Divorce & Marriage

Some people I know become disillusioned by marriage because of the many dissolutions of which they witnessed. I personally know many couples in Shanghai who are couples no more, a social taboo inconceivable just ten years ago in the land of Confucius.

The usual suspects are infidelity (or medically, phalliophilia or colpoamia), abuse, or the fashionable irreconcilable differences. The latest catalysts include feminism (or medically, Sex and the City), political correctness that leads to social tolerance, and information explosion since the advent of internet.

In the case of my fellow countrymen, the introduction of western individualism and the rapid deterioration of once ubiquitous rigid social structure ought to be the herald for the new divorce-happy life style.

The list is by no means exhaustive.

So the 50 dollar question is: outside any religious sense, is marriage relevant in our modern time?

Before marriage, there is relationship whose formula is physiological craving plus emotional dependence, the kind of math American teenagers really excel at. Relationship could be monogamous or polygamous depending on personal preferences. When considering evolution, monogamy is preferred as it provides the best possible physical and social environment for the offspring. That’s why the misconception of certain Mormon practice is so exotic.

Does monogamous relationship require a human institution of marriage? Child support, inheritance right, tax exemption; many of such legal codes ensure children born out of wedlock to have equal or at least similar filial rights. So for devoted parents, marriage doesn’t seem to help reap any more social benefits for their children.

If not for their children, the reason must be selfish. Marginally self reassuring, approval winning, parents pleasing, conformity seeking are the typical aftertastes once names are registered on the country record.

But there is more…

Some people spend their lifetime searching for the origin of all existence or meaning of life, fully aware that they will be likely, eventually disappointed. But they persist. Their act of pursuit, not the subject thereof, is an ideal. The pursuit of an ideal, whether by starving artists, self-disemboweling samurai warriors, or by prostrating believers, is our mental faculty par excellence at work. Marriage is another ideal for the brave, the passionate, and the unjaded.

For the cup-half-full folks, when the divorce rate is up, it's corollary that the marriage rate is up, a priori. So why are people disillusioned by marriage?