Divorce Leads To Happiness

Divorce rates in America are rising at an alarming rate, many people say that Americans are straying away from the traditional family. However, what do people think a traditional family is? In The Way We Wish We Were: Defining the Family Crisis, Conntz says,  “the notion that traditional families fostered intense intimacy between husbands and wives while creating mothers who were totally available to their children, for example, is an idea that combines some characteristics of the white, middle-class family in the mid-nineteenth century and some of a rival family ideal first articulated in the 1920s. the first family revolved emotionally around the mother-child axis, leaving the husband-wife relationship stilted and formal. The second focused on an eroticized couple relationship, demanding that mothers curb emotional “over investment” in their children.” In the article, she shows how our conception of the “traditional family” is imaginary and nonexistent. She showed the many consequences a traditional family had to live through; some were child labor and mothers too busy to care for their children.

However, people now days correlate high divorce rates with people straying away from these nonexistent idea of “traditional families.” While many people may think divorce is ruining the sanctity and meaning of marriage, I think divorce can actually be a good thing—it allows people who are unhappy in their marriages to find someone else to be happy with. Sure marriages are becoming less permanent, but marriages are becoming more satisfying. Conntz says, “studies of marital satisfaction reveal that more couples reported their marriages to be happy in the late 1970s than did so in the 1957, while couples in their second marriages believe them to be much happier than their first ones.” 

Divorce is often associated with unhappiness and brokenness. However, I think divorce is a way to separate oneself from unhappiness and brokenness, and to find happiness and a second shot at love. Like Coontz says in her article, many traditional families were unhappy. However, many families stayed married just for the sake of being married. High divorce rates do not mean families are becoming unhappier. Instead, I think high divorce rates show higher rates of people who are going to happier later in their lives.

I had a friend who had parents that always fought. Her father would often abuse her mother--he would violently hit her and scream at her. At one point, her mother had to go to the hospital because she was beaten up so bad. My friend and her siblings always had to witness the traumatizing abuse and had no choice but to live in this negative environment. Eventually, her mother divorced her father. Later on, she remarried a man that was nicer to her and the children. In addition, he was very financially stable and brought a lot of happiness. 

Divorce is a way to leave something negative, and to have a second chance to look for something positive. i don't think we should worry about the high divorce rates. instead, we should be glad that divorce is become more accessible and socially accepted.