With divorce rates rising, what effect can this have on peoples opinion of marriage?

Authors Avatar

With divorce rates rising, what effect can this have on people’s opinion of marriage?

        Nowadays, divorce is relatively common; in Britain it is estimated that one in three marriages end in divorce. This is a somewhat depressing statistic. Since the mid-twentieth century, divorce rates have continued to rise and these days, most people know of at least one couple whose marriage has ended in a divorce. With divorce rates so high, it must surely have an effect on people’s opinion of marriage – but how?

        Divorce rates have risen for a number of reasons such as secularisation (the increase in people who aren’t religious) and there being a more permissive society. In the Christian religion, it is taught that people should aim to have one monogamous relationship in their lives: ideally marriages should last forever. Also, the marriage vows the couple made to each other before God, the vicar/priest and any invited guests are essentially promises and the breaking of promises is a terrible thing to do. Therefore, divorce is not encouraged in communities where the people are religious. Secularisation means that the beliefs that come with religion aren’t as prominent or in some cases are completely lost, giving rise to a more permissive society.

Join now!

        With such high rates of divorce, individuals may start to lose faith in marriage. After all, if a third of all marriages end in divorce, why bother? Being surrounded by divorced couples and seeing all the hassle and unhappiness that most of them have gone through, the idea of marriage is shown in a negative light. People’s perception of marriage is distorted and this is evident in today’s society as marriage is slowly losing its place in society: in the past, marriage was an important, prominent part of the life cycle for most people but today there are an increasing ...

This is a preview of the whole essay