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| Sunday, 28 August 2005 |
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You and I
against the world
by Lionel Wijesiri The other day, an office worker asked me whether I could stand as attesting witness to her wedding. I replied in jest that I could do it and also I could make my signature a 'little defective' so that when the time comes she can easily squeeze out of it with an easy divorce. We laughed our hearts out. The joke is that nobody appears to be taking marriage seriously nowadays. Marriage, as a Sri Lankan social institution, is indeed in serious peril. With the speed that marriage is contracted and annulled, it is no longer the revered civil status that it once was. More and more people are getting their marriage annulled. In social meetings, I am often taken aback by people making comments about their ex-wives and ex-husbands. I do not have the exact figures but I am pretty sure that our present divorce rate should have hit an all time high in the history of Sri Lanka. According to the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, Secretary "the divorce rate is much higher than marriage." She adds that the Colombo District Court alone handles an average of 15 cases a day closely followed by Negombo and Matara. Some food for thought. With the legal and moral duties that go with marriage, the perception that marriage should be permanent appears to be getting eroded. Indeed, how many times are we going to hear that comment, "why should people be made to suffer a loveless union?" In short, many of us seem to believe that a person stuck in an unpleasant marriage faces only two options: Stay married and miserable, or get divorced and become happy. Sound logical? Well, reality differs The findings from a scholarly study to test the assumption challenge this 'conventional' wisdom. Conducted by a team of leading scholars in the University of Chicago, the study found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married. Even more dramatically, researchers have also found that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later. In addition, the most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: Among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of ten who avoided divorce were happily married five years later. Why doesn't divorce typically make adults happier? "Divorce leads to many ills including poverty, depression, poor health and a greater likelihood of suicide," says Bridget Maher, a policy analyst on marriage and family at the Family Research Council, USA. "Divorced men have higher rates of mental illness and death due to accidents and suicide than married men. Also, divorced fathers who do not live with their children are more likely to engage in behaviours that compromise their health. A study of children's home environments found that divorced mothers are less able to provide the same level of emotional support to their children than married mothers." Also, the decision to divorce sets in motion a large number of processes and events over which an individual has little control that are likely to deeply affect his or her emotional well-being. To follow up on the dramatic findings that two-thirds of unhappy marriages had become happy five years later, researchers have also focussed group interviews with formerly unhappy husbands and wives who had turned their marriages around. They found that many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals. Why did these marriages survive where other marriages did not? Stories of spouses of how their marriages got happier fell into three broad headings: The marital endurance ethic, the marital work ethic, and the personal happiness ethic. In the marital endurance ethic, the most common story couples reported to researchers was that marriages got happier not because partners resolved problems, but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With the passage of time, these spouses said, many sources of conflict and distress eased: Financial problems, job reversals, depression, child problems, even infidelity. In the marital work ethic, spouses told stories of actively working to solve problems, change behaviour or improve communication. When the problem was solved, the marriage got happier. Strategies for improving marriages mentioned by spouses ranged from arranging ways to more time together, enlisting the help and advice of relatives or in-laws, to consulting clergy or secular counsellors. Finally, in the personal happiness ethic, marriage problems did not seem to change that much. Instead, married people in these accounts told stories of finding alternative ways to improve their own happiness and build a good and happy life despite a mediocre marriage. The findings are consistent with other researches demonstrating the powerful effects of marital commitment on marital happiness. A strong commitment to marriage as an institution and a powerful reluctance to divorce, do not merely keep unhappily married people locked in misery, together. They also help couples form happier bonds. To avoid divorce, many assume, marriages must become happier. But it is at least equally true that in order to get happier, unhappy couples must first avoid divorce. "In most cases, a strong commitment to staying married not only help couples avoid divorce, it helps more couples achieve a happier marriage," notes research team member Scott Stanley. What this means is that people should give marriage their absolute best effort before they call it quits. If they do not, they could end up with deep regrets and more unhappiness down the road. As I sit and type out these few thoughts, I suddenly remembered two things: First, the famous song in the 70s by Helen Reddy titles "You and me against the world", which sentimentally described the predicament of a married couple and second, what the nineteenth-century author Leo Tolstoy commented on marriage. He said," What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility." Tolstoy was right - absolutely right. Divorce is not the solution. It is only a tragedy. |
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