I am researching Family Values for a documentary film. I will be posting several threads that explore this subject. It would be helpful if you contribute to this research with your views on divorce. If you could preface your view with a Y or an N to signify that you have personal experience, that would be even more helpful.
Family values under-pin our cultural values. Over the past three generations or so, divorce has become pandemic. Tens of millions of children have been caught up in the middle of parental disputes. They have seen honored vows broken, even trashed.
There is no evolutionary precedent for this massive inroad into our traditional social structure. Thus we have no way of evaluating the long term effect divorce will have on the collective psyche.
The question is: Are we heading towards a more dynamic view of ourselves as individuals and as a culture - via the trauma divorce creates in the family home - or are we on a downhill road to gradual cultural decay?
My parents divorced when I was 11 or 12,
my mom was a single mom with 4 kids.
Today over 30 years later, all 4 kids have been
married, only one, the oldest, a sister, has been divorced.
The other 3 have had marriages of over many years.
My younger sister has been married for over 20 years,
I have been married for 10 and my brother has been married
for 7. The youngest is 28 and hasn’t been married yet.
So for my family, there is no decline of moral values.
I don’t support that concept anyway.
I think divorce is better then the old way of two parents
fighting for 20 years or playing the games that two people
play when they dislike each other. I think divorce is a far
better choice then two people making each other miserable
and making their children miserable.
The pandemic of divorces my parent’s generation went through is, I believe set to decline. My generation ( I am 27) seems less divorce oriented, although its early days.
Even if we do maintain a divorce rate of 50% I don’t see how that will destroy our culture. In some ways I think it can actually be a good thing. My parents getting a divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was painful, but it was such a good thing.
In another thread you’re talking about polygamy being endemic in the Bronze Ages, which would be a precedent. Do you even know what a consistent argument is?
Secondly, yes there is an evolutionary precedent, it’s called not putting all your eggs in one basket! Evolutionary speaking, child bearers (females) prefer to have one mate to try and ensure their childrens survival but non-child bearers (males) prefer to have many mates as they don’t look after them and it improves their dominance in the gene pool. That is why rape is more prevalent in men than women (apart from the obvious biological difficulties).
Tacitus was sent on a mission to scout out the Germans for invasion. He gives a detailed account of their lives and relationships. He mentions that the family unit, and husband/wife fidelity was extremely high, to the point where he admonished his fellow Romans for being immoral.
Read that, and remember that it was written by an enemy.
Meanwhile, Gorillas and other monkeys have harems, and I suggest that the closeness of the people of Africa to that type of primate makes the arrangement appealing.
This statement disqualifies you from reasonable discourse. I have African blood and am proud of it. So do you. Our specie originated in Southern Africa.
I don’t think kids of devoiced parents have the market cornered on family dysfunction. Devoice is a great thing, because if two people can’t function together as a couple and team then they should not be forced into a situation of just having to get through 20 year together.
It’s mitochondrial DNA that has been used to link all humans back to Africa. Mitochondria are really a kind of separate organism that lives in our cells that are common to all animals. So, perhaps we have just gotten info about the relationship and lineage of these creatures.
Anyway, Indo-Europeans where living out of Africa for about 50,000 years, so I conclude that a lot of good things happened during that time. Clearly, the overt primate appearance slipped away, and that’s a fact. Perhaps many of the instincts did as well.
Humans that have high intellectual potential cannot and do not, as a group, tend toward infidelity because the ramification of the lack of “specialness†drive them crazy.
The base of family values is the sharing and caring ethic. Sharing labor and resources and caring for the sick and elderly is what has lifted our specie above other primates. If meticulous sharing is practiced inside a family circle, harmony prevails. Give one child more than another and the vendetta starts. That sharing value is ignored outside the family when out on the market place. Competition drives us, but the price is steep - hense we are burdened with never-ending law-making and ever more expensive government policing. The next value is a sound chore-based work-ethic. The third ethic is personal courage. The fourth ethic is conscientious crafstmanship. The fifth ethic is creative vision. The six ethic is sound intellectual desernment. The seventh ethic is altruistic community committment
All of these together make for a highly valuable and compassionate family member and cultivated citizen.
And as family values underpin national values, when the family disintergrates, so does the nation.
The increasing immoralities of; international capitalistic exploitation, divorce, abortion, religious distain, and the unattended problems of incest and polygamy can be seen to be underming our culture.
All past civilizations fell into decay. The question this documentary will address is; are we seeing signs of history repeating itself? The idea is not to put America down - but to see it if we have the character to recognize and correct our faults.
Even though it may seem that divorces are up right now that’s not really the case. The divorce rate may fluxuate but I don’t think the percentage of happy marriages are any different than they always were. In fact I believe the highest divorce rates in American history occured in the 1950’s.
Even before divorce was common in our country it was a very common occurance for a prospective wife or husband to run out on their significant other before the wedding. This was mostly 1700-1800’s. This was so common that there were bounty hunters whose sole purpose was to track down these runaway spouses.
So no I don’t think divorce is ruining our society. On a personal family level I’m sure it effects the children and the parents, but as a society. Naw. Because divorce has always been there, whether it was an allowed process or not.
I agree. Our tendancy to be autonomous, which in some cases can be self-obsession, is becoming a problem. Everything is about the I. If we could find a balance between selfishness and selflessness we’d be alot more groovy.