Sears: Let’s end disposable marriage (1)
Editor’s note: Leah Ward Sears stepped down this week as Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. In 1992, she became the first woman — and youngest person — appointed to Georgia’s highest court.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — After Tommy’s sudden death, we found among my brother’s personal effects a questionnaire he had completed in 2005 for a church class.
The very first question was a fill-in-the-blank that went like this: “At the end of my life, I’d love to be able to look back and know I’d done something about …..”
“Fathers,” Tommy wrote.
When asked to identify something that angered him that could be changed, Tommy wrote, “Re-establishment of equity and balance and sanity within the American family.”
My brother was born to be a father, and he grew into a good and loving one. Tommy was tall and handsome, smart, witty and fun. A graduate of the Naval Academy and a Stanford-educated lawyer, he married and fathered a little girl and boy who were the center of his life.
Tommy felt that one of the worst problems in our country today was family breakdown and fatherlessness. He railed against intentional unwed childbearing and the ease with which divorce was possible. He didn’t like that we have become a society that values the rights of adults to do their own thing over our responsibility to protect our children.
As a judge I have long held a front row seat to the wreckage left behind by our culture of disposable marriage and casual divorce that my brother so despised.
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Cynapse Says:
The problem isn’t that it’s too easy to get divorced but rather that it’s too easy to get married. One night of drunkenness in Vegas can result in marriage. More commonly, a 6 month courtship that SEEMS to be going well can result in marriage.
Although a lot of people don’t like the idea of cohabitation, I think it would be helpful for the law to require couples to live together for at least 1 year before they can legally marry. The person you meet on dates or at parties for a couple of years can be substantially different from the person you share space with. In the olden days, this disaster-in-waiting was covered for by the social stigma of being divorced (resulting in a lot of down-low infidelity, abuse and “poisoned lovers”). Today, we’re more in the open about our ailments and as bound by tradition for the sake of tradition. But the underlying problem can still be minimized by test driving the situation IMO. Dedicated lovers who have made a real investment are far less likely to walk away from a marriage at the first inconvenience.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Jack Says:
It’s a thought.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
MaryT Says:
Seeing the results of cohabitation, it seems that the longer a couple live together before marriage, the sooner they divorce or separate. I have always questioned those live-in arrangements and their argument, marriage is only a piece of paper, and our love is deeper than that. And at the same time we have gays/lesbians fighting for that piece of meaningless paper.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Cynapse Says:
Cohabitation won’t cure the 7 year itch, admittedly. My guess is that the clock was ticking anyway. If they live together before the paper, the entropy of their relationship continues. Cohabitation can prevent the impulsive mistake, IMO.
Marriage is not guaranteed unless there is virtual ownership. I’m sure the divorce rate in the 1940’s would have been much higher if women had more rights. Domestic abuse was just as bad (or according to some women I know, worse) and economic pickings were slim for women so they stuck it out with their drunken louts.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
stageleft Says:
Length of time togeher before marriage is meaningless. My wife and I knew each other for only a couple of weeks before we moved in together, we had 4 kids in our household before we got married, we were together for 26 years before we discovered that we were growing apart to a degreee that we were unable to address, and as a result we seperated before we became miserable or began to hate each other…. sometimes that’s the way things go.
That was almost three years ago, we’re still friends, last xmas we both flew to Iqaluit to have a family gathering with our kids and their kids, and as a matter of fact we were out for supper this very evening.
If we had been forced to know each other for longer than two weeks we would have lost out on some very happy years and four great children, and if we had been forced to stay together we would have soon been miserable.
….. and now the question for every one with an opinion on this, which would have been more preferable?
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Mac Says:
It’s easy to blame the laws but the reality is our society changed and the divorce rates are a reflection of that change. That’s not to suggest our society won’t change again; I would say it will… but it’s hard to say in what direction…
I would like to think the next generation will give more consideration to their relationships. I know I’m trying to instill that in my kids but only time will tell.
The role of “fathers” as explored in the article is, again, a reflection of societal change. Radical feminism is finally showing signs of faltering. As it fades, the constant accusations of men being oppressors and the tendency of the courts to treat fathers as nothing more than open wallets should also fade.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
MaryT Says:
Stageleft, were you married for 26 years or together for 26 yrs. We are from different generations, mine where divorce was not allowed in Canada, except for adultery. Lots of liars appeared in court cases, to swear to the act.
My grandmother used to say, the secret to a happy, and long lasting marriage is, never be mad at each other at the same time. And, when things seem impossible to fix, write down a list, why I want to leave, why I shouldn’t leave. Compare lists and have a good laugh. 55 yrs for us come Sunday, good times and bad. When asked if divorce was ever considered, my answer, divorce never. No other woman is going to get my tupperware.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 9:56 pm