A while ago, I have a conversation with an acquaintance about a couple we both knew. When I mentioned off-hand they recently celebrated their fifteenth anniversary together, my acquaintance interjected that it was “really admirable” that they stayed together that long. Really, society? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad when couples stay together and that should be celebrated, but should we give everyone a cookie just for staying together fifteen years?
Looking at the signs of marriage in our culture, the fifty percent divorce rate (and as Jonathan V. Last notes in What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, there many long-term relationships that don’t work out in addition to divorces), marriage and relationships are despaired over. Yes, society, marriage is hard, but so is any job that takes hard work. We have come to accept a high divorce rate as a social ill that we can’t do anything about. Given the role that marriage can play in reducing poverty in this country, a lower divorce rate is worth fitting for.
Society should have as its goal a 5-10% divorce rate. I know that sounds impossible now, but we need to set goals high; this is America, after all. A 5-10% divorce wouldn’t be reachable in five or ten years, but it could be over fifty or even a hundred years. If in ten years, America could have divorce rate that is 5-10% lower than it is now, that’s a starting point.
How would it start? It would start with couples whose marriages can be saved being saved, and couple who want to get married getting married. I know those things sound generic, but this process has to start with realistic goals, such as just saying that marriage doesn’t have to be a bad thing and that divorce is not a great thing. Divorce may be necessary sometimes (such as abusive situations), but do we want to live in a society where bonds are so easily broken?
All my life, I have been couples who married when they were young and stayed married, many of them now at St. John. Yes, there are some divorced individuals and single parents, and I learn a lot from them too. But my greatest source of strength comes from the people who stay together. I may not marry, but if I do, I know surrounding myself and my wife with people who stay married will be an important goal. Besides, who wants to go to the work of getting a divorce?
