Divorce

[Nurvingiel]

Brownie, I really enjoyed your post. I'm so glad that everything worked out for you guys.

Let's see... my parents have been married for 26 years. Of my close friends from high school, all their parents are divorced. Of my close friends from university, none of their parents are divorced. Something in the water in my hometown, maybe? None of my grandparents were divorced, but my aunt and uncle are both divorced.

I'm very fond of my aunt's ex, and they are still friends and respect each other a great deal. I'm also quite fond of my uncle's ex, but they did not divorce very amicably so I haven't seen her in years.

My finance won't get divorced either, don't worry.

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Why don't we just leave the aesthetics of grammar and posting and bickering for something else?

And if ANYONE continues this this kind of hissy fit, I will personally humiliate them in the Teacup. Just to spite.

How's that?

Now...let's get on with divorce!

Hey, no humiliating people in the Teacup, that's not what it's for.

[Lief Erikson]

Jonathan and Sane, this post is a partial response to your posts as well as a response to BJ's. I'll try to give you a more in-depth and specific response later, though.
[QUOTE=brownjenkins]When dropping a relationship is an option, staying together is even more of an acheivement.
I don't have interest in marriage as an "achievement". I don't care if I would look cooler to other people or feel cooler in myself, for having had a long relationship. If a long relationship is about achievement, it's about ego, and to me that's worthless. Much more important is that a sincere, deep, loving and constant relationship exist.

With marriage, if my wife and I had hard times, we'd stick them out together, and if our relationship ran into trouble, the vow and the determination to fix the relationship that must come from the bond being life-long would enhance our likelihood of succeeding in sailing through the rock strewn waters without lose one another in the marital conflict. "Till death to us part," is a more serious relationship than one outside of wedlock.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If the lifelong contract you accepted when you got together as a couple is all that is holding you together, then you don't really have a relationship at all.

Right, but the existence of marriage vows and the nonexistence of the option of splitting create a greater likelihood that the couple will work their way through their differences. If they're together for life, they'll know that they must work their way through their differences. That's why nowadays, you see in Britain a massive deterioration of society, as noted in the article I linked, whereas in Britain's Christian past there was not such a deterioration. This deterioration is modern, not historical, because divorce is modern, and was only very, very rarely implemented in the past.

I'm sure that in the past too there were marriages where the partners despised one another. However, if this was a very large number of marriages, and such families "don't really have a relationship at all," then you'd see the same societal collapse then that you see now.

You don't, though. In fact, families and communities were far more close-nit than they are today. Thus it is apparent that divorce and sexual relationships outside of wedlock are bad for society at large and, according to the evidence I cited, bad for many of the individuals involved in sexual inconstancy as well.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I prefer to think that my wife stays with me because she wants to, not because she is expected to.

I agree.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Divorce was fairly common in the Middle Ages, Lief, as well as operating under completely different rules.

Marriages of all classes of people were arranged by the parents of the couple. Marriages were contracted to join two families together, and no family would leave such important matters to be decided on the emotions of the people involved. Peasant girls could marry as young as 12 and boys as young as 14. Most of the time though, girls married around 17 or 18 and boys in their late 20's or 30's. The groom was almost always much older than his bride. The prospective bride and groom would probably have already met and known each other for some time as peasants tended to live in or close to the same village their whole lives.

The couple were married in a simple ceremony unlike the elaborate marriage ceremonies today. The actual ceremony differed from place to place. In the early part of the Middle Ages, the Church was not very involved in the marriage ceremony and it was usually conducted at home with several witnesses present. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the Church became more and more involved in the marriage ceremony and by the end of the period, a Christian marriage ceremony almost always accompanied a wedding.

Once the wedding was over, married life began. It was undoubtedly awkward for both the husband and the wife for a time until they got to know each other better. Mutual friendship and respect eventually developed among most married people and sometimes the partners also grew to love each other.

The man was the head of the household in the Middle Ages and the wife was legally his property. A man was allowed and even expected to beat his wife, as long as she lived through the experience. Husbands had complete control over all of their wife's belongings and any other property that was owned by the family. The husband had the final say in all matters. However, many husbands asked for and heeded the advice of their wives.

