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Don't automatically assume the couples who divorce in this age would have been in a happy marriage in the past. I've been in both ages. As a kid, in a small vi

by Lutger 3y ago

Don't automatically assume the couples who divorce in this age would have been in a happy marriage in the past. I've been in both ages. As a kid, in a small village, nobody got divorced. Really, it was just not done, the concept was alien to them. We came from the city, my parents were divorced, and I had to explain it as other kids would literally not grok the idea. There was a lot of pain, abuse and unhappiness in those marriages. Years later something happened in that village and a lot of women claimed their rights: it rained divorces, often very long marriages that fell apart. A lot of these former wives banded together in self-help groups to encourage each other and process their sometimes traumatic marriages. A divorce itself is never fun I guess, but it isn't automatically a negative and the outcome can be vastly superior to staying together. You may say: but what about all those divorces? I tend to assume those would have been unhappy marriages in the past, at least they have a new chance at life. So yes, what about them? Good they have ended their misery.

x86_64Ubuntu 3y ago
It seems like you are stating that women of the past were secretly unhappy, so the modern divorce rate is the system hitting it's relaxed state. That's a confusing way to support the way things are.
- kouru225 3y ago
  Both men and women were unhappy tbh
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > It seems like you are stating that women of the past were secretly unhappy, There's nothing secret or exclusive to women about it, much of our culture still reflects that it was widely recognized, including things like the wide variety of derogatory names for spouses (“ball and chain”, for instance.)
- Lutger 3y ago
  I'm not sure I'm supporting the way things are, so I don't know exactly what is confusing. The comment I responded to has a fairly big assumption: that divorce is always a bad thing. I don't think that is a given. People used to be quite stuck in the family or marriage system. Even when faced with violence and sexual abuse, there was often no way out. I've seen heartbreaking examples of this. Though the tightness of past bonds may feel attractive in this era of fleeting connections, it was often not quite as cosy as what we long for. The freedom to move out of these traps was and is liberating for many. And yes, there is a cost to that freedom as well of course. I don't want to support anything, I just put a nuance here against a naive kind of nostalgia.
  - caeril 3y ago
    > Even when faced with violence and sexual abuse This style of concern trolling drives me up the fucking wall, given what we know about abuse statistics. Step-fathers and live-in boyfriends are several times more likely to commit sexual or physical abuse on the mother's children than biological fathers. [1][2] If biodad is actually abusing the children, then yes, by all means, get out. But if you're leaving a non-abusive dad in order to "find yourself", or because you're "just not happy", you are, statistically speaking, endangering your children, unless you accept a lifetime vow of celibacy. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845296/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845296/ [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077559501006004001 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077559501006004001
    - Avshalom 3y ago
      >If biodad is actually abusing the children, then yes, by all means, get out. well kinda the point is that in the past you couldn't.
    - petronio 3y ago
      It didn't read to me as if the parent was talking about the abuse being done to the children but to the partner themselves, something that is far more common.
    - jrace 3y ago
      Do you think in a culture that does not allow for divorce that people would be accurately reporting abuse? And how does one "get out" when that is not an option?
