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GOD'S PURPOSE FOR MARRIAGE


Chapter 1

Consequences of Broken Marriages

 
Divorce is always traumatic for the spouses and more so for the children. It also affects other family members and friends.

Research on suicide published in Social Science Quarterly showed that, of many variables, divorce had the strongest relationship to suicide rates and marriage had the weakest.  

From divorceinfo.com web site: “One recent study by the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, MD indicates that divorced people are three times more likely to commit suicide as people who are married. The Institute says that divorce now ranks as the number one factor linked with suicide rates in major U.S. cities, ranking above all other physical, financial, and psychological factors.”

Suicide.org web site states: “It is extremely common for people to become depressed over a divorce, and untreated depression is the number one cause for suicide. Thus, a divorce can significantly increase a person's risk for suicide.

“A study of 13 European countries by the regional European office of the World Health Organization found that divorce was the only factor linked with suicide in every one of the 13 countries. The study showed that factors like poverty, unemployment, and disability were associated with divorce in some of the countries but that disruption of the family was the only factor linked with divorce in all 13.”

From the divorcereform.org web site:

The National Center for Health Statistics finds that married women suffer half the injuries that divorced women do.

Dr. Walter Gove, working from Vanderbilt University, found that divorced men are over 9 times more likely to die of tuberculosis and over 4 times more likely to die from diabetes than their married counterparts. A divorced male is 3.4 times more likely to die from any cause than a married male and a divorced female is 2.0 times more likely to die from any cause then her married counterpart.

One of the most authoritative studies ever done in the United States on mental health found that the divorced are nearly twice as likely to suffer from any mental illness than those who are married.

Additional research done at Yale and UCLA reports, "Researchers have consistently found that highest rates of mental disorder among the divorced and separated [and] the lowest among the married...Compared to the married, divorced persons are six to ten times more likely to use inpatient psychiatric facilities and four to five times more likely to be clients in outpatient clinics."

From 1973 to 1992, the violent crime victimization rates for females (per 1,000 females age twelve or over) were 45 for divorced women and 11 for married women. This rate was 43 for single women.

The effects of divorce are passed on even to the future generations.   

On Focus on the Family web site, in an article titled “How Could Divorce Affect My Kids?” Amy Desai, J.D., writes: “Research comparing children of divorced parents to children with married parents shows:

*  Children from divorced homes suffer academically. They experience high levels of behavioral problems. Their grades suffer, and they are less likely to graduate from high school. [Other studies show that children of divorce are more than twice as likely to drop out of school when compared with children of intact families].
*  Kids whose parents divorce are substantially more likely to be incarcerated for committing a crime as a juvenile.
*  Because the custodial parent's income drops substantially after a divorce, children in divorced homes are almost five times more likely to live in poverty than are children with married parents.
*  Teens from divorced homes are much more likely to engage in drug and alcohol use, as well as sexual intercourse than are those from intact families.
*  Before you say, "Not my kid," remember that the children and teens represented in these statistics are normal kids, probably not much different from yours. Their parents didn't think they would get involved in these things, either. Again, we're looking at increased risks.

A few more statistics to consider:

*  Children from divorced homes experience illness more frequently and recover from sickness more slowly.
*  They are also more likely to suffer child abuse.
*  Children of divorced parents suffer more frequently from symptoms of psychological distress.
*  And the emotional scars of divorce last into adulthood.

The scope of this last finding -- children suffer emotionally from their parents' divorce -- has been largely underestimated. Obviously, not every child of divorce commits  crime or drops out of school. Some do well in school and even become high achievers. However, we now know that even these children experience deep and lasting emotional trauma.

For all children, their parents' divorce colors their view of the world and relationships for the rest of their lives.

Psychologist Judith Wallerstein followed a group of children of divorce from the 1970s into the 1990s. Interviewing them at 18 months and then 5, 10, 15 and 25 years after the divorce, she expected to find that they had bounced back. But what she found was dismaying: Even 25 years after the divorce, these children continued to experience substantial expectations of failure, fear of loss, fear of change and fear of conflict.

The children in Wallerstein's study were especially challenged when they began to form their own romantic relationships. As Wallerstein explains, "Contrary to what we have long thought, the major impact of divorce does not occur during childhood or adolescence. Rather, it rises in adulthood as serious romantic relationships move center stage…Anxiety leads many [adult children of divorce] into making bad choices in relationships, giving up hastily when problems arise, or avoiding relationships altogether."

Other researchers confirm Wallerstein's findings. Specifically, compared to kids from intact homes, children who experienced their parents' divorce view premarital sex and cohabitation more favorably.

This is disturbing news given that cohabiting couples have more breakups, are at greater risk of domestic violence and are more likely to experience divorce. In fact, 75% of children of divorce also end up in divorce in their own marriages.

And the high rate of second-marriage divorces can leave children reeling from yet another loss. Full "recovery" is nearly impossible for children because of the dynamic nature of family life.

Other statistics show that the best predictor of teen suicide is parental divorce and living with only one parent.

In my job for seven and a half years with the state of Florida’s welfare department (Department of Children and Families) I saw the tragic results first hand. Vast majority of the people on welfare are single women with 1-8 children, mostly with different fathers, and many are now cohabiting with a different partner, who may be the father of one of their children, or there may be no mutual child in the family. In many of the families, the teenage daughters have children of their own, born out of wedlock.

