I am out of the loop, you guys. The only way I get news is if it’s on my local channel before I fall back asleep when the baby wakes me up or if someone sends it to me or reposts something on facebook. I used to be up on the news but somewhere between babies and time, I just can’t keep up.
So when I saw this posted by Mark Gungor the other day, I sent it to my sister who works in family ministry without even giving it a look myself.
Then I kept seeing more.
And more.
And more.
And thought “Well, I need to look at this.”
In Shaunti Feldhahn’s new book, she tackles the divorce rate data and where it actually came from and what it actually looks like and how the numbers are put out and a lot of other things. Which is really cool considering it took 8 years.
But I’ll be honest that my first thought wasn’t “YAY! They’ve been wrong about divorce.”
My first thought was “O great, what has this seemingly false number done to people who have gotten married or not in the last 10ish years?”
I fear it is yet another social experiment that we will not see the consequences of for some time.
For example, when I got married and I was a member of various wedding planning forums, about three quarters of women spent their time defending their marriage’s survive-ability against the odds of living together and the divorce rate. And many of them simply stated that they could simply get divorced if it didn’t work out – and that was just fine since half of marriages were supposed to end in divorce anyways. Of course this is just my observational research.
What about the number of people living together before they get married. My husband works for a major retailer and is currently doing a bridal registry project. Their data shows 70% of couples live together before marriage.
Watch the ‘news’ or read celebrity headlines and the number of couples living together and raising children outside of marriage is huge. That same pattern is true with the ‘regular’ people too. I heard Carson Daily on the Today show say that he is showing his parents that families are made in different ways now as he and his fiancee raise two children together.
And I’m not a researcher, a sociologist, a psychologist. I’m a mom, a wife, a friend and mentor. My question is this:
Are we prepared for the damage control we will be doing from these numbers for years to come?
Did misinformation change the way people prepared for marriage? How will that impact the divorce rate?
In a generation, will the divorce rate matter as much if the marriage rate is lower?
How has this affected marital age and other marriage stats?
I don’t have answers. I can say that just like everything has a ripple effect beyond what we are able to see, this will too.
The thought that people have been preparing for marriage for years thinking they had a 50/50 chance of success/failure has already had an impact. I just don’t know that we have the whole scope on it.
Here are some of the articles I read about Shaunti’s book.
Is Everything We’ve Been Told About Marriage and Divorce Completely Wrong
And this is how Shaunti explains the differences in her research – click here.
Just some food for thought today. What have you all thought as you’ve seen these new research findings? Would you share below?
Be sure to check out The Respect Dare blogging team – Nina, author of The Respect Dare: 40 Days to a Deeper Connection with God and Your Husband
*links to amazon are affiliate links
Great!