Stumbled across this title earlier today, and I have to admit to being intrigued.
“Marriage is not the root of all divorce,” it reads.
Indeed.
Author Brande Victorian begins her article with some pop-culture cites from Hollywood icons. More people are declining to marry due because more people are deciding to divorce, goes the thinking.
But raw divorce statistics tell us almost nothing about our individual circumstances, give us little understanding or direction.
Marriage isn’t an across the board type of thing, it’s a union between two people, and what doesn’t work between one couple has no bearing on what will work with another.
That’s absolutely correct.
Ms Victorian goes on, then, to try and get at what that really means. And that’s where she stumbles.
Her premise seems to be that marriage is merely an evolutionary step, like an ice cube that fluidly melts into water. Not anything more than what was; but somehow different.
Curiously, she offhandedly dismisses the value of any “declaration before God,” or, for that matter, expression of commitment given in the presence of family or friends. How is it, then, that “society” is recognized as having the power to undermine marriage, but not encourage it?
In my own practices, it’s quite common to find at root in failing and failed marriages the divisive counsel of “friends” (in whom such trust has clearly been misplaced). An ignorance regarding God’s power, the value of His communities, and the inherent unity that can come to a marriage where the partners share their common faith in Him.
Brande Victorian seems to come round to an appreciation of this as she works through her writing.
A marriage is an individual union between two people and if they set realistic expectations that each partner is willing to commit to for life then they have a solid foundation to make their union work. But without that strong foundation, we will continue to see our divorce rates dissolve exponentially, and consequently our marriage rates.
I guess she just didn’t know it had a name. The name she too readily rejected.
What is a “strong foundation”? How can “realistic expectations” ever be set, let alone realized, without common values? Where is the solid footing to be found when conflicts arise, the point at which husband and wife can assuredly return for solace?
Tags: brande victorian, commitment, cynicism, divorce, faith, god, marriage, realistic expectations, reconsiliation, statistics
