The High Rate of Divorces in America

Author's Note:  The United States is a very big and complex nation, and the divorce rate is a very complex and big problem. The question of why the American divorce rate is so high cannot be addressed in a few short lines; so here - in an attempt to at least partially address the matter of America's divorce rate - is my very "big" hub.

OVERVIEW

The divorce rate in America is disturbingly high and generally a source of a concern for most people. With approximately half of all marriages ending in divorce, and the practices of courts that often disregard the wellbeing of the parties involved, the toll of divorce on couples and their children can be far more devastating than it otherwise would need to be.

Couples with children must try to find ways to minimize the negative impact that divorce can, and often does, have on children. The quality of a family's life is often negatively affected because paying for two separate residences (complete with utilities, food, furnishings and other items) requires more income than does the cost of keeping one residence. When a couple's income is sufficiently high the financial impact of divorce may be minimal of non-existent; but "sufficiently high" in today's America is measured on a bar that is high enough to exclude, perhaps, the majority of divorcing couples. Even when both parties are entirely capable of comfortably covering their respective housing expenses, one is usually required to pay the additional expense of child support (sometimes even when the custodial parent doesn't necessarily need additional assistance to support the children). Child support, of course, is something to which most caring parents do want to contribute; and the matter of it is most often viewed as a moral responsibility, as well as any financial need on the part of the custodial parent.

Long court battles over custody further increase the cost of divorce.

The existence of substantial marital assets can make divorce yet even more complicated and costly.

For couples with no children the financial impact may be limited to the cost of court fees, and in some cases it is possible to keep that cost extremely low, or even have some fees waived. The divorce of couples who have few or no assets can be yet less costly and complicated. Divorce mediation (which can occur when both partners would prefer to try to work together, with a mediator, to work out the terms of divorce) can streamline the process of divorce and keep the cost of needing two separate attorneys to handle all matters down.

Still, regardless of how difficult or relatively easy it is for any couple to become divorced, nobody entering a marriage wants it to end in divorce or believes it will. Nobody likes American's high divorce rate, a lot of people worry about it, and many others try to figure out why divorce happens in order to keep it from happening to them. When people marry they usually take it for granted that they will grow old with their spouse. Most people realize they will not have a trouble-free life, but most believe that "happily ever after" doesn't have to mean "without troubles" - just remaining in love through those troubles. Even more important for, perhaps, the majority of people who are parents, as well as spouses, is that nobody ever wants their child(ren) to experiencing having parents divorce.

So why is the divorce rate as high as it is today? Why - in a nation like the United States, where the standard of living is generally as high as it is (even with the existence of some of poverty) - do so many couples who are so certain their marriage will last forever end up divorced? Here are some potential contributing factors, presented in no particular order of probable/possible contribution to any individual divorce:

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN NEEDS - A POSSIBLE ROOT CAUSE

First, the matter of human needs may well play a very important role in the number of divorces that occur:

Psychologist, Abraham Maslow, developed his "Heirarchy of Needs", which pointed out that human beings generally have different levels of needs; and that those levels of needs were layered, in order of importance to development, growth, and general wellbeing, with the most basic needs shown at the base of a pyramid and the least basic at the top of that pyramid. (Maslow actually worked with monkeys, so his Heirarchy of Needs is not necessarily related only to human beings.)

Maslow pointed out that there is a process by which people's overall growth (including physical, emotional, and intellectual) must take place, and that process requires the meeting of the most basic needs before the person moves on to meeting the needs at the next level up on the pyramid.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs shows the levels at which different types of needs are placed as follows:

1. Physiological Needs - The need for food, water, clothing, and shelter

2. Security Needs - The basic need for "social" security in a family and society that protects againt violence.

3. Love and Belonging Needs - The need to give and receive love, appreciation and friendship; and the need to experience a sense of belonging.

4. Esteem Needs - The need to be a unique individual with self-respect, and the need for esteem from others.

5. Experiencing purpose and meaning, and the realization of all inner potentials

6. The need for self actualization. If one were to further simpify and break down the needs one might realize that the "intersection" of physiological needs and emotional needs is the need to feel protected from violence. Physical violence, of course, poses both physical and emotional risks. Verbal and emotional violence pose only emotional threats. At the same time, emotional harm can lead to a secondary form of physical threat because physical health is related to stress and emotional state.

In the United States, while there are certainly some who go to bed hungry and some who have no shelter, a good number of even the poorest people often have food, always have water, have (must have, according to laws) clothing (even if that doesn't include many changes of it), and have shelter of some sort. There are nations where that cannot be said of the majority of the population.