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      > This style of concern trolling drives me up the fraking wall, It shouldn't because it isn't. > given what we know about abuse statistics. If marriages are safer for female spouses, I suggest it's because marriages have to compete with other relationships. In my parents day (silent gen), marriage had little competition and were commonly a safe environment for abusers. I personally witnessed mom in traction & my brothers broken. Most of her relatives/friends were mistreated by their husbands (possibly all but not everyone confided). Similar stores could be said by the children of that generation. And, my observations were far from unique. Family abuse was everywhere (victims confide in victims). For my cousins' generation, many things are improved. eg:Their understanding of abuse. eg:The meaningful expectation for men to not mistreat their loved ones. eg:The expectation for men to support all obligations in a household (not just the ones they want). Meanwhile, if we are more vocal about More Marriages than we are about better marriages, I suggest we have lost our way.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
It really depends. a not super happy marriage also isn't automatically abusive and dysfunctional marriage either. You can probabbly think of your best and worst roomate but what about the most middle of the road? One you barely interacted with but seemed to get along with the few times you spoke. Never had problems with rent and would do their part (but not perfectly, they'd do chores if asked once). It's safe, secure, and boring. Not happily ever after, but you get by. I think these are the kinds of relationships that break down more in an age where "meh" isn't good enough anymore. Why not strive for the best if there's no pressure disengage?
- lazide 3y ago
  When no fault divorces were legalized in California, the female suicide rate dropped about 20% - and stayed that way. [https://www.nber.org/digest/mar04/divorce-laws-and-family-violence https://www.nber.org/digest/mar04/divorce-laws-and-family-vi...]
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    okay? A 20% floor for abusive marriages is honesty more optimistic than I expected.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      That number doesn't lead precisely to your conclusion, it can be higher or lower. Current US stats are 14.04/100k, with men 3.9x more likely than women. As the following example doesn't depend on the actual numbers, let's eyeball that and imprecisely say the married women's suicide rate was 5/100k before and 4/100k after: this is a 20% reduction, but I don't even need to look up marriage rates for it to be clear that nowhere near 20% of all marriages end in suicide. In the other direction, suicide isn't and never was the only was out of abusive relationships. It's a desperate path for very extreme situations, and the divorce rate being much higher than 20% means there may be a correspondingly higher abuse rate.
      - 3y ago
Aerbil313 3y ago
Islam really solved the problem here. It strongly encourages (to the point it happens to be a tradition) marriage after puberty is reached, while disencouraging divorces. The newly-married spouses generally stay in one of their parent's houses until the husband has a job and and able to provide for her wife. The wife and husband essentially grow together, their characters form simultaneously, reflecting each other not really unlike a sister and brother. Islam also allows the husband to divorce as per his will but doesn't allow it for the wife, the wife needs to go to a judge and show evidence of unagreement (unwillingness of her husband to treat her reasonably well) between the spouses. If women were allowed to divorce willy-nilly, as they are generally emotionally less stable, they would lead to divorces in a rough patch of life which are regretted soon after, just like it is usually seen in the modern society. The husband has 3 rights to divorce, when he uses one of them, it's a reversable divorce. If all 3 of them are used the husband can't remarry his wife until the wife marries and divorces another man. All these together successfully lead to people not divorcing unless it's really necessary. One can look up SWB (subjective wellbeing) rates of women and men in non-muslim and traditional muslim countries.
- hyperliner 3y ago
  It’s the 21st century now. We can drop the “women are generally emotionally less stable” pseudoargument that allows men to own women as if they were property.