Husbands were allowed to divorce their wives for many reasons, the most popular being adultery. Wives, on the other hand, could not divorce their husbands. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, this changed slightly, and wives were allowed to divorce husbands convicted of certain crimes or away on a long campaign of warfare. In the peasant class, where everyone knew everyone else, adultery and divorce were less common then in the upper classes where the husband was often gone for long periods of time.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/...dailylife.html

The historian, R.H.
Helmholz, confirms my observation that divorce records are virtually
non-existent for upper class English families in the medieval period.
However, he states they are available for lower class individuals.

Here is his explanation of why there are no divorce records available
for upper class families:

"The absence of litigants of the upper classes is also worthy of note.
It is fairly certain that the cases where the record gives no
occupation for the parties did not involve people of higher standing.
We can infer this because when they did appear, their status was
specifically identified. Their title was given, they were
specifically styled dominus, or the fact of their lordship of a manor
was recorded. Several examples appears in the Cause papers at York.
In fact, the York records and the thirteenth-century Canterbury sede
vacante material produce almost all the litigants of the upper classes
that we have. In other dioceses, few or no persons of any rank
appear. This may seem strange. We usually think it was the upper
classes which made most liberal use of marriage law, especially in
suits for divorce. The most likely explanation for their absence from
our records is that the gentry and nobility usually brought their
disputes directly to the bishop, to be heard by him in person or in
his court of audience … Also there is reference to marriage cases
involving upper class families in most Episcopal registers. This
again suggests that these people went directly to the bishop. Perhaps
greater privacy was thus available." [Reference: R.H. Helmholz,
Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (1974): 160-161].

If I read Mr. Helmholz' notes correctly, he found just nine cases of
divorce for gentry, knightly, and noble families in the large body of
ecclesiastical records he surveyed for his book. The body of records
he consulted extends over several centuries. Among the nine cases he
mentions in his notes is the divorce of King Edward IV's daughter,
Cecily Plantagenet, from her first husband, Ralph Scrope of Upsall,
which he cites in his notes on page 160.

It would appear that the "greater privacy" (as Helmholz calls it)
afforded to English upper class divorce litigants included the
destruction of their divorce records, once their cases were heard and
adjudicated. Andrew MacEwen, the resident expert in all things
Scottish, tells me that there is a similar lack of upper class divorce
records in Scotland as well. The only indication that a divorce
transpired in Scotland among medieval upper class litigants is if one
of the parties subsequently appealed to Rome.
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read...-10/1065025241

A messy divorce circa 1321
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/div...eval_style.htm

DRAFT INDENTURE OF MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT 1454??
This indenture made betwix Anneys that was þe wyfe of William Paston, John Paston hir sone, and John Dam on þe one partie and William Clopton, squyer, on þe other partie witnesseth that accord is take attwyn þe seid parties that John Clopton, sone and heir of þe seid William Clopton be þe grace of God, shall wedde Elizabeth, the doughter of þe seid Anneys. For which mareage the seid Anneys, &c., shall paye to þe seid John Clopton ccccth marc. in hand of lawfull mony of England; and ouer that, yf the seid mareage be holdyn with the seid Anneys, the seid Anneys shall bere þe costages þerof þe day of þe weddyng, with swech chaumbyr as shall be to þe plesir of þe seid Anneys. And þe seid William Clopton shall do his feffees make a lawfull estate to þe seid William of londes, tenementz, rentz, and seruysez to þe yerly value of xl li. [[ouer all chargez b]]orn to haue and hold to hym terme of his lyfe withoutyn enpechement of wast, the remaindre þerof to þe seid John and E[[lizabet]]h and to his heires male [[of]] hir body lawfully begotyn withoute enpechement of wast,