This would, of course, mean that the majority of Americans have the most basic physiological needs met and are, "at minimum", at the stage of addressing their security needs. While inner city "bad neighborhoods" in America do not offer residents a sense of physical safety, there are people who live in such neighborhoods, aware of the crime rate but not constantly cowering in their apartments in fear. Young people from such neighborhoods make up a good number of unwed parents, so the marriage/divorce rate may not even reflect as many people from such neighborhoods at it does people from more advantaged families. Whether or not this is accurate, the point is that - income level aside - many Americans have their basic physiological needs met, as well as experiencing a general sense of physical safety, and are "concentrating" on the need for emotionally feeling safe and secure.

In marriages where domestic violence occurs, of course, there is no sense of physical safety for spouses and/or children. Many marriages end because of domestic violence.

When domestic violence is not the matter in a marriage, couples may often be at that next "level up" of emotional security needs, which may be the most basic emotional needing to feel "emotionally safe" (free from "emotional attack", such as verbal attack, criticism, and spouses who behave in a way that creates a sense of insecurity). When that's not the problem in a marriage, the problem may, instead, be a matter of people's not having needs in subsequent levels met.

The highest needs for sense of purpose and self actualization will not be met if some of the needs beneath them are not met. Without meeting those highest needs a person may not feel whole. People can, at times, live reasonably happy in a marriage and not feel completely whole as individuals, but the degree of feeling incomplete as a person goes up as the importance of any need goes up. Also, the degree of not feeling whole goes up with the number of, and significance of, needs not met. In other words, the more of the Heirarchy of Needs a person has under his belt the less "incomplete" he is as an individual.

Marriages always benefit when both parties have reached becoming "whole" individuals before marrying, but part of being married is also often reaching that sense of wholeness together. When partners are at different stages in their own growth challenges increase. Still, it is often possible for marriages to survive if the needs not met are not among those lower on the Maslow pyramid. The farther away one or both partners is from being "whole", however, the bigger the challenge often is to the marriage.

Perhaps a bigger factor associated with needs are those needs to fall just above that security need - the need to give and receive love, appreciation, and friendship; and the need to experience a sense of belonging. These needs are quite low on the pyramid; and just as security needs can be the "intersection" between physical safety and the emotional need for feeling secure, the need for love, friendship, and appreciation could be seen as the "intersection" of lower and higher needs.

While there are marriages that can survive without love between the partners, that often happens when there is still at least friendship and appreciation. Couples who have their individual friendships outside the marriage and/or family members who clearly appreciate them stand a better chance of being able to withstand dminished love between spouses. Often, however, in marriages where a sense of friendship and appreciation doesn't exist spouses can have a difficult time resisting the temptation of getting that friendship outside the home; and when a person who felt without a friend finds one, he often particularly appreciates that person. This is the situation that often leads to extra-marital affairs, which, of course, do nothing to strengthen an already weakened marriage.

While there are cultures (and even individual Americans) who find that the commonly held sense of importance Americans place on fidelity is laughable, most Americans (particularly those of the middle class, perhaps) take fidelity extremely seriously. Often, even those who believe trying to save a marriage after infidelity is worth the effort discover that the strain on the already weakened marriage is just too much to overcome. Many spouses simply believe, too, that infidelity is the "deal breaker" when it comes to working on or ending a marriage.

One final point in the matter of the heirarchy of needs may be that even when people enter a marriage with sufficient progress on that "climbing of the pyramid of needs" in their own growth, keeping all that personal progress they've made can become challenged fractures occur in the foundation of the pyramid. It isn't always enough, or even necessary, for individuals to be at their "higher needs" level before marrying. More important may be that "staying at a high level in the pyramid" is not guaranteed once a person reaches it (if he ever does).

When meeting the need for food and shelter becomes threatened, for example, a person will be tossed from any higher place on the need pyramid back to some lower point in its foundation. Financial struggles and job insecurity can make both spouses experience threat to the needs for food and shelter. If they have children the threat will be experienced more severely. Some couples can work together to survive their struggles. It helps if they are people who cope with serious difficulties in a similar way, or at least are willing and able to try to understand the other's different approach. Couples who share values and approaches to coping have an advantage, but many couples don't share those things. Whether as a result of personal background, culture, birth order, or upbringing; differences in priorities and approaches to dealing with struggles can cause people to pull away from their spouse and turn inward. This can contribute to a sense of feeling isolated in dealing with financial worries. The more substantial difficulties are, and the longer they persist, the more isolated people can become. A similar thing can occur when couples deal with other serious difficulties, whether that is illness, tragedy, or any other kind of serious struggle and/or loss.

