38 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
heightened emphasis on their own personal agendas, and they
now have the ability to finance those agendas with their own
earned income. This in turn can cause couples to splinter when
the woman becomes understandably less willing to subordinate
her own role and needs in order to “stand by her man” in the old
traditional sense.
The key cause of divorce—marriage. When compiling a list of the
key causal factors of divorce, it is probably a bit too facile to say,
“Marriage is the foremost cause of divorce.” One cannot under-
estimate, however, the difficulties inherent in embarking on any
marriage. As George Bernard Shaw said in describing the inher-
ently contradictory nature of the marriage ceremony: “When two
people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane,
most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required
to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal and
exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.”
Sociological Factors
Before marriage, a man will go home and lie awake all night thinking about
something you said; after marriage, he’ll go to sleep before you finish saying it.
—Helen Rowland
Under the old-style value system of our grandparents’ genera-
tion, the needs of the family took priority over the need of the
individual. Today, exactly the reverse is true. The social pressure
that would have been exerted on grandma and grandpa if they’d
decided to split no longer exists. In fact, modern American soci-
ety offers a multiplicity of options to cut and run when the going
gets rough.
Great expectations. During the last couple of decades, a clutter
of books, magazines, and self-help courses has emerged encour-
aging thousands to make their needs, desires, and preferences
known to their spouses. Marriage enrichment programs instruct
American couples how to better communicate with one another.
Clearly the expectations are higher today with regard to what
constitutes a good or workable marriage. These expectations cen-
ter not only on the quality of the actual time a husband and wife