Yesterday I posted a discussion and my opinions on the Senate Vote and Marriage. I got a lot of responses to the blog that were thoughtful and filled with passionate conviction. Truth be told, subjects like marriage, family and more are deeply personal and they elicit from even the most uninterested I the subject a passionate viewpoint.
The Demise of Family Values
Interestingly enough, the worry about the changing family and the demise of the family unit is hardly a new concern. While challenges such as gay marriage may not have confronted American families in the late 1800s, the worries about the longevity of the institution of marriage coupled with the concern for keeping the nuclear family together was.
In many ways, debates such as the one we are experiencing over the protection of marriage has resulted in some positive changes both through societal evolution and changes to public law. Note, I said it was the debate and the concern that elicited the changes and not the actual positions one side or the other takes.
Change is Not a Four Letter Word
Concerns about families include childhood survival. In the late 1800s 3 out of 10 children did not survive infancy or toddler hood. It was not uncommon for parents of young children whether they were wealthy or poor to send their children away to foster with another family in order to learn a trade. Many parents did this to provide their children with better options, but also to free up their own family from the burden of too many mouths to feed.
In 1899, a report detailed to the government and Eastern newspapers listed the United States as leading the word with the highest divorce rate.
1899!
This shocked a lot of people and shook their core values. The response to this report rippled through the various state legislatures and helped to create many of the laws governing divorce in modern America. They made it more difficult to obtain one and in some cases, (South Carolina) states outlawed divorce altogether.
Still – even with this shocking knowledge available and the changes to divorce law – there were still divorces occurring and in 1924 statistics indicated that one in seven marriages ended in divorce. Still, whether you are worried about 50% of marriages ending in divorce – look at it this way – we have a lot more people now than we did in 1899 and 1924 and we also have lot of changes from that period.
Our families live longer – our parents, our children and our grandparents. Extended families are hardly new, but we’re a lot more spread out. We are also confronted with different challenges from dual careers to careers with parenthood to careers with marriages and parenthood and family care for elderly members thrown in.
Throwing the numbers out – I see a lot of positive changes and a lot of positive options available – what changes do you see we have learned from the history of marriage and family?
Related Articles:
Pre-Marital Therapy – What Recommends It?
Check out more of Heather Long’s Blogs.