Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucsfcgl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!arnold From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Name Changes ("traditions that have evolved" disappearing) Message-ID: <660@ucsfcgl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 21:32:02 EDT Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.660 Posted: Tue Oct 1 21:32:02 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 3-Oct-85 06:08:32 EDT References: <5211@elsie.UUCP> <11302@rochester.UUCP> Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold) Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab Lines: 54 >> = Me > = Ray Frank >> Well, let's be a little more real, here. The average length of a >> marriage around 100 years ago was approximately the same as it is now. >> For a person to be married two or three times was considered normal. >> However, ends of marriages were usually by death, not divorce. The >> institution of marriage evolved in a situation where "till death do us >> part" was not so long a thing. Whether people can, in general, >> maintain a marriage over 50 to 75 years has yet to be seen, but the >> institution must and will, at least, change to adapt to longer lives. >> So perhaps the "unhealthy" divorce rate is quite normal and healthy for >> the population. > >The divorce rate of people married 7 years or less is statistically >much high now than at any time in the past. What are you talking >about when you mention 50 or 75 year marriages? Staying married for >20, 30, 40 years, etc probably is a feat of great accomplishment, but >is staying married for greater than 7 years considered a great >accomplishment? The divorce rate is higher now than in the past. No >qualification of this fact is necessary. The divorce rate is not >higher as you imply because people are living longer, this is absurd. Is a 7 year marriage a great accomplishment? I don't know. I suppose it depends on the people. But what the point you seems to have overlooked or misread in my letter is that people, particularly women, died young in older days. For them, a 7 year marriage generally meant that a women had survived, say, 3 to 7 pregnancies. This was not extremely rare, but neither was it unusual to die in childbirth. Add in all the other then-common causes of death, and you'll find that, for both of a couple to live for seven years after a marriage was only somewhat better than 50/50 proposition. So what has happened, in general, is that the divorce rate has increased, and the death rate has declined, and the affect on longevity of any single marriage has about evened out. What this could indicate is that it is not reasonable to expect the average marriage to last any longer than it does today. It's just that now one can get out of a marriage without waiting for some natural event to kill off your spouse. Again, the institution of marriage that you wish to hold to evolved when mortality made most marriages short. When normal mortality makes a marriage at 25 likely to last 50 years, not less than 10, one cannot expect the institution to stand still. It must adapt to this changing situation. Another thing to learn is that the problem of sundering marriages and step-parents is essentially as bad today as it used to be in the good old days when divorce was nearly unheard of. It's just that now children have to deal with the trauma of parental divorce, and before they had to deal with parental death. Ken Arnold Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com