The good news: the divorce rate in America is falling. From its peak at 5.8 divorces per 1000 people in 1983, the divorce rate has gradually fallen to its most recent recorded statistic at 3.6 per 1000 in 2005.
The bad news: 66% of marriages don’t survive to see their 25th anniversary. You might think that statistic has to do with the mortality rate, but no: given that the American median marriage age is 26, a couple celebrating their 25th anniversary is likely to be in their early fifties — young enough that death hasn’t caught up yet.
With people likely to live dramatically longer this century, the way we think of marriage will have to change. No more “’til death do us part.” Soon enough, we’ll have to face the truth: that nothing — not even marriage — lasts forever.
I’m going to start you off with a chart, courtesy of these folks:
Median age of marriage: 26
PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE REACHING THE STATED ANNIVERSARY
5th anniversary: 82%. Median age 31.
10th anniversary: 65%. Median age 36.
15th anniversary: 52%. Median age 41.
25th anniversary: 33%. Median age 51.
35th anniversary: 20%. Median age 61.
50th anniversary: 5%. Median age 76.
Put more plainly: half of all marriages end by their 15th year. Odds are that both partners will only just be entering middle age, meaning that those marriages aren’t ending because somebody died — they’re ending in divorce.
Now, I can’t find good statistics for why people get divorced, but I’m guessing most of it comes down to incompatibility. People don’t always get along. More importantly, people don’t always keep on getting along, especially if they live together for decades. People grow apart. Their lives go in different directions; their needs and desires change.
In other words, marriages — which I believe are predicated on a mutual desire between partners to find happiness in each other — can just fall apart. Hell, according to the stats above, they’re likely to. What I said before the cut, about marriage acquiring a shelf life over the next century, was mostly rhetoric. It won’t acquire one; it has one already. Four in five marriages end by their 35th anniversary. That’s a 13% jump from the 25th anniversary end-rate, and the death rate definitely doesn’t shoot up by 13% of the married population between ages 50 and 60.
That means the romantic ideal of “’til death do us part” is, for most couples, exactly that — an ideal. The strong majority of marriages won’t last the length of their participants’ lives. That’ll only get more true as lifespans extend, but it’s already a fact now and needs to be addressed. According to the New York Times, we’re already beginning to compensate, as prenuptial agreements are becoming more popular (especially with people who’ve been married once already).
How do I think this’ll play out? In the absence of “’til death do us part,” we’ll have two kinds of marriage contracts: duration-oriented and goal-oriented. Duration-oriented marriage contracts would either set a time limit — like, “20 years, with option to renew for another 20″ — or allow either married party to cancel them at any time with a predefined division of assets. Goal-oriented contracts would revolve around a specific project — like, “Raising two kids until they’re 22″ — and then expire.
The beauty of those more-specific marriage contracts is that they don’t preclude a lifetime together; they simply address the mayfly reality of married life. A life-long marriage contact may provide the illusion of permanence, but only at the price of complicated, painful divorces for the majority of couples. With a specific marriage contract, you get the stability of a well-defined relationship and the freedom to leave when it’s time (or a few years down the road; say, when the kids leave for college).
The problem of modern divorce isn’t going to go away, because it isn’t a problem at all. It’s the result of personality drift, which is both inevitable and often healthy. Some couples reform bonds to deal with the basic truth of personal growth, and that’s fantastic. The majority don’t, though, and for them, a specific marriage contract might be the last great blessing of married life.
Genghis Philip
Gordon Levine
I don’t see how these shorter-term contracts address the issue. People leave because they’re not happy with the relationship. If people aren’t already staying in marriages to see the kids off to college, then they’re certainly not going to stay because of an additional piece of paper telling them they should do so. Happiness or sadness in a marriage can be very powerful. It isn’t realistic to believe a person will stick two more years in a unhappy marriage because they’ll reach the end of their contract. What would they gain from that?
Perhaps some sort of cleaner legal parting, but thats what divorce is, anyway; it isn’t always clean, but conflict will exist no matter the stipulations previously put on the marriage. Married people share many things; bank accounts, cars, houses, pets, etc. There is no way, for example, to pre-game the fact that Bob and Mary have both become very attached the the family dog. You could write it into a contract – but then, thats the same thing as marrying regular and getting a prenup, really, and it does nothing for the underlying resentment and bitterness that results from such a conflict. It may be clean on paper, but it won’t play out that way at all.
I say do nothing about marriage. Not a thing at all. We’ll figure it out ourselves; additional rules and regulations will only complicate a problem that is ultimately about peoples emotions and relations, both with themselves and with each other.