What Is Happening to Marriage?

FROM all over the world, reports say much the same thing: The marriage arrangement is in trouble.

True, news sources like to print what is more sensational. That is one reason why marriage problems are more often highlighted in the media, while many good marriages go relatively unnoticed.

Still, this fact cannot be denied: Profound changes are battering the marriage arrangement with blows of hurricane force.

How Serious?

How serious is the problem? Following are some observations typical of nearly every country on earth.

The Netherlands: “Marriage is threatened by a development scarcely less far-reaching than world revolution.”​—Publishers of the book The End of Monogamous Marriage?

England: “Some see the change as the greatest social upheaval this century.”​—London Sunday Telegraph.

Mexico: “Marriage is beginning a period of decadence ever more intense, after which it will not be able to recover.”​—Dr. Juana Armanda Alegria, sociologist.

The United States: “A solid, long-lasting marriage has become so exquisitely rare that it’s become interesting again.”​—McCall’s magazine.

Some take such a negative view of marriage that one American observer said, not altogether in jest: “Perhaps the wedding license should read: WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT MARRIAGE IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.”

Huge Increase in Divorce

Within the past decade there has been a huge increase in divorce. In Australia divorces quadrupled in a decade. “Couples are breaking up like icebergs in a summer sea. . . . Something very profound seems to be shaking our traditional concepts of marriage,” says Australia’s Women’s Weekly.

In Canada the divorce rate multiplied five times in 10 years, notes Maclean’s magazine. Sweden’s divorce rate doubled in the same time. Japan has had an increase for 14 consecutive years. In Rhodesia one marriage in three now ends in divorce.

In Britain, London’s Sunday Telegraph said:

“No society that cherishes the family can afford to be anything less than appalled by the latest statistics on divorce. . . . Britain now has one of the highest rates of divorce in the world: almost one to every two weddings.

“At this rate there will soon be as many broken homes as unbroken; as many children from broken homes as children from unbroken ones; and as many deserted wives as undeserted.”

No form of political belief is immune from this trend. Divorce takes place at about the same rate in the Soviet Union as in the United States. The magazine Soviet Life admits: “On the average every third marriage is dissolved officially. Compared to past decades, the number has grown.”

In the United States the rate is the same: one in three marriages ends in divorce. And now this includes a steadily increasing number of older couples who had been married 20 years or more. True, many who divorce remarry. But nearly half divorce again!

Nor are this world’s religions immune to the trend. Even among Jewish marriages, where family tradition once was very strong, a breakdown is taking place. At a council of 1,000 Orthodox rabbis meeting to discuss the subject “American Jewish Family Life​—Crisis and Breakdown,” it was acknowledged that four out of 10 Jewish marriages dissolve.

Another Trend

There is another trend that has serious implications for the marriage arrangement. More and more people are choosing to live together without getting legally married. They do not want to commit themselves, but want to be free to break off the relationship whenever they desire.

Of course, the idea of people living together without legal marriage is not new. In various lands it has long been the practice among some. What is new is the enormous increase in the number of people living this way, and how widely accepted the practice is becoming. In particular, the trend is growing rapidly among young adults. But it is not confined to them. More older persons are doing the same thing.

In one South American nation an estimated 40 to 50 percent of couples now live together without marriage. In the United States the number of unrelated men and women sharing households in 1977 rose to about 1,500,000, compared to about 650,000 in 1970.

In one African country, an apartment-house manager said: “I really do not understand what has happened among the younger people. In this block of flats there is so much exchanging of partners without benefit of marriage that I never know for certain who will come this month to pay the rent.”

Why Many Shun Marriage

One reason why some are choosing not to marry is the poor example of their own parents’ marriage. It often has proved to be emotionally damaging to children to have lived in homes where mothers and fathers were ‘at each other’s throat.’

Nor is that merely a figure of speech. In one survey, a quarter of the wives seeking divorce gave physical abuse by the husband as the reason. Sociologist Richard Gelles of the University of Rhode Island found that more than half the married couples he interviewed had used violence against each other. Authorities say that wife beating is the “most unreported crime.” And now there is also a significant number of husbands who are injured by their wives!

An additional bad result from marriage troubles is the damage that may come to unborn children. Dr. Dennis Stott, a psychologist in Canada, says that the stress of an unhappy marriage can cause pregnant women to give birth to twice as many physically and emotionally handicapped children as do mothers who are relatively free from marital stress.

Thus, the Awake! correspondent in Spain comments:

“Many young people are terrified today of the possibility of making a mistake that will last a lifetime. Quite a few are still traumatized because of the unhappy marriages of their own parents, the results of which they suffered for long and painful years. They are not willing to have their possible children become the same kind of unfortunate wretches they were.”

So we cannot avoid the harsh reality of what is happening to marriage world wide. It is not a pretty picture. It is causing much heartache and damage, both to the marriage mates and to their children who will be tomorrow’s potential mothers and fathers.

Why is all of this happening now? How can those who want marital happiness get it? Or, is it possible that the marriage arrangement itself is at fault?