This week's column: The breakup
I've been legally single again for nearly nine years now. But I still wince at TV's "Divorce Court," which plays couples' splits for cheap entertainment.
Take it from me: It ain't all that funny.
Probably the only thing worse than a bad marriage is ending a bad marriage.
No matter who you are, no matter whether you initiate the split or have it forced on you, divorce is a painful, tedious, heart-rending process.
It takes its toll not only on the soon-to-be-torn-asunder couple, but on friends who are forced to choose sides, on relatives and, worst of all, on children.
Then there's the inevitable battle over whose stuff is whose and who gets to keep what.
I still remember getting all worked up about a fake ficus tree that I eventually parked in a closet.
I'm hardly an expert at matrimony. (Through the sheer force of repetition, I know a whole lot more about alimony.)
But some lessons from the experience are clear even to a nuptially challenged guy like me.
I would not get married because everyone else seemed to be doing it.
I would seek premarital counseling.
I'd make as certain as I could that I like my wife-to-be. Love definitely isn't enough.
I'd realize that good marriages don't just happen. You have to invest time and energy. You have to be willing to compromise.
You have to be smart enough to understand that Sunday NFL games are a pastime, not a way of life.
More important, you have to be willing to listen.
And if all those things didn't work and she and I wound up right back in Guilford County District Court, I'd seek mediation rather than a pitched battle before a judge.
It's less expensive, emotionally and financially.
But many of you probably already know these things.
One of the main reasons the court dockets stay so full in Guilford County is the volume of divorce cases.
Further, I apparently live in a geographic hotbed for divorce.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the states with the highest divorce rates are in the Bible Belt (Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas), where marriages end at a rate roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people.
But over the long haul, say the numbers, there's no mad rush to the offices of divorce lawyers.
The marriage rate has held fairly steady over the last 60 years and the divorce rate has declined slightly.
Of course, that's small consolation if you're one of those statistics.
Yet there's more than faint hope for the future.
Thanks to strong, visionary leadership from the White House and in Congress, lawmakers are pushing, relentlessly, to give marriage the constitutional and moral clarity it deserves.
"Marriage is the most fundamental institution of civilization, and it should not be redefined by activist judges," President Bush recently said to supporters in his endorsement of the Marriage Protection Act.
"You are here because you strongly support a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman, and I am proud to stand with you."
The math and the message are unmistakably precise: Marriage should be between one man and one woman.
True, the Senate ultimately rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage last week. But President Bush and Republican lawmakers have vowed that the buck won't stop there.
The House will tackle the issue in the near future, and such clear speakers and deep thinkers as Pat Robertson will keep it in the public's consciousness. I am hopeful and heartened.
I only regret that we didn't "protect" marriage with a constitutional amendment nine years ago.
I might have saved a small fortune in alimony payments.
Contact Allen Johnson at ajohnson@news-record.com
Comments (13)
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I'm trying to follow the logic here. I didn't get it Sunday when I read your column and it still doesn't make sense to me. Maybe you can help me out.
"Marriage should be between one man and one woman."
Why?
Your self-disclosure doesn't paint a positive view of heterosexual union. Nor do the statements about divorce rates in the Bible Belt, where a locally agreed upon moral clarity would seem to be in place. So where do your examples support your statement? Where are the anecdotes or the studies or the statistics that show that two women are more likely to walk away from a lifelong commitment, an emotionally and legally binding relationship than a man and a woman? How does your experience or the divorce statistics of heterosexual couples carry over to the devotion and mutual responsibility that one man may feel and act upon with and for another man?
And why is the federal government involved in defining 'moral clarity' as opposed to legal structure? Why is the ceremony of marriage confounded with the practical aspects of a legal contract?
And by the way, the Senate didn't "ultimately reject(ed) a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage last week." They voted against ending discussion in order to proceed to a vote. I find it revealing that this Senate couldn't even bring in a majority on this issue. Maybe this amendment is just a really bad idea.
Posted on June 14, 2006 2:50 PM
That's probably my fault. That part of the column was meant to be satire.
I was trying to show the absurdity of any notion that preventing gays from marrying would have somehow saved my own heterosexual marriage.
I probably should have written it straight (no pun intended).
Posted on June 14, 2006 3:22 PM
Hee-hee! That's really funny. So I guess you really did make your point and I was just being a little bit thick!
Posted on June 14, 2006 3:52 PM
The tip off to the joke was "such clear speakers and deep thinkers as Pat Robertson".
Posted on June 15, 2006 7:59 AM
I certainly intended them to be. But satire is a risky proposition in a world in which many people, alas, consider Robertson a clear speaker and deep thinker.
Posted on June 15, 2006 8:59 AM
I have been trying on Nancy's and Doug's blogs to get a serious airing of the proposal to get governments out of the "marriage" business altogether. Why not civil unions for every (by consent and consensus, adult) couple? That wouldn't disband the chance for any religious organization to perform whatever rites it desires. Just that each couple would be recognized by the signing of a legal contract for government (and tax, estate and health care) purposes, which would be separate from the religious terminology.
In old Europe, in fact, the "betrothal" was more legally binding than the church service.
Posted on June 15, 2006 10:06 AM
Freddy:
I think you make a good case for such a shift. The solution isn't to place more religion into government. It's to move more religion out.
Posted on June 15, 2006 10:36 AM
Unfortunately, many who get their religious views in would defend themselves as being "spiritual" rather than narrowly religious. Imagine someone running for office in this country who didn't claim their faith (even lightly) as part of their résumé. A rationalist, someone who stood for reason in the use of science as well as struggling with problems of ethics (see Einstein), would never get a fair hearing if they didn't also kowtow to some degree to "people of faith".
Posted on June 22, 2006 11:55 AM
Good points, Freddy. However, I believe the pendulum shifts with the time and mood of the country.
9/11 made faith much more of a front-and-center issue.
Posted on June 22, 2006 12:02 PM
Agreed, Allen. Does it strike you as coincidence that this rise in a yearning for "faith" comes in direct proportion to a rise in (pseudo- or real) "patriotism", and increased threats to our civil freedoms?
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