When people feel isolated, as well as stressed, there are a number of needs that are not met. The resulting sense of threat of divorce can add to the problem for both spouses. "Emotional erosion" can occur within each partner, and as that happens erosion to the marriage begins to occur. When people are no longer "just stressed" or "just having difficulties that everyone has in life", and when the number and degree of difficulties becomes well beyond what would be considered "average", they can feel as if "just surviving emotionally" requires all their energy. When people are no longer able to concentrating on their relationship because they must devote all their energy to "surviving", they often don't have the emotional resources to devote to even a generally good marriage. When marriages have become to damaged even people of sufficient emotional resources can find the challenge of trying to save them extremely difficult. When a person, himself, is depleted of some of the most basic emotional resources and energy, it is generally impossible for that person to be successful at holding up his part of the marriage (let alone being, sometimes, the one person who manages to hold things together).

Even if one spouse remains able to make the effort and address the needs of a damaged marriage, one "broken" spouse (or one "whole" spouse) cannot do it alone. When people who seem perfectly suited to each other are in even a good marriage that faces overwhelming challenges from external circumstances, the odds of both remaining strong enough to survive emotionally are not good.

This leads to a second, related, possible reason there is a high divorce rate - flaws in the foundation of the marriage.

FLAWS IN THE FOUNDATION OF THE MARRIAGE

When "incomplete" or immature people get married the outlook is never as good as when people are generally well adjusted (for their own stage of growth) and emotionally mature. (Emotional maturity can come surprisingly early in life, so it is worth noting that marrying young doesn't always mean being too emotionally immature to have a lasting marriage.) Even when people are generally mature and whole enough to begin a marriage, however, they have often not been tested when it comes to how they deal with very serious difficulties in life.

Without experience dealing with extreme (and often multiple) challenges to their personal sense of wellbeing, nobody can predict how he will process and deal with such challenges if/when they occur. When serious difficulties occur for a couple (shared difficulties), the spouses can suddenly feel as if the other is someone he didn't really know. Even two people who believed they were absolutely right for one another and shared all the same values can learn that they were far different from the other than they thought. Without knowing which difficulties may occur in the future, and without understanding how one will deal with them when they arise, people often enter marriage with differences that will only be revealed if/when certain types of difficulties arise.

Some people may discover discover that, even without ever knowing it, they are similar in their ways of coping. These are fortunate people because, in the face of severe difficulties in life, they discover their marriage has a rock-solid foundation (even if it is only a matter of luck that this "secret" element exists). Other couples discover that, even with all their good sense, best efforts, good intentions, and belief that they "are forever", the unseen foundation in their marriage at cracks (simply because it not always possible to see where the cracks are until what lies on top of the foundation crumbles). Some marriages may have some cracks in the foundation, but if they experience "weather" that isn't too extreme the partners may never even realize those cracks exist.

FACTORS RELATED TO AMERICAN SOCIETY OVER RECENT DECADES

Another contributing factor to the high divorce rate may be that Americans take women's rights and equality very seriously. While years ago, before women had the power to be financially independent and before there was help for battered women who couldn't leave marriages, many women stayed in marriages that today would end in divorce. The mistreatment and lack of respect for women is not an American phenomenon. In fact, the United States is generally a leader in recognizing that women are important contributors to society in a number of ways, and that no human beings deserve to be treated as inferior. As a result, one explanation for an increased divorce rate over recent decades could be that the United States has been a forerunner in the recognition that unhealthy marriages and poorly treated spouses (often women) are not good healthy for individuals, children, or society.

Another contributing factor could be the related phenomenon of Americans having become aware of the damage that occur to occur to children when they grow up in marriages where fighting and/or emptiness exists between the parents or when one parent behave in a way that is not nurturing to children. The natural wish to remove one's children from unhealthy environments and/or from a parent who does not treat those children in the best way possible could be another reason Americans divorce as often as they do.

In addition to the personal and interpersonal factors that can contribute to divorce regardless of a couple's socioeconomic standing, each socioeconomic level brings with it its own challenges to marriages. Couples with little money or financial stability can face extra struggles. Those couples of extreme wealth can face a different world and different set of struggles. With the large number of Americans considered "middle class", and with an increasingly shrinking middle class today, two challenges for American couples may be that those moving into a higher socioeconomic level have the challenges faced with such a transition, while those thrust into a lower one can feel particularly threatened.

