Divorce Rate Is Falling

[Forum Administrator]

New Study Says U.S. Divorce Rate is Falling

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.  - The divorce rate in the United States is falling, and a new study offers an explanation: More people are shacking up instead of getting married.

In a report released Tuesday, the co-directors of the National Marriage Project, a nonpartisan institute at Rutgers University that promotes marriage, said couples who get married are more committed to each other than those who are just live together.

The study analyzed data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau and other researchers.  Nine of every 1,000 married women in the United States divorced in 1960, according to the study. The rate increased to more than 22 per 1,000 by 1980 and has steadily declined since, to a little under 18 per 1,000 in 2004.  Meanwhile, the number of unmarried, opposite-sex couples living together has climbed from 439,000 in 1960 to more than 5 million now.

And the marriage rate has fallen over the past three decades: Seventy-seven out of every 1,000 single women got married in 1976; last year, the number was fewer than 40 per 1,000, the study found.

Thoughts. Feelings. Comments. Opinions. Jump right in.

[Novelist]

It is good to hear about the divorce rates falling, yet there is another problem.  Marriages will no longer be honored because people choose to live together.  As stated in the report, married people are more committed than living together.  I would like to hear about marriages working out instead of people just living together playing house.  At one point, I thought about living with a guy before, but now I see, that is not the way.  Too many times, I hear about people living together and their relationship crumbles after a while.  Like the saying, "Why should he buy the cow when he could have it for free?".  I do not want to give away all of my milk!! Really none!!!  Pray for me.


Novelist.

[bishopbiscuits]

...........I liked the title, but the statistics bothered me. 

...........In reference to those who "shack up" :
........Are they just looking for a somewhat "stable" relationship and financial relief? Finding some sense of control and security in their immediate ability to play the "We're not married card" if things get tough, or they change their minds?
........Do some people really feel like they don't have the time or capacity to develop a marital relationship? Or are many folks discouraged by examples of marriages that didn't work out well?   
........Intellectually, I can appreciate the various reasons to some degree.  But personally, shackin' up don't sit right with me.

[Gracious]

Whelp!!!

Please allow me to tackle this topic alil' differently...dealing not with the stat's...BUT rather...moving towards...why we hurt...and then...HURT each other...Amen?

Firstly, I'd like to speak on ... what I KNOW to be true...

...Meaning:

Marriage - The FIRST Covenant (PROMISE) between GOD and man (man and womb-man)!!!

An Aside:
(NOT... BETWEEN MALE & MALE...OR...FEMALE & FEMALE)

Saints...Please think NOT what I'm saying...to be irrelevant...for...How many marriages have ended, simply because of lost sexual / emotional / physical indentity(s)   HMMMM

We (every man and woman) must be biblically clear regarding our identity / our role(s)...in this life...The best way that I know to do this, would be to go to the ROCK...through HIS WORD!!!

Genesis 1:26-28
New International Version 

     27"...So God created man in his own image,
       in the image of God he created him;
       male and female he created them.

    28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and  increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground

Genesis 2:7 (NIV)

7 the LORD God formed the man [a] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

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Please note that:
Genesis 2:7 The Hebrew for man (adam) sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for ground ( adamah it is also the name Adam (see Gen. 2:20).

***************

AGAIN...Saints..."SCRIPTURE" is ALWAYS in order......"IT" provides the surest way to truly align ourselves with HIS LIGHT(HIS WILL)...so that we may EFFECTIVELY minister to the lost!!!

From the "outside" (approaching marriage )...looking in...

It appears that marriage often likens itself, to an unending therapy session ...

A place where one is "blessed" (yes I did say blessed) to deal with the "good, the bad and the ugly" within them.

Things that ya' thought you had matured your way through...yet for some reason (known only to the MASTER    )...comes BACK-up and you feel worse off than ya' did...the first time you dealt with "that THING" (that issue)...Amen?

I-S-S-U-E-S !!!!

Yes, we ALL have them...AND...just because (again, approaching the outside...looking in) we stand before GOD and man (the ceremony - exchanging of vows), doesn't mean that those "I-S-S-U-E-S" will cease or lessen.

Sooooo.....The way that I see it:

Issue-less people are now passed on into GLORY (Heaven numba THREE)!!!

And having a realistic "SPIRITUALLY/SCRIPTUAL -based" lifestyle... STILL... won't prevent the worst...BUT... "it" will allow for the gift(s) of inward peace...making ALL THE DIFFERENCE in the QUALITY of one's life...AND...Whelp...who knows... perhaps the length of one's marriage???

From my heart to yours

Gracious[/color]