A friend of my wife called to invite my wife for a wedding shower. I picked up the phone Was I surprised? No, not so much. But when I was passing the news to my wife I remembered that their older daughter was married already less than a year ago. She was 20. "She is already divorced"- noted my wife. Now I was surprised. I thought that those religious family oriented conservatives stick together. Was I wrong? Since I am a type that likes to make my own opinions I went on to look at the statistics. I was always intrigued by overall high divorce rate in the USA but I never looked at why it is so.
Here are the facts:
• Divorce among conservative religious couples is significantly higher than among non-believers.
• Divorce in the northeastern states (where liberals live) is much lower than elsewhere.
• The divorce amount young people in twenties happens 4-5 times higher than for those in thirties.
Who wants to marry when one is 20? Some do! Or do they? The weddings and divorce of the daughters of our friends explain a lot. They are southern religious conservatives. They are very nice people deeply devoted to their creed. They are friendly, educated middle class family. Their children are very gifted and study well. And their daughters are very good looking and inexperienced.
When young liberals reach the age of adulthood and they have the urge to merge - they simply do. After pre-honeymoon of living together they either part or formalize their relationship to go on the honeymoon. Not so for the young people from conservative families. Young religious conservatives need a 'license' to sleep together. That is a tradition. But romantic kisses under starlight and walk on the beach is not the same as living together every day. They do not even know that one of them snores! What else they do not know about each other? They marry to have sex legally and to change a partner they have to divorce and marry again. That practice certainly keeps priests and lawyers happy. But does it make sense? People test drive cars before we buy, we try on cloth and shoes before we buy. Why do some people still marry in reverse order? Beats me!
Since homosexual couples are still fighting for their right to be legally married in many states we do not have statistics on divorce amount them. But I am willing to bet that it will be lower than amount heterosexuals. First of all they do not have to marry. They do not have social pressure. If they choose to marry they are likely to stay together as they probably do already live together. To bad they don't make children... But neither do many heterosexual couples.
About the author.
Pavel Agafonov is a social commentator, freelance writer and entrepreneur. He divides his time between Europe and South America with occasional stop in Miami Fl.