Look before We Leap: Scandinavia and the End of Marriage

BreakPoint ^ | 30 Jan 04 | Chuck Colson

[Lorianne]

Agreed. But the first is primary IMO.

[tortoise]

If the best home for children is one with two parents, then why should they not marry?

Because there is no real concrete value in doing so? Particularly when one considers the disadvantages. It is the reason a lot of people my age-ish can be in a very long-term committed monogamous relationships without a marriage certificate, even if they have kids. "Marriage" as a state institution adds precious little to life. Maybe it is a generational thing, but I and many others I know do not buy into the idea that you need the permission of the state to do anything related to what you consider "family". If I and someone else wants to build a loving and functional family, to hell with the state just out of principle. Freedom of association and all that. The rubber stamp of the state is pure detriment and unnecessary.

Eliminating no-fault divorce is a sure way to guarantee that even fewer people get married. People advocating that are trying to ensure the quick death of marriage, and any contract that can't simply be dissolved by mutual agreement of the two principals is a dysfunctional construct anyway.

[tortoise]

Having two active, involved parents is wonderful, but what would be even better, much better, is if those two active, involved parents were married to each other.

Nonsense. Being married adds nothing. It is the character of the people and the relationship that determine everything. The rubber stamp of the state is immaterial.

Marriage is nothing more than an official recognition of a relationship that already exists. It does not change the relationship.

[Lorianne]

Again, marriage is good for kids until it ends. Even unmarried cohabiting parents in Scandinavia have a lower split-up rate than marriages in the US. And among marrieds, their divorce rate is much lower than ours.

Clearly marriage is advantageous ... but there must be something else which keeps parents together ... whether married or not, that we don't have here in our culture. Something else besides that piece of paper from the State.

[Orangedog]

What constitututes "fault"? How is it proven? It'll just be a giant he said/she said fiasco.

The fault system worked quite well prior to 1970. As as far as proving fault, that is not nearly a fiasco. If the husband takes off and abandons the family, that's pretty easy to prove. If the wife takes to boffing the UPS guy or the mailman, it doesn't take a month of hearings to determine that. It discourages reckless and destructive behavior if the party trashing the marriage knows he or she will leave with nothing instead of profiting from filing first. Actions have consequences...or at least they did until the 1970's.

[Orangedog]

I've seen the Divorce Magazine. Add yet another entity profiting from wrecking families. I'm waiting for a Divorce Channel to be offered by some cable outlet before long.

[LWalk18]

My father had an affair and my mother left him...she was sued for divorce on the grounds of abandonment- tell me who was at fault?

[Orangedog]

If your father had the affair, why didn't your mother file for divorce on grounds of adultery? I don't know the details of her situation, but from where I stand, once adultery hits a marriage, it's over.

[LWalk18]

If your father had the affair, why didn't your mother file for divorce on grounds of adultery? I don't know the details of her situation, but from where I stand, once adultery hits a marriage, it's over.

My mother was having a difficult pregnancy and was broke, she had to wait until I was born and when she could make enough money to get a divorce, but that time a year had passed and on the same day, my father filed for divorce on the grounds of abandonment and my mother filed on the grounds of adultery. His papers got to the court first. My point is that many marriages end without one clear person "at fault" and that that spouse at fault may not be the best parent. You would reduce children to the same status as furniture- going to the winner rather than the best interests of the child.

[Lorianne]

So it's just infidelity? How do you prove that. It doesn't seem that easy to prove to me unless the act is witnessed or if there is a child conceived and a DNA test is done (which they didn't have prior to 1970).

Also, there is no evidence that prior to 1970 cheating husbands were left with nothing. Do you have any evidence of that?

[Orangedog]

Sorry to hear about that. Sounds like your mom has the worst lawyer in the state. I have no use for adulters.

Just about every kid who's parents get divorced gets hosed today. As far as reducing them to furniture, the way things are now they are little more than hostages. And I've seen the "best interest of the child" mantra perverted by the system to the point where it's pretty much a joke. I'll disclose that I have my own axe to grind with the courts, the assembly line system and a bias against fathers that can't be denied any longer. I had court officials tell me, point blank, that I wasn't getting custody because I'm not a woman. Environment and wishes of my kid mattered not.

Kids are little more than props in this system. People are waking up to that. That's why the birth rate is dropping. If something doesn't change, this country will be over-run with immigrants. And I'm not talking about the type we had in the early 20th century, but Mexicans and islamists.

[Orangedog]

Also, there is no evidence that prior to 1970 cheating husbands were left with nothing. Do you have any evidence of that?

I never claimed that.

As far as proving that someone has or is committed adultery, that is not nearly as hard as you make it out to be.

And at no point did I confine fault to adultery. We've gone through this before. You know better than that.

[LWalk18]

Sorry to hear about that. Sounds like your mom has the worst lawyer in the state. I have no use for adulters.

She pretty much did. But even if she had suceeded in suing my father for adultery, she would have had limited recourse- my Dad was a first-year resident making little money, the marriage was only two years long and they had no assets to "win".

I could say I have no use for cheaters either, but at the same time speaking as a child of divorce I still loved (and love) my dad. Taking him away to "punish" him would have caused the same or more damage then what actually happened. Divorce is hard on children fault or no fault system. Either way I still missed out.

[Orangedog]

I wasn't trying to take anything away from your relationship with you Dad. That kind of bond can't and shouldn't be dismissed. I was refering to friends and aquantances of mine.

Divorce hoses almost every kid involved in a divorce gets hosed. Assembly line divorces have done that to a lot more kids than in decades past.

[FormerACLUmember]

Benefits like a 50%+ divorce rate, jackals, er, I mean lawyers, alimony, custody fights, court battles, child support, ruined credit, losing half of what they worked for...all those benefits. If the screaming pillow-biters want the joke that marriage has become today, I say let them have it. They will regret it more than anyone else

The REAL issues addressed clearly and coherently.

[Lorianne]

You seemed to imply that with fault divorce, the one who was at fault would be justly punished in some way. What was the punishment?

When we had "fault" divorce ... who, if anyone, was punished and how? Were men and women equally punished for the same "faults"?

[Lorianne]

I agree. If two parents are better than one, which seems to be the working premise, then why are some promoting the use of the kids as pawns to punish a parent?

It seems to me we need to emphasize the parents obligations to the children ... not the parents "rights" to the children.