This week the Dutch cabinet decided to abolish "quicky divorces." The Christian coalition government believes that children benefit from being brought up by a married couple. It wants to make it harder for husbands and wives to go their seperate ways.
| “One of the things I object to in marriage is that you have to say to the other that you promise not to have sex with anyone else for the rest of your life” |
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Ingeborg Beugel |
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In Europe, many couples cohabit but does that make their relationship less stable?
Amsterdam Forum went in search of the best ingredients for making happy relationships and found there were no easy answers.
Is the road to love ever smooth?
The panellists
Kay Hymowitz - author of Marriage and Caste in America: Seperate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age
Professor Aat Liefbroer - Head of Social Demography at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute
Ingeborg Beugel - journalist, writer, documentary maker and keen observer of Dutch society
Extracts from the debate
Kay on why marriage makes a difference:
“Marriage is a social institution, it is an idea that carries a bunch of beliefs and values and expectations about how to live your life and that in itself seems to be a social good. We know that children who grow up with single mothers are at a greater risk of a whole variety of ills ranging from drug and alcohol abuse, to school failure, to early pregnancy, to becoming single parents themselves.”
Kay on the marital figures in the US:
“We have about a 40-percent divorce rate but more alarming for some of us observers is the 37 percent out-of-wedlock birth rate - over one third of American children are born to unmarried mothers and that number has grown steadily since about 1968."
"Those numbers tend to be much more loaded on the low income side. College educated women are more likely to get married before they have their children and far less likely to divorce, so those children tend to grow up in stable homes - that’s not the case with low income kids.”
Ingeborg on her concept of the ideal family:
“What matters is that you have two people, preferably of two sexes, who promise each other that they’ll both take care of the children - and of course a stable relationship where children can thrive is the best, but whether it’s marriage or not, it doesn’t matter.”
Ingeborg on the end of ‘quicky divorce’ in the Netherlands:
“We have a Christian government and they have a tendency to be paternalistic. For the kids who are the victims of a violent marriage this new law is much worse and I’m very worried about that.”
Aat on cohabitiation in Europe:
“In Europe you find that cohabitation unions are less stable than marriages but when children are involved there’s little difference.”
Kay on the importance of social norms:
“When we threw away the idea of marriage as the right place to raise children we got rid of not just marriage, but stable relationships. Cohabiting relationships in this country are far less stable.”
Ingeborg on fidelity:
“One of the things I object to in marriage is that you have to say to the other that you promise not to have sex with anyone else for the rest of my life. I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t know one couple who has been faithful since they got married.”
Aat on cohabitation before marriage:
“People that have cohabited before marriage have higher divorce rates than those who haven’t. On the other hand, it depends on how common cohabitation is in a country. If hardly anyone cohabits, those who do are a very selective group and have strong ideas about autonomy, they are ideologically opposed to marriage. If they marry they have higher divorce rates."
Ingeborg on alternatives to marriage:
“I’ve seen wonderful other forms where children have really thrived. I’ve seen wonderful homosexual parents, some of them better that the heterosexuals in my circle of friends.”
A selection of your messages:
David, Canada
"Marriage still continues to retain its allure because of the stability it brings to society, even with the high rate of divorce. People can still be referred to and identified by names brought to them by belonging to families they have been nurtured in through the institution of marriage. This fundamental aspect of what marriage brings to both the individual and society, protects the dignity of the person and the cohesive order and function of society by means of property laws such as inheritance."
Ange, Australia
"I am a Civil Marriage Celebrant in Australia, snr VP of the largest national body in our nation. So I will listen with great interest to learn what is happening overseas. In Australia we are increasingly under more and more government regulation but also growing unprofessionalism due to the system as managed by our federal government."
Peter, South Africa
"Marriage is a good thing for both parents and children. It is not easy to raise children alone especially in developing countries, children need care from both mother and father. Both parents will also be safe from sexually transmitted diseases, while children might be safe from hunger."
Jasmine, India
"Marriage is a wonderful thing if it happens to soul mates as it strengthens the emotional, physical and spiritual bonding between them but it becomes a cold bondage if it happens to people where there is no meeting of hearts and souls. The fault is not in the system of marriage. Personally I think the Divine blessings make the total union of two souls a blissful experience to be savoured always by them."
Brian, Canada
"Unmarried couples appear to enjoy most of the privileges of married couples. They can buy a house together, share their employers' medical and other insurance policies and even have their children baptised so that they can attend the school of the parents' choice. Religion has played a major part in people getting married. Only about half the Catholic couples living together today in Canada are married."
Allan, the Netherlands
"It is important to recognise if a couple enter into marriage through belief or tradition. I believe the higher educated an individual is the more likely he/she is to marry for personal ideological reasons, conversely the lower the level of education the more likely the family/peer pressure will determine the reason. If marriage is entered into through personal belief it is more likely to endure."
Alhaji, United Kingdom
"Marriage is the best known symbol of some sort of 'gallantry' in terms of human sociology. A test for love, culture, faith and strength."
Jude, Canada
"People who are especially enthusiastic about marriage, as I gather the Dutch government are, tend to bring up the subject of parenting. Of course steps to ensure children are properly raised are a good idea, but marriage is not exactly the same as parenting. There are good and bad marriages both with and without children. I think the issue could be discussed more rationally without dragging children into it, but then again as a single guy I'm hardly an authority on the matter."
Elvis, Nigeria
"I believe the marriage institution is dying. This is a fall out [from] feminist pursuits of equal rights and the passionate desires of disregarding Biblical ethics which has occasioned the emergence of homosexuals and lesbianism."
Tags: amsterdam forum, divorce, dutch, europe, gay, homosexual, lesbian, love, marriage, us