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-41-

withynne xij dayes after þe seid weddyng. And ouer that, withynne þe seid xij dayes the seid John shall do lawfull estate to be made to þe seid William of londes, tenementz, rentz, and seruysez to þe yerly value of xl marc. ouer all charges born, to haue and hold to þe seid William terme of his lyfe without enpechement of wast, the remayndre therof to þe seid Elizabeth to haue and hold to hir terme of hir lyfe withoute enpechement of wast. Also it is accorded that þe seid William shall make estate of all þe residue of his londes which he is sesid of, or any other man to his vse, to swech personys as the seid John shall name to þe vse of the seid John. Also the seid John Clopton shall do lawfull estate to be made to þe seid Elizabeth of londes, tenementz, rentz, and seruysez to þe yerly value of xxx li. ouer all chargez born, to haue and hold to hir duryng þe lyfe of the seid William. And moreouer the seid John promytteth and ensureth be þe feith of his body that he shall leve, ouer the xl li. worth lond aboueseid, to his heires and issue male of þe body of þe seid Elizabeth begotyn, londes in fee symple or in taill to þe yerly value of xl marc. in cas þe same issue male be gouernyd to the seid John as the sone oweth to be to the fadir. And &c. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin...&division=div1

Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society
by Yossef Rapoport
In 15th-century Cairo, three out of every ten marriages ended in divorce. A high rate of divorce is not a modern phenomenon; there are numerous historical examples from Japan, Islamic southeast Asia and the Middle East. This book focuses on the economic, legal and social causes of Muslim divorce in the cities of Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus in the Mamluk period (1250-1517). The prevalence of divorce counters the argument that marriage was the central foundation of pre-modern Muslim society and demonstrates that patriarchal households were not necessarily the norm. Yossef Rapoport examines gender relations in the light of high rates of divorce, at dowries, financial and economic independence of women, working women within and outside of marriage, family structure and legal aspects of marriage and divorce. His study is based on a wide range of legal and literary sources including detailed autobiographical accounts, chronicles and annals. 137p (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization, Cambridge UP 2005

And, of course the average life expectancy was about 30, http://www.channel4.com/history/micr...12/part06.html with a 20% likelihood of dying, every time you gave birth.

hard to believe they even had time to need divorce, and yet, they did.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Divorce was fairly common in the Middle Ages, Lief, as well as operating under completely different rules.

I agree with you that it operated under different rules, but your sources don't say that divorce was fairly common.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Husbands were allowed to divorce their wives for many reasons, the most popular being adultery. Wives, on the other hand, could not divorce their husbands. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, this changed slightly, and wives were allowed to divorce husbands convicted of certain crimes or away on a long campaign of warfare. In the peasant class, where everyone knew everyone else, adultery and divorce were less common then in the upper classes where the husband was often gone for long periods of time.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/...dailylife.html

This says that in the peasant class, divorce was "less common" than in the upper classes. That doesn't mean it was common in either.

I have a great deal of trouble believing this source's claim that men could divorce women for many reasons. It's absolutely contrary to more than one source I've produced in this post . . .

Maybe your source is referring to prior to the seventh century, and mine to after the seventh century. I've heard that there were changes to tighten the marriage and divorce laws in the seventh century.

Whether divorce was possible back then or not, though, it certainly was on nowhere near the scale that it is now, and hence the impact on society wouldn't have been anywhere near as big as it is now. Qualitatively, for children and the couples breaking up, I think it probably would have been just as bad. But it wouldn't have had so great an impact on society as a whole, because its occurence would have been much rarer.

*Goes and researches the issue for three hours.*

Researching this one proved rather tough! Most of the books I have at home on the Middle Ages weren't very helpful. Only one provided any information, probably because there isn't much divorce to talk about, IMO . It was a hard one to find anything on. I've got some sources now, though, as a result of this.

Here's a quote from "A History of Christianity," by Owen Chadwick, page 156.

A vow once made could not be unmade, so divorce was impossible. But in practice, to dissolve a marriage was sometimes the only humane course. Church lawyers often found a way to do this by invoking the ban on marriage within the family. It was not hard to find distant family relationships which might be held to invalidate the wedding and so have the marriage declared null - as Henry VIII later tried to do. But the total ban on divorce had long consequences in the history of the churches.

The quote is describing the Middle Ages. That isn't explicit about this in this segment I quoted, but it is clear from the chapter title, "Western Society in the Middle Ages," and also is indicated by the beginning of the section about marriage in Christianity on page 155.

Here's a quote from a source that by its choice of language and selection of facts seems biased against the church, but which nevertheless helps to confirm what I was saying about divorce.

