Divorce is the dissolution of a social tie, but it is also possible that attitudes about divorce flow across social ties. To explore how social networks influence divorce and vice versa, we utilize a longitudinal data set from the long-running Framingham Heart Study. We find that divorce can spread between friends, siblings, and coworkers, and there are clusters of divorcees that extend two degrees of separation in the network. We also find that popular people are less likely to get divorced, divorcees have denser social networks, and they are much more likely to remarry other divorcees. Interestingly, we do not find that the presence of children influences the likelihood of divorce, but we do find that each child reduces the susceptibility to being influenced by peers who get divorced. Overall, the results suggest that attending to the health of one’s friends’ marriages serves to support and enhance the durability of one’s own relationship, and that, from a policy perspective, divorce should be understood as a collective phenomenon that extends far beyond those directly affected.I know of a baby-boomer couple, now in their 60s. Over time they lost their friends to divorce. You take sides and lose one of the spouses, or both. Second wives/husbands are odd, sometimes you may refer to them by the name of the first or reference a memory of the first marriage. At one time they even considered it (divorce).
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Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Divorce is Contagious study
Divorce is Contagious study... it's working paper
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Divorce is a really sad state of todays society. I believe as a divorce professional that the real issue comes down to choosing the wrong person to marry in the first place.
ReplyDeleteNot enough thought and planning goes into marriage, discussing values or the way you wish to live.
I would have to disagree. People cohabitate/engage in sex much sooner and with longer courtships if there is a commitment then in prior days. They can try it out and break up without the pains of divorce. People finish grad school and even purchase a home before marriage. The average engagement is over a year long. Time isn't the issue, we're wasting what we do with time.
ReplyDeleteWe have plenty of comprehensive sex ed, but not relationships ed? Today the average adult through high school and college has been taught sexual relationships as simply a hook-up. Directly through media/sex ed, then indirectly through parents who often tell 'how young they are'. Any talk about holding back and actually getting to know a potential person to ensure they have the act together before deciding to engage in sex/relationship, may be seen as oppressive to sexual liberation and the right to hook-up. Any talk of emotional/committed love isn't really supported by families either.
No one can fully know the person one has just married. Indeed, people don't even know themselves. You marry and then you have a responsibility and an obligation to make the most of it. You have to work at making the marriage work. That's the whole principle of "for better or for worse."
ReplyDeleteToday, in our very self-centered culture people just like to bail out of their commitments anytime things are not going quite the way they like. It's a very infantile attitude and society reinforces it enormously. We even have "divorce professionals" who help you find excuses to relinquish your responsibilities and justify family fragmentations.
What we need is "marriage professionals" who understand the meaning of marriage and help couples reconcile their differences and heal their emotional problems. But these days we like the nonsense statement of "irreconcilable differences" to cop out of the obligation. We love that other nonsense statement of "no fault divorce" when there is usually fault all over the place. Nobody wants to "find fault" but you really need to search for the fault and correct it, in yourself. That's what a good marriage counseling session should be all about.