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Divorce Ban In California
A man in California wants a ballot measure to ban divorce.
His basic point is that if you banned same sex marriage to ‘protect traditional marriage’ then should you not also ban divorce, since it leads to the breakup of 50% of traditional marriages.
An interesting point I think, even if the measure won’t go anywhere.
83 Responses to “Divorce Ban In California”
It wasn't meant to be. I'm not sure what you were trying to say then.
“Research it is then. I'll report back much later tonight.”
Sure, if you'd like. I mean, I am an adult who has had a range of experiences with sex, relationships, and committment, as well as tons of friends with whom I speak about these things, so it might be tough to convince me that my own lived experiences are somehow out-of-the-ordinary, but I'll take a look at what you have.
Here's what I've found so far, and it's not as much as I'd hoped. I looked at your unmarried.org page, but the only statistics that it quoted from had more to do with marriage among the poor (another big subject altogether, with its own nuances), and nothing to do with sex.
So, I'll start by responding to your cohabitation FAQ with a pro-virgin marriage FAQ, many of its points are backed up with statistics (and religious, of course):
http://www.archspm.org/family/Marriage/Marriage…
More to the point, here's a more up-to-date survey of sexual activity vs. divorce rates:
http://floridafamilies.org/pdfs/CMFSI_2005-03_P…
Religion and divorce rates:
http://brewright.blogspot.com/2006/12/christian…
A host of marriage and sex statistics, including this little gem:
“A study in Pediatrics found that teens who watched high amounts of television with sexual content were twice as likely as those who watched minimal amounts to initiate sexual intercourse during the following year.”
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS06B01
This is more of an opinion piece, but it did reference (I wanted a link!) the statistics that I mentioned in an earlier post.
http://www.marriageromance.com/stories/10802697…
JD and Tidbits, if you're still reading, you might find this one interesting, in light of getting the government out of marriage (gotta love the long domain name):
http://www.modestapparelchristianclothinglydiao…
ProfE -
Picked up the thread this morning and I thank you for the link directed to JD and I. My views on getting government out of the marriage business are not religiously based, but I believe JD's interest in the subject may be. I hope he finds and reads your link.
Btw, my own views are more in line with roro's on the general subject of sexuality in partner selection, but I appreciate the effort you've made and the research you have brought to the discussion. My take is that this subject is very individual and not easily subject to statistical pursuasion.
It was just interesting to read a religious rant on rejecting marriage licensing.
I can handle choices based on personal reasons, that's a sign of freedom. I can also agree that most people make decisions based on personal beliefs and aren't swayed by statistics. My beef with roro80's view is that she's trying to say that sex outside of marriage is pretty much the same, or even preferable, to the classical marriage. That's a gut feeling philosophy masquerading as fact, because the statistics don't back up that view, and never have, no matter how you slice them.
“Oh, I get what you're saying. You're saying that people could always claim infidelity even when it didn't exist so they could get a divorce when divorce for any other reason was illegal. Therefore, it's simplistic to say that divorce was illegal.”
YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SAID DIVORCE WAS ILLEGAL!!!!!!!! It was NOT illegal, Kathy. It was simply not practiced due to social stygma that came along with it.
“But he is part of a strong and growing viewpoint in contemporary Judaism that the Torah's prohibition of homosexual behavior has to be understood in the context of what we know today about homosexuality”
As I've said. You are reinvinting Judaism (revisionism), or just creating a religion that fits YOUR beliefs. That's nothing new. It's how extremists approach Islam, how abortion clinic bombers approach Christianity, and so on.
“how do you get off telling me that the rabbi I quoted is a tiny minority when you are claiming to know what Judaism says about homosexuality based on the rabbis in your city?”
