LI. Divorce

Some famous quotes about marriage were meant to be a joke but some really tell how we feel about it in today's world.

1. Marriage is a three ring circus, engagement ring, wedding ring, suffering.
2. Marriage is an institution. Who wants to be institutionalized?
3. The woman cries before the wedding; the man afterward.
4. Marriage is neither heaven nor hell; it is simply purgatory.- Abe Lincoln
5. Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same.
6. Marriage is not a word. It is a sentence..A life sentence.
7. Marriage means commitment...but so does insanity.

But perhaps the most famous is a line by Red Skelton: "marriage is the number one cause of divorce"  Why do people feel this way?  Here are the results of last month's poll: How do you feel about divorce?

• (28%) It's bad but I can think of worse things.  Maybe there are worse things but sometimes tragedies are caused by the smallest of events.  It only takes a spark to get a fire going.  Explosives come in small packages.  The Grand Canyon was supposedly carved by the Colorado River.  Obama was elected as president.  All of these started out as small things but grew into rather large objects or obstacles.  It may not be the worse thing but it causes all kinds of havoc on our culture and lives.
• (28%) If it is needed then do it. Sometimes you can't help it.  The question is, "why is it needed?".  If it is for marital unfaithfulness people have the right, even biblical right, to do it.  Unfaithfulness comes in more than just sexual outbounds.  You promise to love, honor, and cherish.  Abusing your partner is a breaking of this vowel.  The one who is being abused has every right to walk away.  The one doing the abusing has every obligation to change and heal the marriage before the other does walk away.  Disagreeing with someone, economic problems, children, and/or boredom are not reasons to get divorced.  They would be excuses, or shall we say rationalization!
• (25%) It's one of the worse problems we face today.  Very accurate.
• (10%) Other.  Please someone explain.
• (7%) Marriage is the main cause of divorce.  Those who answered this one are mostly joking.  It's those who do not say these things but show them are the ones who are in jeopardy.

When did divorce become so rampant?  It has always been around but when did it become so accepted as a part of society?  Another quote about divorce is that 50% of marriages end up in divorce.  That number is actually now lower this decade than last.  Divorce started to rise in this country back in the 1970's.  Perhaps it was because in the 60's people were more worried about free love than true love.  Songs and slogans of the time really show what we thought.  "If you can't be with the one you love then honey love the one you're with" (Nice message).  Make love, not war.  Sex, Drugs, Rock n Roll.  These are just to name a few.  The problem is the one they were loving at the time was one they fell in love with while they were stoned.  Then when they had to come down off that high in the 70's they realized the one they loved wasn't the one they were with.  So by the time they hit 30 years of age they got divorced.  Hence the divorce rate sky rocketed in the 80's.  And those who got married in the 90's saw the examples their parents gave them and decided divorce wasn't that big of a deal.  And now that they are having kids in the 21st century, marriage isn't that important because 50% get divorced anyway so they don't even bother getting married.  Results?  Children born out of wedlock and hurt because they want both of their parents in their life.  Men run away from their responsibility since they didn't make any commitment.  Hearts are left broken and lying on the ground only to be trampled by the next one who promises (empty) to fix it.  People are left economically ruined due to all the lawyers, foreclosures, abandonment of children.  The Heritage Foundation says:  "Married families play an important part in promoting economic opportunity: children raised by never-married mothers are seven times more likely to be poor when compared to children raised in intact married families."  Divorce kills.

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage- Ben Franklin.