The matter of inadequate education versus being well educated may contribute to the divorce rate, with educational levels of both type posing their own challenges. The Baby Boom generation is a generation born of World War II parents who, in the 1950's were often so happy to have the war over, as well as the benefits of the GI Bill (which allowed so many veterans to buy homes), often devoted their lives to their children. Large numbers of World War II parents wanted their children to have better educations and opportunities than they had had, so trying to provide children with a college education became what most parents did.

Technology was on the rise. Emphasis on it was replacing emphasis on manufacturing. People who were to have financial stability through employment were encouraged to get the college education required to work in technology. Obtaining an undergraduate degree was increasingly commonplace among Baby Boomers, and advanced degrees were not rare. This led to more competition for jobs among college graduates, with requirements for hiring being elevated to, more and more, include advanced degrees. Not only did competition become greater, so did the expenses of getting those degrees (and when young people from families of modest means get those degrees there are often student loans that follow them, and add to financial burdens in a marriage, into middle age).

With a glut of college-educated Baby Boomers in competition for work in technology-associated (and other) fields, not finding work in one's chosen field became common. The 1980's brought a slow-down for many companies. Later the "Dot Com Bubble" (a separate phenomen") burst. The point is that a widely well educated American population learned that working at one company for decades was no longer something American workers did. Further, job stability was not what it once had been.

This set of dynamics that has taken place in America over the last few decades has meant that many well educated people find themselves looking for work in fields that are not their chosen ones. It also means many work in lower paying jobs while still having those high student loans. Financial strains and emotional dissatisfactions don't contribute to the general sense of satisfaction in life - or marriage.

There have, of course, been people who have enjoyed financial success; but with that does not always come personal satisfaction. While financially successful people are not immune to personal and marriage problems, however, people who have difficulty reaching the very commonly shared sense of financial instability has been yet one more strain on marriage over recent decades.

At the other end of the education spectrum are people without graduated degrees or even undergraduate degrees. Some Americans have no high school diploma. Others have attended college but dropped out (often because trying to maintain good grades while working to pay for their own tuition) can be overwhelming. With Bachelor's degrees having become more meaningless to potential employers, high-paying jobs have become farther and farther out of reach not just for college drop-outs and high school graduates, but for everyone.

With a high cost of living, increased job insecurity and financial struggles, and general increased challenges to even middle-class Americans, marriages over recent decades have faced, in many ways, more toxic challenges than many marriages of the past did. With a rise in the divorce rate that extends back several years, the negative effects of divorce have, themselves, contributed in some ways to yet more Americans growing up facing challenges in achieving financial stability.

More children not able to concentrate in school because they've got family issues on their mind means more kids with school problems. Children who grow up, themselves, not having their emotional needs met, there may be more adults today who don't bring to marriage a whole person. Children separated from beloved parents, those growing up in poverty, those left with less-than-skilled caretakers while a single parent works, and those growing up with married-but-stressed-out parents often have a number of needs not met.

With a generation of children growing up disenchanted with, and wary about, the idea of lasting marriage; more and more Americans have opted to have children without benefit of marriage. This has, perhaps, meant that more and more of today's adults not only having less faith in the reality of a lasting marriage, but in seeing fewer and fewer examples of solid relationships and marriages to emulate. People who do believe that it is right to be married before bringing children into the world may be more inclined to marry someone who "seems right", with the idea of building a family and life; rather than being willing to risk never having children. This isn't to imply that marrying couples don't care about one another. Most often they sincerely do. In fact, couples often care about one another enough to believe that caring amounts to love. Often it is a type of love, but often it is not quite the type of love that is required to sustain a marriage through "thick and thin".

With increasing divorce has come a widespread attempt on the part of many in American culture to analyze and cure the problem that leads to the divorce rate. Americans (even those without impressive, formal educations) are often a well informed, reasonably intelligent, group of people. With awareness of the importance of that "friendship factor" (included in Maslow's third-lowest category of needs); along with the understanding that the infatuation associated with new relationships should not be mistaken for "genuine love"; the message that people should "marry their best friend" has been widely espoused.

One negative impact of that message could be that couples often over-estimated the value of marrying one's best friend, while believing that anything that resembles romantic love is likely to be nothing more than infatuation. With romantic love, it isn't always clear which will last and which is nothing more than infatuation. Some romantic love does last, but with it usually must also come the "best friend factor". Romantic love that is nothing more than the infatuation of an early relationship can, and often does, exist with people having little else in common.