You are the ONLY source I have saying that Judaism is just FINE with homosexuality based upon “nuances”. The FOUR rabbis I spoke with denounced your assertion. You know…. I could go out and find a group of people calling themselves “christians” that believe any number of things – drunkeness is ok, killing fags is ok, God loves dead soldiers, or the like. That does not make them right. Going to Church makes you a Christian no more than sitting in a garage makes you a car. You must follow the Bible in your daily life to acheive that goal of being Christian. Likewise, being a Jew you must follow the precepts of Judaism. If you twist the Torah/Talmud around to fit your beliefs, you are no longer practicing Judaism.
ProfE – you said, “My beef with roro80's view is that she's trying to say that sex outside of marriage is pretty much the same, or even preferable, to the classical marriage.”
That was not my impression of what she was saying. What I took from her comments was that premarital sex and cohabitation provided experience and knowledge upon which to better choose a life partner.
The quote I use from your comment about roro is probably closer to my view than hers, though I come to my view by rejecting the fundamental assumption of the entire thread (that's why I dropped out of participating earlier) that monogamy is a preferred state of “affairs”…pun intended.
“I think sex is a very important part of bonding with a romantic partner, and bad sex can be a relationship killer.”
I see your logic roro. But that logic is only 40 or so years old. The one thing that can kill a relationship faster than even bad sex is the lack of trust. People with multiple partners prior to marriage have a harder time convincing their partner of their uniqueness or specialness. Besides, if you've never had sex, how could you know it was “bad” sex? Sex between two people who have not had sex can develop into a mutually fulfilling act. Heck….. It's be more fun because everything would be new and half the fun would be getting there together.
“so it might be tough to convince me that my own lived experiences are somehow out-of-the-ordinary, but I'll take a look at what you have.”
Do you really mean that roro?
Trust me, I know how hard it is to go to a site, or review some research with objectivity. The first human nature urge is to look upon it ultra-critically attempting to debunk it, or to skew it into your own experiences. I've done that in the past.
As with my research above (which you said was “outdated”). I had found several links, from 1940 on up to 2007. They all said the same thing, but only the 1995-1997 data had the chart – the rest were harder to read in paragraph form. I could not list them all. But regardless, you may have said 2007 was also outdated as well.
I hope you looked (really looked) at ProfElwood's sites. If truth is knowledge is your goal, then approach it objectively.
Which might make sense for couples that will never have children.
Would the child raising statistics be relevant to your view? They're a lot more damning than the marriage ones.
ProfE ask, “Would the child raising statistics be relevant to your view? “
Answer: not especially. It is certainly true that a messy divorce, and many are, catches children in the middle and has a negative impact on those children. No statistics necessary. My response would be that it is still based on an assumption I do not accept. In other words, the assumption of monogomy as a necessary or preferred state, leads inextricably to messy divorces when the idyllic assumption is found to be inconsistent with reality. A more open view of sexuality, perhaps better stated as a more realistic view of sexuality, would obviate much of the obsession with fidelity and provide a more open and honest environment in which to raise children or, in the alternative, to acheive separation without the destructive impact on other family members. See Kathy's comment above on her divorce (though perhaps not a fidelity issue) and how children can be protected and well raised with responsible parties focusing on the well being of the child.
If the statistics are based on, or caused by, a faulty assumption, the value of the statistics is limited. And, yes I understand that the monogomy assumption is widely accepted and that my questioning the assumption is unlikely to change its broad acceptance. But, I am buoyed by the fact that marriages were once, but are no longer are, “arranged”, and that assumptions can change over time
Divorce is only one part of the equation. The statical categories are: raised by the natural or adopting parents, raised by one parent, and blended families. Killing marriage and monogamy necessarily pushes child rearing into the other categories.
ProfE-
Clarification. I have no interest in “killing marriage”. Given that I am married, I would not choose so hypocritcal a position. My interest is in challenging the assumption of monogomy and suggesting a more open and realistic view of human sexuality. It is perhaps a leap of logic or perhaps a lack of clarity on my part to assume that challenging the monogomy assumption equates to a desire to kill marriage or meaningful cohabitation, though my definition of marriage is not confined to traditional monogomous marriage, but would include open marriage and non-sexual cohabitation (with sexual activity occuring outside that relationship).
