3 ms·

If your marriage has a 94% chance of ending in divorce, it hardly makes sense to get married. Unless, of course, it's socially unacceptable to simply live toget

If your marriage has a 94% chance of ending in divorce, it hardly makes sense to get married. Unless, of course, it's socially unacceptable to simply live together, so marriage is the only practical way to do so.

sgt 4y ago
That, or it's easy to get married accidentally in Portugal. Strange countries out there.
- hoten 4y ago
  Or easy to accidentally get divorced :P Any wild places where you must re-new or a marriage expires?
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    There was a sci-fi show in the 90s called "Earth 2" where this was the norm: marriages normally lasted only 5 years. It actually sounds like a good idea to me. It was brought up because one foolhardy couple in the group of characters got married, and decided to have a lifelong marriage instead of the standard 5-year term.
- olliej 4y ago
  I do recall NZ passing a law a few decades back - trying to make it so that gay couples could get marriage benefits while religious bigots continued to fight the idea of gay people having any legally recognized marriage, and essentially produced what I think America calls “common law marriage”? (Very much an “I think” issue here). But the wording of the law meant if you had the same flat/housemate for more than a couple of years they could claim half your property \o/
causi 4y ago
In most countries there are significant financial reasons to get married.
hwillis 4y ago
That's not what this statistic is. Instead it is the rate of new divorces to new marriages: https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/numero+de+divorcios+por+100+casamentos-531 https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/numero+de+divorcios+por+100+... Which is down from the peak and is an obvious inverse of the marriage rate: https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/taxa+de+nupcialidade-530 https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/taxa+de+nupcialidade-530 which is at an all-time low. The number of divorces has bee decreasing for 24 years: https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/divorcios-323 https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/divorcios-323 And the only thing this 94% statistic represents is the decrease in marriages.
toast0 4y ago
We need much more than a single reported percentage to say if it's worthwhile or not. (Especially if it's just a ratio of divorce and marriage rates, not a ratio of marriages ending in divorce and marriages ending by all causes) I'm not familiar with Portugal, but in the US, marriage confers many benefits; and if you were expecting divorce as a 94% divorce rate suggests you should, you might avoid entangling finances and be careful about how real estate holdings were set up so that the divorce could be easy and simple too. US benefits include different income tax treatment (sometimes better, sometimes worse), unlimited estate and gift tax exemption, greatly eased hospital visitation and other administrative benefits, somewhat shared access to government old age benefits (social security/medicare), etc. Assuming the divorce is simple and low drama, it's definitely worthwhile to be married for a long term commited relationship, if long term is at least 10+ years beyond the commencement of marriage. If the divorce is messy and expensive, then yeah, it's a waste.

sgt 4y ago

That, or it's easy to get married accidentally in Portugal. Strange countries out there.

hoten 4y ago
Or easy to accidentally get divorced :P Any wild places where you must re-new or a marriage expires?
- midoridensha 3y ago
  There was a sci-fi show in the 90s called "Earth 2" where this was the norm: marriages normally lasted only 5 years. It actually sounds like a good idea to me. It was brought up because one foolhardy couple in the group of characters got married, and decided to have a lifelong marriage instead of the standard 5-year term.
olliej 4y ago
I do recall NZ passing a law a few decades back - trying to make it so that gay couples could get marriage benefits while religious bigots continued to fight the idea of gay people having any legally recognized marriage, and essentially produced what I think America calls “common law marriage”? (Very much an “I think” issue here). But the wording of the law meant if you had the same flat/housemate for more than a couple of years they could claim half your property \o/

causi 4y ago

In most countries there are significant financial reasons to get married.

hwillis 4y ago

That's not what this statistic is. Instead it is the rate of new divorces to new marriages: https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/numero+de+divorcios+por+100+casamentos-531 https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/numero+de+divorcios+por+100+... Which is down from the peak and is an obvious inverse of the marriage rate: https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/taxa+de+nupcialidade-530 https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/taxa+de+nupcialidade-530 which is at an all-time low. The number of divorces has bee decreasing for 24 years: https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/divorcios-323 https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/divorcios-323 And the only thing this 94% statistic represents is the decrease in marriages.

toast0 4y ago

We need much more than a single reported percentage to say if it's worthwhile or not. (Especially if it's just a ratio of divorce and marriage rates, not a ratio of marriages ending in divorce and marriages ending by all causes) I'm not familiar with Portugal, but in the US, marriage confers many benefits; and if you were expecting divorce as a 94% divorce rate suggests you should, you might avoid entangling finances and be careful about how real estate holdings were set up so that the divorce could be easy and simple too. US benefits include different income tax treatment (sometimes better, sometimes worse), unlimited estate and gift tax exemption, greatly eased hospital visitation and other administrative benefits, somewhat shared access to government old age benefits (social security/medicare), etc. Assuming the divorce is simple and low drama, it's definitely worthwhile to be married for a long term commited relationship, if long term is at least 10+ years beyond the commencement of marriage. If the divorce is messy and expensive, then yeah, it's a waste.