The reason is quite obvious. Some of the women have to work to provide a little extra income for the family’s survival. That neglects proper child education and training. That’s why the poverty and welfare cycle gets perpetuated from generation to generation. Life on welfare is the only kind of life many of these families have known for 2-4 generations. That is normal life for them.


Another shocking statistic that points to the troubled state of marriages in the U.S. is that 50% of married women and 66% of married men commit adultery.  About 83% (that is five out of six) of marriages have at least one partner that has been unfaithful to his or her spouse.

What has caused this rising trend in divorce and infidelity? Researchers have analyzed the problem from different points of view. Here is a summary from the socio-economic perspective by Prof. Eli J. Finkel of Northwestern University as published in the Sunday Review on February 14, 2014 under the title “The All-or-Nothing Marriage”:

“To understand marriage today, it is important to see how we got to where we are. Throughout America’s history, its populace has experienced three distinct models of marriage, as scholars like the sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin and the historian Stephanie Coontz have chronicled. In the era of the institutional marriage, from the nation’s founding until around 1850, the prevalence of individual farming households meant that the main requirements Americans had for their marriage revolved around things like food production, shelter and protection from violence. To be sure, Americans were pleased if they experienced an emotional connection with their spouse, but such affinities were perquisites of a well-functioning marriage rather than its central purpose.

“In the era of the companionate marriage, from roughly 1850 until 1965, American marriage increasingly centered around intimate needs such as to love, to be loved and to experience a fulfilling sex life. This era overlapped with the shift from rural to urban life. Men increasingly engaged in wage labor outside of the home, which amplified the extent to which the two sexes occupied distinct social spheres. As the nation became wealthier and its social institutions became stronger, Americans had the luxury of looking to marriage primarily for love and companionship.

“Since around 1965, we have been living in the era of the self-expressive marriage. Americans now look to marriage increasingly for self-discovery, self-esteem and personal growth. Fueled by the countercultural currents of the 1960s, they have come to view marriage less as an essential institution and more as an elective means of achieving personal fulfillment. “You make me want to be a better man,” from the 1997 movie “As Good as It Gets,” could serve as this era’s marriage ideal. In the words of the sociologist Robert N. Bellah, love has become, in good part, “the mutual exploration of infinitely rich, complex and exciting selves.”

“One of the most disturbing facts about American marriage today is that while divorce increased at similar rates for the wealthy and the poor in the 1960s and ’70s, those rates diverged sharply starting around 1980. According to the sociologist Steven P. Martin, among Americans who married between 1975 and 1979, the 10-year divorce rate was 28 percent among people without a high school education and 18 percent among people with at least a college degree: a 10-percentage point difference. But among Americans who married between 1990 and 1994, the parallel divorce rates were 46 percent and 16 percent: an astonishing 30 percentage point difference.

“The problem is not that poor people fail to appreciate the importance of marriage, nor is it that poor and wealthy Americans differ in which factors they believe are important in a good marriage. The problem is that the same trends that have exacerbated inequality since 1980 — unemployment, juggling multiple jobs and so on — have also made it increasingly difficult for less wealthy Americans to invest the time and other resources needed to sustain a strong marital bond.”

Prof. Finkel goes on to show that those who are educated and are financially well off can and are having flourishing marriages as they invest time and energy to strengthen the marital bond. But marriages among those who are less educated, or relatively poor due to unemployment or less well-paying jobs, or those who don’t have the time to invest in their marriage due to juggling multiple jobs are falling apart. Hence the title of the article “The All-or-Nothing Marriage!”   

But the reality is that it’s more than just socio-economic factors that are to blame.  The slide in values and a lack of understanding of the purpose for marriage also play an important role. Here is an analysis from a religious [or values] perspective:

From Troubling Sources of American Values by Dale Garrett, Enrichment Journal, April 2009:

“Many Americans, including several now in decision-making roles in Congress and Hollywood, began buying into a revived Nietzsche style philosophy adopted in the 1960s and 70s in America by resurrecting Nietzsche’s “God is Dead” mantra. So prevalent did this philosophy become that 3 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling symbolically ejecting God from our public education process was completed, TIME magazine asked, “Is God Dead?” on its April 8. 1966 cover. (TIME, 1966)

“This was soon followed by a “sexual revolution” (Romans 1:24) and an assault on previously held values concerning fidelity and the sanctity of marriage. No-Fault Divorce laws, introduced in Oklahoma in 1953, began reaching avalanche proportions after California adopted the law in 1970. By 1998, the number of children living in single-parent households in America had passed 56 percent of our population; among African Americans the number was closer to 64 percent. (US Divorce Statistics, 2002)”

 That of course merely accounts for children allowed to survive in the first place. Since legalizing infanticide under Roe v Wade in 1973 an estimated 48.6 million infants have been butchered (National Right to Life, 2003). Put in perspective, abortion will destroy more lives in America in one day than the total number of U.S. soldiers who lost their lives in the entire Iraqi war.

 These analyses recognize the role that prosperity, man’s laws, and turning away from God play in breakdown of the marriage institution. But from this discussion we see that even religious leaders don’t like to publicly admit the role a powerful spirit being, Satan the devil, has played in instigating a conspiracy to bring about the downfall of the American and British peoples. This role of this unseen hand behind the scenes in corrupting laws and culture will be discussed next in a brief history of the American and British peoples from their origins to modern times, and the history of marriage among them.



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