The Fear Of Divorce Is Not A Valid Reason To Avoid Marriage

By James Walsh
Marriage has held on to its position of being the number one social institution throughout all these ages. It has been holding sway in spite of all other social, economical, political and military turbulences across the span of the world.

Of late, however, this honourable institution has come under attack in its time honoured form. The first attack on marriage was from the ever increasing divorce rate across the developed countries of the world.

It is sometimes referred to as the divorce revolution. This period of time witnessed an exorbitantly large rate of divorces amongst the general populace. Divorce was touted as the panacea for all ills plaguing the married society.

The number of divorces kept increasing across the world as the sixties moulded into the seventies and then onwards into the eighties and nineties. Unfortunately for the believers of marriage the given situation has still not abated and divorce rates continue to spiral across the world.

This exceptional increase in the rate of divorce had not even subsided when a new and altogether different form of relationship started challenging the institution of marriage. This new challenge was from the live in relationships.

People were, very simply put, just not getting married anymore. Instead of getting married they were living together as any married couple will and carrying on with their lives accordingly. They just refused to adhere to the commitment required by marriage as an institution.

This started becoming so common that now there are an ever increasing number of single parent families. It is no longer uncommon to come across single parent families whether they are owing to divorce or accident or choice.

All this has got the sociologists to behave as a worried lot. They are alarmed at the impact that such an ever increasing number of single parent families will have on the society. They have already started clanging the warning bells.

There are several reasons behind people opting for live in relationships as opposed to a married life. Perhaps the first and foremost cause is the rise in individualism in the human society. People wish to be independent and they feel that marriage and its related commitment somehow robs them of their cherished freedom.

Another reason is of course an accidental start of a family where the mother may not wish to or is unable to lose the child she is carrying. In other instances it may simply be that any one of the two parents does not wish to be burdened by the family way of life.

Yet another very strong reason for the rise in live in relationships is that a very large number of populace, the children of the divorce revolution, are simply unable to relate to marriage. They merely fail to understand the intricacies of married life as they have not witnessed something similar in their own homes.

Another major cause of the rise of live in relationships is that people are afraid to get married as they are afraid of divorce! They take it for granted that with the statistical rise in divorce rates, their marriage is also destined for same.

Having either witnessed or heard about the pain and sorrows aligned with divorce, these people wish to save themselves from all the trouble. Thus it is that they have a very simple solution to it all and that is simply to avoid marriage altogether.

Unfortunately for these people, this fear and the associated phobias stop them from knowing what the beauty of marriage is all about. These people fail to comprehend that if marriage has survived all these ages, then, there must be something very positive in its nature.

Such people may be escaping the hurts from a possible divorce but they are in fact missing out upon the all the fun that marriage has to offer. Marriage gives one that one individual who can be relied upon at all times, good or bad.

It does not make sense to avoid getting married simply because one is scared of divorce. If marriage is some kind of a challenge then the challenge has to be met head on. How else does one tell about the taste of a dish without tasting it?