Your statistics continue to rely on the monogomy assumption. Case in point: the situations you allude to, “natural or adopting parents, raised by one parent, and blended families”, are a current phenomena unlikely to change. Therefore, the question becomes how to make those situations less stressful, particularly on the children. My point is that by letting go of the monogomy assumption a certain percentage of those situations would be less adversarial and, therefore, less stressful and more nurturing to the children than they currently are. Because of the underlying monogomy assumption, the statistics do not account for that possibility.
Alright, my last attempt and then I'll give up. Is there some sort of statistic or experiment — something concrete, which would eliminate this “monogamy assumption” and indicate the truth in a more scientific way?
I'm acutely aware of human nature. My attempt is to point to best practices, which is different from how well people follow them. In the same way that I know what the optimal health guidelines are, but don't follow them well. It's one thing to say that people aren't using nutritional guidelines well, quite another to say that it's unrealistic to follow them.
Hey ProfElwood –
First, thanks for putting in this effort. I do appreciate it, and I found some of the links pretty interesting. I think you may have specifically clicked on the link for socioeconomics on the unmarried site, because I saw a ton of stats for other groups. Nonetheless…
The link for virgin marriage didn't work, so I can't really form an opinion on that. Let's just say such an arrangement would not have ever worked for me. Evidently, only a handful of people are actually virgins when they marry these days, so I'm guessing it doesn't work for most other people, too.
The religion v divorce rates seems interesting, but not necessarily actionable. I mean, are you suggesting people pretend to believe in God for the purpose of having an 8% better chance of not getting divorced? It definitely also goes to support the quote from unmarried: if you don't believe divorce is an option, you're less likely to get divorced. I have no problem with that, and I'm not disagreeing. I think instead of assuming that being religious makes happier marriages, though, perhaps there are other causes to this stat. For example, when my husband's parents divorced (when he was a kid), they were ostracized by their church (including the kids), which at the time was their major social/support network. There's a lot of pressure on religious people to stay in a marriage, even if it's a terrible marriage (which, in this case, it was).
The teens/tv stat isn't surprising, but I'm not sure what it has to do with divorce or adults.
I guess there's a difference in perspective. I find that for many people, the goal is to stay in a marriage regardless of its quality — sometimes this is good, at least until the kids are old enough — whereas others think there's value in actually having quality relationships, even if those relationships are with different people at different stages in life. I truly hope that the two are not mutually exclusive for me in my future, but I don't consider those for whom that was not the case to be failures or morally wrong or ruining society in some way.
JD — This is in reply to your reply to KK about Judaism. I just want to make it clear how offensive it is to tell someone about their own relgion, and their own religious beliefs. This goes, also, for your statements to her about her abortions and her divorce: it is a little astonishing how eager you are to insist that your opinions on someone else's life are more important than their own lived experiences. You do this often, mostly to Kathy because she has the courage to actually put her own tender underbelly out as an example (and thanks for that, Kathy — more courage than I), but you've done it in smaller ways to me and others as well. It's really not cool.
“What I took from her comments was that premarital sex and cohabitation provided experience and knowledge upon which to better choose a life partner.”
Yep, that's it exactly, tidbits.
I'm greatly enjoying your and Prof's conversation on monogamy.
” People with multiple partners prior to marriage have a harder time convincing their partner of their uniqueness or specialness.”
JD, it's all about personal experiences here; everyone's got their own story. Because I had had quite a few serious relationships that failed prior to meeting my current life love, I knew just how special he was when I still wanted to be around him years after those first ooh-ooh-love-bubbles calmed down and we settled into real life. So in my case, it was *exactly* the opposite of what you describe. Instead of having my judgment clouded by the mm-hmm-I-want-in-those-pants feelings of the first few months of any relationship, I was able to see all of him — the good and the bad — and realize that it was all stuff I valued.