Originally Posted by learninghaven.com

Divorce was not accepted by church, so maximum marriages were forceful or calculated conjugation.

http://www.learninghaven.com/middle_ages.htm

Here's an additional source confirming my earlier quotation:

Originally Posted by The National Archives of Scotland

The Middle Ages

Matrimonial cases at this period were dealt with by the bishops' courts, presided over by judges known as 'officials' or 'commissaries', with an ultimate right of appeal to the Pope in Rome. However, before the Scottish Reformation in 1560, divorce in its modern sense was virtually unknown. When marriages broke down, the remedies were either annulment or separation:

annulment meant that the marriage was invalid (usually because of an existing spouse or because the parties were too closely related).

separation meant that the parties were not required to live together and behave like husband and wife; in the eyes of the law, however, these people were still technically married.

The NAS has a few of the officials' records for Dunblane, 1551-5, Stirling, 1548-52 and the court of the Official Principal of St Andrews, 1541-53 (CH5/1-5). The decisions of the latter were published as 'Liber Officialis Sancti Andree' (Abbotsford Club, 1845).

http://www.nas.gov.uk/guides/divorce.asp


A total ban on divorce existed, so getting a divorce was all but impossible. "Separations" kept the wife and husband from marrying anyone else afterward, so they weren't the funnest solution imaginable.

To get an "annulment," you needed a church lawyer working for you, and one of the sentences in my first quotation here indicated that this was primarily done when they felt it was the only humane thing to be done. It was largely done for humanitarian reasons, and my guess is that it would have been most available to the nobility, because of the need for a lawyer. I don't have that confirmed, though. But this would not be something people sought often, though, for it wouldn't have left much opportunity for people to pick another bride.

Remarriage was frowned upon in medieval society.

Originally Posted by Christianity Today

Remarriage after separation was considered punishable adultery or bigamy—sometimes more so for women than men. Even remarriage after the death of one's spouse was viewed by the church fathers and councils with suspicion, as "disguised adultery," in the words of Athenagoras.

http://ctlibrary.com/15898
I don't personally view that suspicion in a positive way. But it would indicate that often remarriages couldn't follow annulments though, so neither they nor separations would leave much but celibacy available. It is quite clear that neither of these alternatives to divorce would leave an open door for much sexual freedom, though.

Nowadays, if someone can get another partner, the incentive to stick with the one you have is lower than it would be if you only had one person available forever. So I don't think that even if these options for breaking up a marriage were available, they would have been much used.

Also, people's expectations from marriage were lower, as they didn't initially marry for love.

Kings probably could get away with more than most people because of their power, but certainly not always. King Henry VIII split the Church of England from the Catholic Church over his attempt to get a divorce.


Even as late as the year 1700, in the post-Enlightenment environment (which was still very religious), Voltaire wrote that in half of Europe, it was impossible to get a divorce, and in the other half, it was very difficult. That bit of information also comes from A History of Christianity.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

The historian, R.H.
Helmholz, confirms my observation that divorce records are virtually
non-existent for upper class English families in the medieval period.
However, he states they are available for lower class individuals.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Here is his explanation of why there are no divorce records available
for upper class families:

"The absence of litigants of the upper classes is also worthy of note.
It is fairly certain that the cases where the record gives no
occupation for the parties did not involve people of higher standing.
We can infer this because when they did appear, their status was
specifically identified. Their title was given, they were
specifically styled dominus, or the fact of their lordship of a manor
was recorded. Several examples appears in the Cause papers at York.
In fact, the York records and the thirteenth-century Canterbury sede
vacante material produce almost all the litigants of the upper classes
that we have. In other dioceses, few or no persons of any rank
appear. This may seem strange. We usually think it was the upper
classes which made most liberal use of marriage law, especially in
suits for divorce. The most likely explanation for their absence from
our records is that the gentry and nobility usually brought their
disputes directly to the bishop, to be heard by him in person or in
his court of audience … Also there is reference to marriage cases
involving upper class families in most Episcopal registers. This
again suggests that these people went directly to the bishop. Perhaps
greater privacy was thus available." [Reference: R.H. Helmholz,
Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (1974): 160-161].

