On marriage, spouses, annulment and divorce....

I'm 32 years old, and I have been married once. That marriage had been over for the past five or so years, and declared null and void for the last two. Yet on occasion...like now for example...I still tend to reflect and ponder over it.

Divorce/annulment rates are on the rise, more so in developed and developing countries. I predict a trend: in a about a couple of generations...less than a hundred years...marriage would not be a prevalent custom or tradition between couples as it is today. It's just a matter of time before divorce/annulment rates take up a major portion of the marriage numbers...making marriage an inconsequential and insignificant undertaking.

Even now, we see the effects of this trend. Whereas marriage used to be an end in itself...a life decision...with lifetime consequences...it is common knowledge that marriage has not been as durable as a bond between couples as it was in the past. Instead, it is now considered more or less a stop over, a temporary and reversible state, much so that it is no longer unusual to see people move in and out of marriages repeatedly throughout their lives.

Don't get me wrong. I still respect marriage. In fact, I'd rather be married than single. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, or still cling to old morals and values, but a lot of people nowadays feel just the opposite.

Maybe it was inevitable. Historically, it has only been in the last forty to fifty years or so when we saw divorce/annulment rates skyrocket. And why did this happen? The number of broken marriages started a slow but steady upsurge when women started empowering themselves...the women's liberation movement of the 60's perhaps?

Before, no matter how abusive, irresponsible, or downright unpleasant husbands became, their wives never left them, never filed for divorce, never separated from them. Why? Simply because they did what was expected from them at the time.

Women were supposed to be homemakers, and remain unquestionably loyal to their husbands, no matter what. Nowadays, this sentiment hardly exists anymore, and women are hardly expected to remain silent in the face of spousal abuse. Of course, I do not condone abusive, irresponsible or unfaithful husbands...and women have the right to leave any environment...such as marriage...that is detrimental to their well being. But it seems that with our modern society granting equal status to women as a sex, the place of men being the traditional heads of families is now up for grabs. The logic is: if women can do anything men do, then why can't they perform the functions of being head of a family?

Well, the reality is, yes, they can. However, this role as far as women are concerned puts them directly at odds with several thousand years of social traditions and customs, not to mention perhaps millions of years of evolution, which assume without question that the man is the indisputable head of a family. The end result of this is that there will be an inevitable clash for leadership of the basic block of human society...the family. And in the process, we can expect many families to be casualties of this conflict. I know I was. Maybe.

In the future, women will have no qualms bearing children fathered by different men, as they move from one relationship to another. Men will probably continue living up to their polygamous nature, perhaps even more so, as social tolerance for this traint increases. Marriage as a social institution will probably cease to exist, or probably still exist as an exception to general rule.

It doesn't even have to happen in the future. In fact we can even see this happening today...just look around you. If this isn't the middle of some trend, I don't know what else it is.

Scary? Perhaps. Society is changing faster than our sense of morals can keep up with it. And fear brings up a vicious cycle...fear of the weakening marriage bonds only weakens it further...in effect even less people would dare risk getting married.

This idea somewhat lodged itself in my brain after watching the movie The Stepford Wives. In the movie, husbands actually went as far as reprogram their wives with mid 20th century values...turning them into plain homemakers and housewives....The movie wasn't all that bad, and the premise was...intriguing to say the least. What will the family be like in the future? I cannot say with complete certainty, but it will be different from what we know. Same sex marriages are already in the horizon. What else is in store for us in the future? Whether it will be better...or worse, remains to be seen.