ProfE – Thanks for trying. It occurs to me the you may be more enamored of statistics than I.
But, to answer your question, a) I doubt whether there is a sufficiently large statistical pool to test my theory and b) while I find statistics interesting, I am also aware of the inherent flaws in statisticaly attempting to test soft sciences like sociolology as opposed to hard science testing of various theories.
Now, I'll make *my* last attempt, then we can agree to disagree after a cordial and stimulating discussion.
It is my belief that unconditional love necessarily includes wanting the person you love to have the fullness of experience in life sought by that person, including honoring that person's sexuality. No studies involved, but an example instead.
Assume hypothetically that my partner has an interest in trying something I cannot accommodate. Pick your example: homosexuality, group sex, sex with a person of a different race, whatever. By traditional values of monogomous marriage, such life experiences would be denied to that person or, if fulfilled, would be subject to claims of betrayal, anger, mistrust and form a basis for separation/divorce. Within my philosophy, such life experiences and desires would be shared openly and without judgment. Speaking only for myself, I find the latter to be the more loving, honest and accepting approach, though I understand that it violates all manner of currently accepted social assumptions.
“I've done that in the past.”
I think you're doing it here as well. And honestly, I do think everyone needs to carve out their own path. If the virgin-til-married thing worked for you, good on ya'. It doesn't work for everyone, and there are huge double standards between young men and young women on this issue, and I do take a great deal of umbrage with that, so it's really not something I would necessarily recommend without knowing the person.
This will take a bit to answer both questions (monogamy and variety), and I'm still at work. I'll get back to you as soon as I can, but it may be a few hours.
ProfE -
Before you get too far along, understand where I am coming from. Variety is not an issue. The only issue is respecting the sexuality of another out of love. I could have as easily used an example where one partner has lost interest in sex and says to the other please find your sexual pleasure elsewhere, though I think that example less dramatic than the ones I used. Please do not confuse my challenging of the assumption of monogomy with a call for “variety”. That's not my position. My position is simply to respect/honor the sexuality of others, even within the context of a marriage/partnership. Sorry that I was not more clear about that.
Ugh, no. I'm just in a hurry and couldn't quickly think of a short description. I'll get there soon.
The link was to a PDF, so it may be blocked or you may need a later version of Adobe to read it. Here's the part that I was talking about:
In Model 3, women who had premarital sex and premarital cohabitation have a higher risk of
marital dissolution than women who were abstinent and did not cohabit. Women who cohabited
twice faced a 28 percent higher risk of marital disruption and women who cohabit more than once
and have their first sexual relationship with someone other than her husband have a 109 percent
greater risk of martial disruption. If a woman cohabited and had sex only with her future
husband, there was no statistically significant difference in divorce rates between these woman and
the ones who did not cohabit or have premarital sex. This pattern results because women who
cohabited with their husband only are more likely than women who did not cohabit before
marriage to have had their first sexual relationships with someone other than their husband (73
versus 41 percent). That is, for these women, it is not the fact that they cohabited before marriage
that is important for marital dissolution; it is the fact they had at least one other sexually intimate
relationship prior to marrying.
I had heard of this from a prior coworker in my younger days. He described it more succinctly as the “First F— syndrome”, a greater attachment to her first man. This also agrees with the idea that those who wait until they're committed are more satisfied with their sex lives.
That point, my good sir, is what we call a doozy, and a very large undercurrent of this discussion. My approach is from the standpoint of caution and commitment, which absolutely requires a well-prepared, thorough approach to finding a mate. In this approach, both sides need to get these things out well in advance, before the commitments are made; they need to be made aware of pitfalls and warning signs (i.e. people who are mean to others, will eventually be mean to you); and they must be willing to bare their soul (eventually) and be suspicious of a potential mate who doesn't.