by Lutger 3y ago

x86_64Ubuntu 3y ago

It seems like you are stating that women of the past were secretly unhappy, so the modern divorce rate is the system hitting it's relaxed state. That's a confusing way to support the way things are.

kouru225 3y ago
Both men and women were unhappy tbh
dragonwriter 3y ago
> It seems like you are stating that women of the past were secretly unhappy, There's nothing secret or exclusive to women about it, much of our culture still reflects that it was widely recognized, including things like the wide variety of derogatory names for spouses (“ball and chain”, for instance.)
Lutger 3y ago
I'm not sure I'm supporting the way things are, so I don't know exactly what is confusing. The comment I responded to has a fairly big assumption: that divorce is always a bad thing. I don't think that is a given. People used to be quite stuck in the family or marriage system. Even when faced with violence and sexual abuse, there was often no way out. I've seen heartbreaking examples of this. Though the tightness of past bonds may feel attractive in this era of fleeting connections, it was often not quite as cosy as what we long for. The freedom to move out of these traps was and is liberating for many. And yes, there is a cost to that freedom as well of course. I don't want to support anything, I just put a nuance here against a naive kind of nostalgia.
- caeril 3y ago
  > Even when faced with violence and sexual abuse This style of concern trolling drives me up the fucking wall, given what we know about abuse statistics. Step-fathers and live-in boyfriends are several times more likely to commit sexual or physical abuse on the mother's children than biological fathers. [1][2] If biodad is actually abusing the children, then yes, by all means, get out. But if you're leaving a non-abusive dad in order to "find yourself", or because you're "just not happy", you are, statistically speaking, endangering your children, unless you accept a lifetime vow of celibacy. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845296/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845296/ [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077559501006004001 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077559501006004001
  - Avshalom 3y ago
    >If biodad is actually abusing the children, then yes, by all means, get out. well kinda the point is that in the past you couldn't.
  - petronio 3y ago
    It didn't read to me as if the parent was talking about the abuse being done to the children but to the partner themselves, something that is far more common.
  - jrace 3y ago
    Do you think in a culture that does not allow for divorce that people would be accurately reporting abuse? And how does one "get out" when that is not an option?
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    > This style of concern trolling drives me up the fraking wall, It shouldn't because it isn't. > given what we know about abuse statistics. If marriages are safer for female spouses, I suggest it's because marriages have to compete with other relationships. In my parents day (silent gen), marriage had little competition and were commonly a safe environment for abusers. I personally witnessed mom in traction & my brothers broken. Most of her relatives/friends were mistreated by their husbands (possibly all but not everyone confided). Similar stores could be said by the children of that generation. And, my observations were far from unique. Family abuse was everywhere (victims confide in victims). For my cousins' generation, many things are improved. eg:Their understanding of abuse. eg:The meaningful expectation for men to not mistreat their loved ones. eg:The expectation for men to support all obligations in a household (not just the ones they want). Meanwhile, if we are more vocal about More Marriages than we are about better marriages, I suggest we have lost our way.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

It really depends. a not super happy marriage also isn't automatically abusive and dysfunctional marriage either. You can probabbly think of your best and worst roomate but what about the most middle of the road? One you barely interacted with but seemed to get along with the few times you spoke. Never had problems with rent and would do their part (but not perfectly, they'd do chores if asked once). It's safe, secure, and boring. Not happily ever after, but you get by. I think these are the kinds of relationships that break down more in an age where "meh" isn't good enough anymore. Why not strive for the best if there's no pressure disengage?

lazide 3y ago
When no fault divorces were legalized in California, the female suicide rate dropped about 20% - and stayed that way. [https://www.nber.org/digest/mar04/divorce-laws-and-family-violence https://www.nber.org/digest/mar04/divorce-laws-and-family-vi...]
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  okay? A 20% floor for abusive marriages is honesty more optimistic than I expected.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    That number doesn't lead precisely to your conclusion, it can be higher or lower. Current US stats are 14.04/100k, with men 3.9x more likely than women. As the following example doesn't depend on the actual numbers, let's eyeball that and imprecisely say the married women's suicide rate was 5/100k before and 4/100k after: this is a 20% reduction, but I don't even need to look up marriage rates for it to be clear that nowhere near 20% of all marriages end in suicide. In the other direction, suicide isn't and never was the only was out of abusive relationships. It's a desperate path for very extreme situations, and the divorce rate being much higher than 20% means there may be a correspondingly higher abuse rate.
    - 3y ago

Aerbil313 3y ago

Islam really solved the problem here. It strongly encourages (to the point it happens to be a tradition) marriage after puberty is reached, while disencouraging divorces. The newly-married spouses generally stay in one of their parent's houses until the husband has a job and and able to provide for her wife. The wife and husband essentially grow together, their characters form simultaneously, reflecting each other not really unlike a sister and brother. Islam also allows the husband to divorce as per his will but doesn't allow it for the wife, the wife needs to go to a judge and show evidence of unagreement (unwillingness of her husband to treat her reasonably well) between the spouses. If women were allowed to divorce willy-nilly, as they are generally emotionally less stable, they would lead to divorces in a rough patch of life which are regretted soon after, just like it is usually seen in the modern society. The husband has 3 rights to divorce, when he uses one of them, it's a reversable divorce. If all 3 of them are used the husband can't remarry his wife until the wife marries and divorces another man. All these together successfully lead to people not divorcing unless it's really necessary. One can look up SWB (subjective wellbeing) rates of women and men in non-muslim and traditional muslim countries.

hyperliner 3y ago
It’s the 21st century now. We can drop the “women are generally emotionally less stable” pseudoargument that allows men to own women as if they were property.