attending college, the influx of travel options which increases the ease in which distant locations can be accessed, as well as a lower tolerance (and need for that tolerance) for unhappiness in the form of physical and mental abuse all provide deviations from the previous normal pattern of remaining with one's high school lover as long as possible. Couple these reasons with the fact that a host of career and monetary options exist in which women can provide for themselves without the financial support of a husband, and the staggering rates of divorce become that much more understandable.

In many ways, denizens in contemporary American society have access to a fair amount of realistic images with which to use as demonstrations of the level of commitment which a lasting union inevitably requires. Nonetheless, there appears to be significantly more images which portray only one aspect of these relationships, or which so distort the depiction of a healthy marriage so that observers are left with only a caricature of one. A fair amount of role playing is involved in these portrayals, which, from a very early age, future adults observe and eventually emulate in the beliefs that these roles constitute the requirements of a marriage. Men mold themselves into the "honey" role, a decisive, money-earning, action-based problem solver who wants his living room clean and his dinner warm by the time he returns to his "castle." Women pattern themselves into the "babe" role, an attractive domestic (regardless of professional aspirations or realizations) with impeccable maternal instincts and a knack for convincing her husband of virtually anything. Problems exist when situations arise (such as life itself) that detract from the perceptions and responsibilities of these two roles, and thrust the assuming couple into instances outside of the foundation (if such narrow viewpoints can be called one) with which their relationship is based. Marrying another because of a perceived image or expectation with an ephemeral lifespan is not reason enough to endure the vicissitudes of a union, which contemporary divorce rates readily indicate.

The very nature of the so-called information age in which modern American life has become increasingly dependant upon explains why marriages appear to be more difficult to keep intact despite a seemingly wealth of resources to help them. The same informational resources which can be used to aid a marriage, such as the internet, television, podcasts, and films) provide wonderful distractions and disincentives in the form of competing interests and alternative companions which can potentially sunder a union, particularly if it is not based upon concrete reasons for marriage in the first place.