My usual analogy is that of buying a house (my daughter would be rolling her eyes right now). You don't buy a house buy putting down a deposit on the first house, getting the inspection, and negotiating the price before you look inside. Yet, that's the typical approach to dating: you go out with the same person weeks or months at a time, forsaking all others, to see if they're a match for you. If not, you have an emotional separation, then start back over again. A more intelligent approach would be to determine the kind of house you want to start with, narrow the listing down the best group, and quickly check out a large sample. In other words, you main goal is to eliminate all the ones you wouldn't want, in order to more carefully consider the ones that you would want. Unfortunately, too few parents properly prepare their kids for the task.
It's a doozy, because it also covers commitments such as employment and friendship. It also covers subjects like money, child raising, (non)religious beliefs, family arrangements, well, a lot of things.
By making sure that your important values (even the non-traditional ones) match before you commit, you avoid the unresolvable conflicts. Of course, you can't eliminate them 100%, but a few exceptions shouldn't kill the norm.
If kids weren't in the picture, then anyone's approach would affect only them, and as such, wouldn't be as important. But there is a difference in the way that people take ownership of their genetic or adopted children, and the children of their mate. I'd approach that also, but this post is already too long.
Hey Prof — As, ahem, charming as the “First F— syndrome” theory is (and I see it seems explicitly to be women you're talking about), there's nothing in the data that indicates that as an actual cause. I'd point you back to my original explanation for the data, taken from the unmarried site. These days, it's so uncommon to have sex only with one's spouse or future spouse that you're basically looking at people who are extremely committed to their religions and the idea of blood on the marriage bed. These very same people are the ones by far the most likely to think that divorce is morally wrong, and are far more likely to have huge pressures from their social groups (church) to remain in a marriage regardless of how good or bad that marriage is. That pressure is extended to the idea of going to heaven or to hell. There's certainly nothing to indicate that these couples are more satisfied with their sex lives than those who had premarital sex with prior partners, or even more satisfied than those couples who do end up breaking up. As the study said, once the data is controlled for religious views on divorce, there's very little difference in the data between the two groups.
Hi again Prof –
I'm just reading your reply to tidbits, and I'm finding it quite amusing. I've got to agree with your daughter that a big eye roll needs to accompany the analogy, but let's stick with it for a minute. What if you don't realize during your August real estate hunting that the gorgeous Victorian with lucsious backyard and hard wood and high ceilings has floorboards that creek in the night and gets drafty and cold in the winters and has termites that weren't caught on the initial inspection? If it were possible to spend a year or two cooking in the kitchen and snuggling in the living room and sleeping (or not) in the bedroom before having to commit to a lifetime in it, wouldn't that be a great? Well guess what? In the case of finding a life partner, we can totally do that! Isn't that awesome?
YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SAID DIVORCE WAS ILLEGAL!!!!!!!! It was NOT illegal, Kathy. It was simply not practiced due to social stygma that came along with it.
No, actually, you are the one who originally said that in the past you could not get a divorce for any reason but infidelity. You implied, if not literally stated, that divorce was illegal. That was in another thread. In this thread, you imply exactly the same thing. Here is what you wrote:
What does that last line (which I have bolded for your convenience) imply, JD? Let me spell it out for you. It implies that divorce was not legal when infidelity was not the cause.
You might try making sure your own words say what you intend them to say before shouting at me.
Hi ProfE -
Thanks for the respectful discussion. I enjoyed the opportunity. My only response to your most recent is that I've lived in a lot of houses.
Now, if you'll excuse me, my wife has a date tonight and I need to fix dinner and take the dog for a walk.
I wrote: “But he is part of a strong and growing viewpoint in contemporary Judaism that the Torah's prohibition of homosexual behavior has to be understood in the context of what we know today about homosexuality”
You reply: As I've said. You are reinvinting Judaism (revisionism), or just creating a religion that fits YOUR beliefs. That's nothing new. It's how extremists approach Islam, how abortion clinic bombers approach Christianity, and so on.
First, the Jewish people have been “reinventing” Judaism, as you put it, since the Babylonian exile, centuries before Jesus was born. That's how the Jewish people and Judaism have survived.
