On the other side of the polyamory issue, I am not sure the weakening of marriage is all that good. Single parenthood doesn’t seem to be that good for the children and I also dont see how polyamory solves the issues of paternal responsability. I would also argue for caution when messing with an institution that has been established on every successful civilization. Polyamory also seems to ignore certian aspects of human sexual competition that aren’t really compatible with civilization. I am not saying marriage is a panacea but it seems to be a reasonable compromise to channel human sexuality for the good of society.
So... another example where the relationship between real trends and statistics and the ones people hear/believe are basically estranged. Pun intended, I sincerely apologize.<p>Beyond that.., i still have not heard a narrative that rang true to me. In some nontrivial senses, I think the instinctive conservative explanations are probably true. Society did unravel, as women's liberation and other big cultural shifts happened. Some of this is very simple, financial independence of both people changes what a marriage is and makes divorce possible.<p>A lot of this was probably down to feedbacks. Divorce became more common, more normal than it had been This made it an option, where it hadn't been.<p>I suspect that the "people just got flakier" narrative is mostly <i>"kids today</i>" BS, but who knows.<p>The way coupled get together has been totally rattled every generation for 4-5 generations now.<p>In any case, it's interesting that the trend is reversing. My general instictive guess is quasi-femenist. The nature of gender relations & marriage completely changed, starting in the 50s (or maybe the 20s). This basically broke marriage, as an institution. Maybe we've been putting it back together in our generation. This is pretty vague though.<p>I'm still waiting to stumble across a sociological narrative that tickles my <i>"ah, that makes sense!</i>" nerve. It's an interesting question.
I think later marriages is a big contributor to stabilizing divorce rates.<p>I got married at age 24 and after a very tumultuous time for us with economic hardships, a more hectic schedule (she was working two jobs at a time while I was doing my masters and working), death in the family, extended medical leave because of clinical depression aggravated by the death in the family, returning to school after her medical leave we grew into different people after just six years together. We decided to split.<p>Now that I have a stable job and I've experienced more of life, I know myself more. I know more about the type of person I would love to spend my life with and what type of person makes me miserable. And, of course, what makes me a difficult person to be with and what I can change about that.
I believe there is no such thing as a dream person cut out for everyone of us. I believe successful marriage is about honesty, expectations and compromises but I also believe that if we know ourselves better and are less shallow when we decide to commit to relationships they have a much higher probability of success.
>“Two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women,” said William Doherty, a marriage therapist and professor of family social science at University of Minnesota, “so when you’re talking about changes in divorce rates, in many ways you’re talking about changes in women’s expectations.”
It's not a myth. The article even points out what's really going on, but they only dedicate at most a paragraph to it: people aren't getting married as much. The overall marriage rate has fallen, and people are waiting longer than ever to get married, if they even do. The percentage of the population that's single is higher than ever.<p>So sure, the divorce rate has fallen, but if your goal is a society where people are in stable marriages, we're farther from that goal than ever. Traditional marriage is slowly dying as an institution.<p>Personally, I think we'd all be a lot better off if we adopted open and polyamorous relationships in a large way. They're better for resource-sharing and avoid the problem with thinking that your partner has to satisfy you in every way.