To:
viewpoints@chron.com 
(published
in the Feb 16th, 2002 Houston Chronicle)
Subject:
A different kind of divorce 
Date:
Mon, 11 Feb 2002 10:30:12 -0800 (PST) 
The article "A different kind of divorce",
by Mary Ann Fergus in the Sunday, Feb 10 edition puts a warm fuzzy face on one
of the most damaging activities in this country. While nobody should complain about people trying to behave
civilly after a divorce, this article doesn't begin to show us whether or not
the Adams worked as hard to save their marriage as they are in making the
divorce "work." How many
marriages might be saved if people put this much effort into them BEFORE they
divorced?
There is one point glibly mentioned in this article
which screams for clarification. Ms (or
Mrs.?) Fergus states "...2001 statistics from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention still show 50 percent of all marriages in America will
fall apart within 20 years." What
is her source? What report by the CDC
contains this 50% number?
Journalists have been claiming 50% of marriages will
end in divorce for years now. Some site
the CDC, some the Census Bureau.
Neither agency tracks this data.
The CDC tracks divorce per thousand population - not as a ratio of
marriages. The infamous 50% figure
comes from people looking at the number of divorces in a given year compared to
the number of marriages in that year.
For the past several years, the USA has had about half the number of
divorces in a year as marriages. This
DOES NOT compute to a 50% divorce rate!
As the Census Bureau accurately observes, to
calculate the divorce rate as a function of marriage one would need to track
each marriage until death or divorce and cumulate the data to get the aggregate
number. The last time the Census Bureau
tried to calculate this was around 1990 and they found that nearly 90% of first
time marriages ended in the death of a spouse!
People who married multiple times tend to divorce with greater
ease. But the data is too complex and
spread over too much time to be easily handled in a fashion which would yield a
true divorce rate in the terms represented in the article.
Why the fuss?
Marriage is under assault in all quarters of our society and using phony
statistics and passive terms such as "falling apart" to describe
divorce simply further the unstated message that divorce is normal and, in the
words of Clayton Williams, people ought to just lie back and enjoy it.
Well, people ought to pay more attention to the life
long vows made in marriage before they put the ring on. And people who are married need to consider
long and hard the choice that lies before them. It is a choice between good and evil, not simply a
"different" lifestyle.
Sincerely,
Stuart L. Brogden