Generally, there can be a lot of gray area and confusion over this best friends/romantic love aspect of whom people marry. Some best friends without romantic love (or with romantic love that existed once but turned into something else) can have a good marriage. Some people in that situation may discover that time reveals that being best friends isn't always enough.

People who have romantic love that, with time, grows into something deeper often have good marriages; but, again, romantic love comes in varying levels of "quality", and not all of it grows in depth over time.

There are even some couples who have a romantic love that is so rare and powerful it can be the thing that holds them together in spite of all kinds of other challenges, but that isn't most.

All of the differences, subtleties, and common lack of full understanding may be contributors to the divorce rate.

Also, Americans are often raised with a high standard when it comes to quality of life, and the expectation of nurturing, healthy, relationships and personal lives. Many people are very aware that life on Earth passes quickly. Some feel a responsibility to keep their lives and the lives of their children as peaceful and happy as possible. When a marriage is making a home life that is less than nurturing or negative, many Americans feel that going through the difficult process of divorce will eventually lead to themselves and their children having better, healthier, lives.

People who are religious or spiritual often believe that life is a "gift" and that trying to "make the most of" life is the way to honor that "gift". Many religions do not believe that most or all divorces are acceptable, and some devout followers of such religions may be conflicted when deciding to divorce. Most "mainstream" religions in America, however, do not have quite "the hold" on the personal lives of their American followers as some religions in some countries do. While most mainstream religions in the United States certainly have their beliefs about divorce, the principles of the country that encourages independent thinking, personal growth, healthy family dynamics, and "the pursuit of happiness" are not often not lost on even the most faithful followers of a lot of religions.

Another factor in the divorce rate is substance abuse. When one spouse is addicted to alcohol and/or drugs it is often impossible for the other spouse, who may care very much about him, to stay married to him. Another side of the substance abuse coin, however, is that people who are chonically unhappy or under extreme stress may begin using substances occasionally as a way of getting relief, only to find themselves addicts. Whether or not a bad marriage and other life difficulties have created the substance abuse problem, once it exists it can destroy a marriage.

Another way that substance abuse can destroy a marriage is a secondary one, in which a couple may have a child or other family member with a serious addiction problem. How to deal with a family member's substance abuse problem can be a source of serious strain on a marriage. The other side to that particular variety of substance abuse coin is that children with an unhappy home life are often more prone to to use alcohol and/or drugs. With alcoholism and drug addiction as widespread as they are, it is no surprise that they can contribute to divorces.

Genuine love and a genuinely loving environment are things in which Americans believe. With an increasing understanding of how vital it is that children be raised in a loving, nurturing, environment, divorce has often become the only choice for couples who know that the strains of marriage (often even when only one party cannot behave as children need parents to behave) will affect the wellbeing of their children. With the value that Americans place on a happy, healthy, family life; many Americans believe that marriages should include two people who are love one another. Throughout history marriages have not been based on love, and there are cultures today in which "falling in love" is not necessarily a prequisite for marriage. Still, even when Americans have not grown up in a home where they could what a happily married, in love, couple looks like; most do know that the ideal marriage is one that takes place because couples are in love.

Americans may grow up not seeing examples of too many healthy marriages, and they may grow up wondering if such a thing is even possible. Still, they usually also grow up being very aware of the very real fact that good, solid, loving, marriages do exist - even if it can seem that the achievement of such a marriage can be elusive.

Americans are, in many ways, believers in ideals (even if idealism can, at times, lead to something that certainly does not resemble anything that looks like idealism). Americans grow up in a country that is rooted in the Christian belief that people should forgive others. Further, religious beliefs aside, Americans are generally fairly well educated when it comes to understanding that people make choices based on the information they have available to them, and that some choices don't work out they way people believed they would. Americans know that there is a big difference between human failings and criminal behavior, so a good number of Americans do not believe people should be punished by being sentenced to a life of misery in a destructive marriage/family life.

Americans often believe that people are responsible for their own happiness and the happiness of their children, which often means taking the responsibility to make the difficult choice of ending a marriage. Sometimes making the decisions to get a divorce takes far more strength than not making it; because not only is divorce a difficult process for a family (particularly the children in many, although not all, cases), but it is generally a socially unpopular choice. Becoming divorced requires strength in making that decision, strength in dealing with the difficulties associated with it, strength in living in a world that still often views it as weakness of character, and strength to keep trying to help children feels whole and stable in its wake. Americans are, however, very often strong and confident enough to make that decision.

