Main Ingredients for High Divorce Rates in the West

Major Western countries like the United Kingdom, United States of America and Canada have been experiencing an increase in their national divorce rates. Except for a few exceptions, almost a majority of the European nations have become prone to witnessing increased divorce rates. Asia and Africa, except for a few countries like Japan and Korea were not in the same league as the Western nations, in respect of increases in their national divorce rates.

In many societies, the social condition of its women determines the degree of familial ties and bonding within the family. For the disease of divorce, the figures arrayed by the various international agencies have shown that the concept of Women’s Liberation so vocally and passionately espoused in the yesteryears, has gone beyond its intended brief.

Breaking male hegemony, increased financial independence, equality in the gender roles are all fine goals, but increasing intolerance and the inability to effectively integrate oneself into the family unit are on the increase. The new found power has gone to the head. Women are initiating the divorce with a vengeance. 69% of all divorce cases were initiated by women in 2004. Of these, 52% cited bad male behaviour as the root cause for seeking divorce! Where is the family headed, without the becalming effect of a wife or mother?

History has repeatedly played out the collapse of nation states, due to the selfish and unfettered individualistic ambitions of individual satraps. Within the citadel of a family, giving free expression to individualism is a positive quality, provided it does not endanger the fortification itself. Priority to family needs over individual needs has always been the social norm. However, the present day social thought does not disapprove the focussed quest for personal satisfaction, even if it drives a nail into the coffin of an institution, like marriage. ‘I, me and myself, come first!’

There was a time when, divorce was an unspeakable word and the church vows attained finality when death parted the couple. Divorce showered social ostracism onto the couple. The shame and stigma of it lasted a lifetime and was highlighted as a blot in the otherwise distinguished history of the family. Honour, social mores … all that was a long time ago. Consequent to the advent of easy divorce laws in the 1970s, it appears as if an ad campaign extolling divorce has been let loose among the populace.

No-fault divorce laws, easy divorce proceedings, almost pre-set favourable outcomes for child custody and alimony and a battery of advisors and agencies to help in going through with the divorce process. Why would anyone baulk at the prospect of divorce? Divorce proceedings are beginning to resemble an afternoon jaunt in the neighbourhood park. Easy come and easy go, even if the mess is of your doing!

‘Once bitten, twice shy’ is an inappropriate adage to describe the restraining power of a divorce, to prevent a recurrence. However, statistics have necessarily shown that there are second-time divorces and umpteenth-time divorces, too (Remember Joan Collins?). It seems that people just don’t want to learn from their mistakes, or are marriages meant for the heck of it? A couple of years down the line, after the divorce, the wedding bells toll to a new lease of married life for the divorced spouse. Thus remarriage breathes life into an after-life after divorce. Now you can walk into or out of marriage, at will!

What has the all-pervading society done about this slowly festering sore? Accept it and learn to live with it or dress it up and hope that it will heal on its own? The widespread social acceptance that it is best to terminate an incompatible relationship rather than to work on solving the problem, has almost established divorce as the only plausible solution to the ills of marriage. The fact, that rampant divorce has taken roots in the soil of society, has inured a broad spectrum of society from reacting to this negative event and thereby allowed the rot to progress.

Seeing the contribution of each of these factors to the mushrooming of divorce and the crumbling of marriage, the day is not far off when the act of marriage would be like changing your clothes!