How many marriage are natural nowadays?

[figur]

Just speaking as a feminist atheist, who is engaged to a man with similar leanings...we value marriage because it is a way to formalize our desire to become family and life partners. If one of us in the hospital, then the other has particular rights of visitation and decision making. It's also a way to say to ourselves and those around us that we view ourselves as a unit until the day one of us dies. Of course you can do that without marriage, but right now it's the easiest way.

 

Also, this idea the OP posits of "natural marriages" seems off to me. It's not like back in the day all marriages were based on love. That's actually very much NOT the case. We have more knowledge and choices today, both men and women, about how we can live our lives with or without a partner. That's an amazing thing. So I do think the idea of "traditional marriage" will shift. But marriage as a whole won't be going anywhere.

 

And by the way, the notion that most US marriages ends in divorce is false, and the whole thing is very much divided by class: link removed

[Lonewing]

I would be very careful with the analysis gleaned through that article...the divorce rate is lower, yes, but the marriage rate is itself also lower.

 

Marriages seem to be ripest for divorce at the 19-25 year mark after the kids have graduated high school, so I would not put any stock in these statistics until after the kids have all gone off to college.

 

Nobody PLANS on getting a Divorce - I dare say many of them come out of the blue, "Surprise - I've been having an affair!" or "Surprise! I have a deviant behavior you Cannot Stand!" or "Surprise! I need to go find myself!"

 

And then it's divorce.

[Circe]

Stability only seems like a core value.

Instead, it is a residual benefit of the hard work you put into finding the spouse who was made just for you.

 

Oh I agree with that sentiment. I think stability is the core value from a societal point of view - from an INDIVIDUAL point of view however.. well I guess that depends on the individual.. but this individual would say it's the satisfaction, reward, happiness, contentment, joy etc you get from contributing to a joint, intertwined life with someone you admire, love and respect and hopefully.. if your cake has icing.. think the world of.

 

I think if you have a good marriage (and I don't mean one that never goes through downs - just overall, one that you're very happy in) .. what you get out of it is really a far more romantic thing linked to love, joy and happiness.. rather than the more clinical sounding thing of stability or financial advantage.

[figur]

I would be very careful with the analysis gleaned through that article...the divorce rate is lower, yes, but the marriage rate is itself also lower.

 

Marriages seem to be ripest for divorce at the 19-25 year mark after the kids have graduated high school, so I would not put any stock in these statistics until after the kids have all gone off to college.

 

Nobody PLANS on getting a Divorce - I dare say many of them come out of the blue, "Surprise - I've been having an affair!" or "Surprise! I have a deviant behavior you Cannot Stand!" or "Surprise! I need to go find myself!"

 

And then it's divorce.

 

Just because the marriage rate is lower doesn't mean that marriage is going away. Trends seem to be that people are waiting longer to marry because they are establishing themselves beforehand, at least moreso than people did a few decades ago when getting married right out of high school or college was the norm.

 

Plus, our cultural experience of divorce has been defined by those who married 1970s, because it became more acceptable to divorce from an unhappy marriage. It's not like divorce is necessarily the "natural progression" of a marriage...it just finally became okay to do so when the couple shouldn't have married anyway.

 

So, hopefully, if people wait and thoughtfully decide to get married, their marriage will be successful, and cut down the "surprise!"

[Lonewing]

The thing is, we aren't going to know how successful our late term marriages are for another ten or twenty years when they have hit their second decade or marriage. You are correct, our experience right now is being defined by those who marred in the 1970s - or more directly, from those married in the 1980s and 1990s. The year 2000 was 15 years ago!

 

From what I see, marriages mature after 19-25 years, whereas at that point many people cash in and get out. I wouldn't even consider 30 years to be "successful, because even here there have been surprises. The only "Successful" Marriage is till Death, and that means another 50-70 years in the future for Us living right now.

 

"Surprise" isn't going away any time soon.

 

link removed

 

[Found this in looking for the average length of a marriage, and for the US it's about 8 years.]