Why Have Divorce Rates Gone Through the Roof?

I think the major reason why divorce rates have increased so much today is that people no longer see marriage as a life-long thing. Imagine this: if everyone knew that when they get married, they cannot divorce and must stay with this person until either one of them dies, do you think people would be more careful about choosing their spouse? I believe so. No one wants to end up stuck with the wrong person.

Long engagements of the 19th century make much more sense if you think of it in this light. But today, nobody wants to wait, or sees any reason to do so. "Hey, I've met this cute guy / gal, we'll go have sex, if we like it we'll have more, if we like each other a lot we might get married; and if we don't, we split up, no big deal." That's about how it goes for many people. There is even such a term as "Starter marriage" - your first marriage that you enter into when you are young and silly, basically meant to fail. Your trial marriage, just to test the waters. Then you will "do it right" the next time...

With splitting up viewed as such an easy option, why even bother to work on the relationship, be committed, learn to give and not only take? Selfishness rules. It is me, me, Me. If I don't like it, I quit.

This shallow view on marriage naturally gets worse with each generation. Parents who thought it okay to divorce if you have fallen in love with someone else ("It happens, it's life...") scratch their heads, seeing their children sleep around without even considering marriage. When and if those children settle down and do marry, their probability of getting divorced is much higher.

The society as a whole keeps "progressing" in its acceptance of immorality and casual relationships. Popular culture is not shy about mocking marriage and degrading the very terms "husband" and "wife." I had once read an advice for women who suffer from depression; a popular magazine suggested to change everything in their life: get a new dress, hairstyle, makeup, job, husband. Yes, just like that. And it did not sound much like a joke.

The only thing we all seem to agree on is that divorce hurts the children. However, as we see both from divorce statistics and from everyday life, even that does not stop many people.

I am not saying that people should be forced to stay married no matter what, but the overall idea of marriage has lightened up way too far. It wouldn't hurt to get some of the old values back.