With a belief that they are responsible for their own happiness, and with faith that it is possible to find happiness in this world, Americans are often hopeful people - and they often believe in second chances.

A FINAL NOTE

America has existed as a nation for only 232 short years. In its young life as a nation, America has made strides that no other nation on Earth has made in such a short period of time after being "born". At the mind-boggling rate at which such a huge nation has grown, it should not be surprising that some "growing pains" may occur. After starting out as a nation in its infancy, America grew first into a very youthful nation and then into one that, like people in their late teens and early twenties, was mature but lacking in some of the wisdom that comes with age.

As the world's understanding of human beings and life has increased (through the efforts of scientists around the world, as well as in the United States), and as technology has made so much of the world's knowledge available to people of all walks of life, Americans have learned that some of the old beliefs people held were not correct. As a result, major changes in the general thinking of American culture have occurred. The problem may be, however, that so much new information coming so fast to so many people has resulted in those "growing pains" mentioned previously.

When old beliefs are discovered to be incorrect, it often sets the proverbial pendulum swinging in the other direction. When cultural pendulums swing they are often known to swing too far. Before divorces were as common and even acceptable (even though certainly not desirable in most cases) as they are today in America, behind the closed doors of American homes everywhere people were often suffering in silence in very destructive, unhealthy, and unhappy situations. Behind the doors of those homes (or even those in which a family seemed happy on the surface), one of the reasons that so many marriages lasted was that women were often expected to essentially be second-class citizens who cooked and cleaned and "understood" that wanting that contributing to the larger world outside the home, and becoming financially independent and accomplished in their own right were things to which they (human beings or not) had no right. Another reason so many marriages lasted was that women were often too afraid to leave the security of having a working husband.

Today, even though misogeny continues to exist in a surprisingly widespread and insidious degrees; America's laws, schools, and culture continue to try to educate girls, foster a sense of independence, and teach them they (and their children) do not need to stay silently and miserably behind those closed doors any longer. American girls are taught they can take their children and walk right out those doors.

At the same time, America's laws, schools, and culture try to educate boys in the same way; because, although all American boys certainly do not enjoy being loved and treasured by the adults in their lives, Americans, as a culture, generally treasure sons as much as they do daughters.

Although any nation as large as the United States (or smaller) will always have its parents who are not skilled at being parents, or who don't love their children; in general, American parents want very much to raise children who has the self-respect and dignity not to stay in a situation in which they are being mistreated (even verbally). Hoping that one's children will marry someone who treats them well and loves them for who they are is something American parents do, and it something that causes them to work hard to build children who know they deserve better than an unhealthy, destructive, marriage.

American parents generally try to raise children who are strong, independent minded, and knowledgeable about what constitutes an unhealthy situation; so they often encourage their children believe they deserve better than a destructive, empty, marriage. So, in addition to laws, schools, and cultural beliefs that encourage young Americans to grow up to be responsible for their own happiness and feeling worthy of happiness and respect when they find those things; American parents, who often grew up watching their own parents' empty marriage held together "for the children", often believe (and teach their children to believe) that "until death do your part" can really mean "dying long before we are really dead".

The divorce rate in the United States is dismal. For every couple who starts out believing they will create "The Nuclear Family", only about half will manage to create the very thing that has, in many ways, given America its roots in some of the values that have always been American. At the same time, back in the days when old beliefs kept so many people from having the freedom to follow that "pursuit of happiness", many Americans did not, in reality, live the lives of freedom promised by their nation.

Whether or not the dismal divorce rate is a matter of temporary growing pains for America, the fact is that Americans (even those who recognize that the existence of the nuclear family has diminished) often still try to create it. People do still marry. People who once did not have the right to marry have fought for, and won, the right to do just that. People who have failed marriages often try to re-create a new version of a nuclear family with a new spouse. In a life in which none of us has control over so many sadnesses, Americans still manage to believe in love and the potential of finding happiness.

Like people of all parts of the world, Americans make mistakes - as individuals and as a culture. Perhaps because America is such a big, complicated, country the lives of its people are often complicated; and the mistakes some people make may be big ones. Still, mistakes lead to learning; and Americans, if nothing else, are usually good at learning.

Some people believe that the American divorce rate means that "The Nuclear Family" is dead. Others believe it has been redefined. Still others believe that it has taken a big hit and needs some help getting back on its feet. Understanding the causes of divorce is the only way the rate of successful marriages can be improved. This discussion - in all its inadequacy, given the massive nature of the problem - has been an attempt to offer food for thought on the American divorce rate.