If I read Mr. Helmholz' notes correctly, he found just nine cases of
divorce for gentry, knightly, and noble families in the large body of
ecclesiastical records he surveyed for his book. The body of records
he consulted extends over several centuries. Among the nine cases he
mentions in his notes is the divorce of King Edward IV's daughter,
Cecily Plantagenet, from her first husband, Ralph Scrope of Upsall,
which he cites in his notes on page 160.

It would appear that the "greater privacy" (as Helmholz calls it)
afforded to English upper class divorce litigants included the
destruction of their divorce records, once their cases were heard and
adjudicated. Andrew MacEwen, the resident expert in all things
Scottish, tells me that there is a similar lack of upper class divorce
records in Scotland as well. The only indication that a divorce
transpired in Scotland among medieval upper class litigants is if one
of the parties subsequently appealed to Rome.
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read...-10/1065025241

While the historian may be right that private divorces sometimes happened that way, because of the lack of evidence (he says there are no written records of such marriages), we can't know how common or rare that was.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

And, of course the average life expectancy was about 30, http://www.channel4.com/history/micr...12/part06.html with a 20% likelihood of dying, every time you gave birth.

Yes . Diseases back then were devastating beyond modern Western folk's ability to imagine. People also worked really, really hard, and on far lower nourishment than we have.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

hard to believe they even had time to need divorce, and yet, they did.

Hm. Well, I just don't see the evidence you produced as supporting that claim.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Here may be part of the problem.

The couple were married in a simple ceremony unlike the elaborate marriage ceremonies today. The actual ceremony differed from place to place. In the early part of the Middle Ages, the Church was not very involved in the marriage ceremony and it was usually conducted at home with several witnesses present. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the Church became more and more involved in the marriage ceremony and by the end of the period, a Christian marriage ceremony almost always accompanied a wedding.

If the sources you're looking at only use Church records, and recognise church marriages, we may be looking at different pools. And it may be, as well, that marriages that were more politically important to the families/countries involved had more pressure on them to just take lovers or whatever worked, instead of getting a divorce, which jepardized so many more alliances. Certainly Henry VIII's problem with Katherine of Aragon created a few ripples cooler heads would have preferred to avoid!

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Perhaps part of what we are looking at, here, is the difference between "love marriages" and "arranged marriages". Here's a contemporary account from Bangladesh.

http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/exec/view.cgi/30/18526

And here something from Japan.

“… chatted cheerfully about her 40-year marriage to a man whom, she
mused, she never particularly liked. "There was never any love
between me and my husband."she said blithely, recalling how he used to
beat her... " her husband had never told her that he liked her, never
complimented her on a meal, never told her "thank you," never held her
hand, never given her a present, never shown her affection in any way.
He never calls her by her name, but summons her with the equivalent of
a grunt or a "Hey, you." "Even with animals, the males cooperate to
bring the females some food," Mrs. Uemura said sadly, noting the
contrast to her own marriage. "When I see that, it brings tears to my
eyes. In short, the Uemuras have a marriage that is as durable as it
is unhappy, one couple's tribute to the Japanese sanctity of family…
"I think love marriages are more fragile than arranged marriages,"
said Tomika Kusukawa, 49, who married her high-school sweetheart and
now runs a car repair shop with him. "In love marriages, when
something happens or if the couple falls out of love, they split up."
If there is a secret to the strength of the Japanese family it
consists of three ingredients: low expectations, patience, and shame.
The advantage of marriages based on low expectations is that they have
built in shock absorbers. If the couple discover that they have
nothing in common, that they do not even like each other, then that is
not so much a reason for divorce as it is par for the course…. One
survey asked married men and their wives in 37 countries how they felt
about politics, sex, religion, ethics and social issues. Japanese
couples ranked dead last in compatibility of views, by a huge margin.
Indeed, another survey found that if they were doing it over again,
only about one-third of Japanese would marry the same person.
Incompatibility might not matter so much, however, because Japanese
husbands and wives spend very little time talking to each other. "I
kind of feel there's nothing new to say to her," said Masayuki Ogita,
an egg farmer, explaining his reticence…. "If you divorce, you lose
face in society," said Tatsumi Kinoshita, a tea farmer. "People say,
'His wife escaped.' So folks remain married because they hate to be
gossiped about." Shame is a powerful social sanction in Japan, and it
is not just a matter of gossip. Traditionally, many companies were
reluctant to promote employees who had divorced or who had major
problems at home…. Even in Japan, there are about 24 divorces for
every 100 marriages, but that compares with 32 in France, and 42 in
England, and 55 in the United States.” Who Needs Love! In Japan,
Many Couples Don't by Nicholas D. Kristof http://students.faulkner.edu/depts/s...1301/japan.htm

