Conclusions, Predictions, and Prognostications 225
• The median age for divorce is Husband = 35, Wife = 33.
• Median number of years of marriage = 6.3 years.
• Children are involved in 52 percent of all marriages.
• 9.6 percent of Hawai‘i cases include alimony, 15 percent of
nationwide cases include alimony.
• The physical custody of approximately 70 percent of all
dependent minor children goes to women.Divorce in America: Some Future trends
The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married
life.
—Oscar Wilde
Will the divorce disease restructure America? More than at any pre-
vious time in our history, America during the last twenty-five
years has witnessed the unfolding of a divorce explosion in which
society’s pro-marriage constraints (i.e., social pressures forcing
people to remain married and ostracizing those who fail to do so)
have broken down. Instead, people are now free to divorce at any
time their little own self-centered free will desires. Furthermore,
they can now do so almost entirely free of any serious negative
societal repercussions. For virtually the first time in our nation’s
history, we are seeing divorced men (such as Ronald Reagan) and
“philanderers” (such as Bill Clinton) elected president.
That divorce has now become socially acceptable seems indis-
putable. And as we explore later in this chapter, the argument can
also be made that, for the parties themselves, a divorce may well
be “for the best.” One area where the negative ramifications seem
entirely too clear, however, is the social regression that seems to
inevitably accompany the weakening of the traditional American
nuclear family structure.
The virtue vacuum. Former U.S. education secretary and all-
around “virtuecrat” William J. Bennett has compiled a list of
social indicators that he feels point to a stark decline in Ameri-
can cultural values. He reports that the following dire statistical
changes have occurred just since 1960: there has been a 560 per-
cent increase in violent crime; illegitimate births are up 400 percent;