Second, I am not “just creating a religion that fits my beliefs.” You are wrong. Even more than wrong, you are ignorant, uneducated, and almost completely uninformed about the most elementary facts about Judaism and Jewish history, traditions, and observance. You know nothing about what the Jewish tradition says about anything. You have zero understanding about how the Jewish people practice their religion or about how Judaism works, what it says, what it's about, nothing.
Your lack of information is understandable and forgivable; your insistence on telling me, a Jewish person who has spent years studying and learning about my religious tradition and practicing it and observing it, that I am making up Judaism as I go along is arrogant, presumptuous, and just completely and totally beyond the pale.
You are the ONLY source I have saying that Judaism is just FINE with homosexuality based upon “nuances”. The FOUR rabbis I spoke with denounced your assertion.
It is so incredibly insulting to me, and in fact to you as well because it makes you look like such an incredible fool, to tell me that four rabbis you spoke with “denounced” my assertion.
One, the idea that you would consider four rabbis in one city (and you still haven't told me what city) to be adequate sourcing for your claims about what contemporary Jewish authorities, or the Jewish tradition in general, say about homosexuality is absurd to the point of being pitiable.
Second, I have no reason to even believe these four rabbis did “denounce” my assertion, since you have proved, amply and innumerable times, that you are not capable of understanding or describing what my “assertion” even is, or that you could accurately describe to me what the rabbis you spoke with said, or that you understand what the word “denounce” means. This is not even meant as an insult; I see it as the simple truth: You cannot accurately understand or express what I have said about any of the subjects we have discussed here, and you cannot understand or express to me what anyone else has said.
Third, “You are the ONLY source I have…” is just to laugh at. You think that four rabbis in your city are not accurately characterized as the “only” sources you have, as well? You think that four rabbis in one city are adequate sourcing for your absolutist statements about contemporary Judaism's stance on homosexuality or what the larger Jewish tradition says about it? (Assuming you were even capable of accurately understanding or conveying it.)
I *never* portrayed a single rabbi's statements about homosexuality as proof of a specific position taken by the entire Jewish tradition, just as support for my argument that the position is not monolithic, and that contemporary Judaism is starting to reexamine it — actually has been for some time. That you — a Christian who can't even speak for the totality of your OWN religion, much less anyone else's — should try to tell me I am wrong about *anything* on the subject of Jewishness and Judaism is really beyond decency.
Having said all this, I know you're not going to stop. I know you're not going to apologize, because you don't understand what you're doing that requires an apology. But I also know that it's making me sick inside — with anger — to keep reading these comments where you tell me what the precepts of Judaism are and what I must do to follow them. So I am going to have to step aside. On this subject, at least, I'm done talking to you.
See Kathy's comment above on her divorce (though perhaps not a fidelity issue) and how children can be protected and well raised with responsible parties focusing on the well being of the child.
It wasn't a fidelity issue. And I have to say that probably made it easier for Dave and me to treat each other with civility, especially in front of our daughter.
That's who I could find the data for. As far as the FFS, well, the girls weren't talking to me like that
. It bugs me too. For what it's worth, I wore a white tuxedo at my wedding, as a symbol of equal expectations.
I checked the site, including the “expert” section. They refute a few studies, and explain their position, but never site a study that directly supports their view. It's not like people haven't studied sex before. They also didn't cover the study that I quoted, but in case you think that it's a fluke:
this research demonstrated that women practicing monogamy in traditional marriages experience a greater degree of sexual satisfaction than either married women involved in extramarital affairs or single, sexually active women.[4]
http://www.jewishideas.org/articles/observant-m…
But several major research studies show that church ladies (and the men who sleep with them) are among the most sexually satisfied people on the face of the earth.
http://www.ptm.org/01PT/JulAug/revenge.htm
“women who were sexually active prior to marriage faced a considerably higher risk of marital disruption than women who were virgin brides.”
http://www.palmettofamily.org/Reports/Marriage/…