Arranged marriages, could, conceivably, have on their side family support for the marriage, a larger safety net for troubled families, or families in crisis, realistic expectations for marriage, and the advantage of people picking your spouse who know you, possibly better than you know yourself at 20.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Right, but the existence of marriage vows and the nonexistence of the option of splitting create a greater likelihood that the couple will work their way through their differences. If they're together for life, they'll know that they must work their way through their differences. That's why nowadays, you see in Britain a massive deterioration of society, as noted in the article I linked, whereas in Britain's Christian past there was not such a deterioration. This deterioration is modern, not historical, because divorce is modern, and was only very, very rarely implemented in the past.

Claims of "societal collapse" are extremely subjective and, even if you could measure it objectively, extracting divorce as the only, or major, cause of it is simplistic and unfounded.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Perhaps part of what we are looking at, here, is the difference between "love marriages" and "arranged marriages".

I agree. I think that arranged marriages often did have lower expectations, and that would have made them more durable.

And as this source you quoted said,

Once the wedding was over, married life began. It was undoubtedly awkward for both the husband and the wife for a time until they got to know each other better. Mutual friendship and respect eventually developed among most married people and sometimes the partners also grew to love each other.

If you get into the marriage with low expectations and then find that your married life exceeds your expectations and improves with time rather than getting worse, you'd be more likely to feel contented with your lot.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Arranged marriages, could, conceivably, have on their side family support for the marriage, a larger safety net for troubled families, or families in crisis, realistic expectations for marriage, and the advantage of people picking your spouse who know you, possibly better than you know yourself at 20.

Agreed .

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Here may be part of the problem.

Quote:
The couple were married in a simple ceremony unlike the elaborate marriage ceremonies today. The actual ceremony differed from place to place. In the early part of the Middle Ages, the Church was not very involved in the marriage ceremony and it was usually conducted at home with several witnesses present. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the Church became more and more involved in the marriage ceremony and by the end of the period, a Christian marriage ceremony almost always accompanied a wedding.


If the sources you're looking at only use Church records, and recognise church marriages, we may be looking at different pools.

I agree. This quote says that this difference existed "in the early part of the Middle Ages," so it would have morphed over time, and my sources are probably looking at what existed throughout the larger part of the Middle Ages. I read last night that in the earliest parts of the Middle Ages, the couple wouldn't even have any ceremony at all. They'd just start living together, and their neighbors and they would all just agree privately that they were married for life, for that's what living together like that meant.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

And it may be, as well, that marriages that were more politically important to the families/countries involved had more pressure on them to just take lovers or whatever worked, instead of getting a divorce, which jepardized so many more alliances. Certainly Henry VIII's problem with Katherine of Aragon created a few ripples cooler heads would have preferred to avoid!

I agree.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Claims of "societal collapse" are extremely subjective and, even if you could measure it objectively, extracting divorce as the only, or major, cause of it is simplistic and unfounded.

Relationship break-down was the key problem addressed in the BBC article as undoing society. Divorce was listed as one form of relationship break-down, and so one cause for the huge social problems Britain has. It wasn't listed as the "only, or major, cause." It was "a" major cause, but not "the" major cause .

[The last sane person]

Heh, arranged marriages.... Oh, boy, have I an truckload of experience on that!

Considering I was in one. What made them durable was that you didnt have a choice to get out. And once you had kids, which was generally soon after the marriage you were well and truely stuck. Fortunatly, that has changed somewhat, and now for its mostly symbolic gesturing then hard familial politics. (For the societal structure that I am familiar with in Iran, I cant vouch for other places)

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by The last sane person

Heh, arranged marriages.... Oh, boy, have I an truckload of experience on that!

Considering I was in one. What made them durable was that you didnt have a choice to get out. And once you had kids, which was generally soon after the marriage you were well and truely stuck. Fortunatly, that has changed somewhat, and now for its mostly symbolic gesturing then hard familial politics. (For the societal structure that I am familiar with in Iran, I cant vouch for other places)

I'm very sorry you had such a negative experience with arranged marriage.

According to the source Earl and I cited, in the Middle Ages, "mutual friendship and respect eventually developed among most married people and sometimes the partners also grew to love each other." So I'm not sure if the Islamic experience with arranged marriage is the same as the Christian one. Also, I don't know that your experience with arranged marriage is representative of that of Islamic arranged marriages in general. But I have heard that extreme Islamist governments often treat women very badly.

I'm certainly sorry you had a bad experience with this .

[The last sane person]

*shrug*

It wasn't terrible, and I was let out of it by my family. They were cool about it. And it could have been much worse. I've had mixed reviews with the arranged marriages. Generally speaking, they are done to the economic benefit of both families as much as possible, and most of the time the match isn't made with the actual couple in mind.

Whether or not they two prospective spouses match, that's left up to whether or not the relations planning the marriage actually bother to take time to see if there is a good match between the two people.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Anyone know any divorced people?

Opinions as to whether the divorce(s) was a good or bad thing, for the partners, for the family in general?

Me.

Thank **** for divorce, or else I would still be stuck with my first wife, and we would almost certainly be miserable, along with everyone else within a five mile radius.

Guiding principles:
1) put the kids first,
2) put them second as well, cos they're ungrateful sods by nature and won't be able to see how hard you're working to put them first and might end up thinking it's their fault or something, and THAT would be a VERY BAD THING,
3) swallow your pride (necessary for 1 and 2),
4) get a good lawyer.

Agree with BJ - if anything it's too easy to get hitched

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Guiding principles:
1) put the kids first,
2) put them second as well, cos they're ungrateful sods by nature and won't be able to see how hard you're working to put them first and might end up thinking it's their fault or something, and THAT would be a VERY BAD THING,
3) swallow your pride (necessary for 1 and 2),
4) get a good lawyer.

Agree with BJ - if anything it's too easy to get hitched

Would be good advice for married people, in general.

[Millane]

My parents divorced when i was still a wee child, if they hadnt i wouldnt be the ****ed up person i am today...

j/k

In terms of raising the children, it comes down to the quality of parenting not quantity...
Id prefer one quality parent than two **** ones

[Nurvingiel]

Millane! Woo! Welcome back.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Relationship break-down was the key problem addressed in the BBC article as undoing society. Divorce was listed as one form of relationship break-down, and so one cause for the huge social problems Britain has. It wasn't listed as the "only, or major, cause." It was "a" major cause, but not "the" major cause .

Being a "form" of breakdown doesn't make something a "cause" of breakdown.

It's like blaming "fire" for houses burning down. The problem is not that fire exists, but that some people choose to use it to destroy houses.

The problem (if there even is one, which I don't believe there is) is not divorce, but the fact that people are choosing divorce. So, if one were looking for a "cause", one would have to discover why people choose divorce. The article you cited doesn't do this.

[Rían]

Millane! *waves happily*

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

A religious person on another board posted that people who divorce their spouses "may lose their future places in Heaven". If one believes this is the case, then one also has to believe that every divorce is inherently bad. Needless to say, this is not my view

Well, speaking from a Catholic viewpoint, civil divorce is not per se evil; the CCC even says that there may be a time and place for it.

Also, speaking from a Catholic viewpoint, your future place in Heaven is not really something you can forfeit...either you'll get there eventually or you won't.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Also, speaking from a Catholic viewpoint, your future place in Heaven is not really something you can forfeit...either you'll get there eventually or you won't.

Are you saying either going to Heaven or not is not determined by your actions?

To the theology thread?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Are you saying either going to Heaven or not is not determined by your actions?

To the theology thread?

I think we already went through that.

It is determined by your actions, but your actions are determined by god, in a nutshell.