DIVORCES
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
—Luke 17:27
1191 Divorce Statistics
The US Census Bureau gave the following figures:
• In 1920, 1 divorce for every 7 marriages
• In 1940, 1 divorce for every 6 marriages
• In 1960, 1 divorce for every 4 marriages
• In 1972, 1 divorce for every 3 marriages
In 1977, 2,176,000 marriage licenses were issued in the United States—and 1,090,000 divorces were granted. A ratio now of 1 to 2!
More frightening, it is estimated that as early as 1990, divorces will outnumber marriages.
1192 America’s No-Fault Divorce
According to the US News and World Report, the spread of no-fault divorce in the United States is one reason for the huge rise in overall rates in US divorces. Almost 1.1 million marriages were dissolved in the US in 1976—more than double the 1966 total.
1193 One-Day Divorce Law
Sweden has now passed a law popularly called the “One Day Divorce Law.” Divorce can now take place immediately for partners with no children under age 16. Those with young children can be divorced after only a three-month waiting period. The new law, which would make marriage virtually unnecessary, went into effect on January 1, 1974.
Swedish marriages also may now be solemnized without waiting for the banns to be read in church 3 weeks preceding the ceremony. Prior to the new law, the banns had to be read. Now the marriage can take place at once.
—Information from the Swedish Consulate, Chicago
1194 Australia’s No-Fault Law
The Australian Government passed the no-fault divorce law in 1976. Under the new decree, a couple need only show that they have been separated for 12 months with no intention of continuing their marriage. It is therefore possible to get a divorce decree the same day you apply, assuming there is no backlog in the courts.
“The new law is a humane step forward,” said Don McKenze, the national director of the Family Court Counseling Service, which was set up by the new decree. “There is much less tension in the courtroom, since there is no longer any need to prove who was at fault … and this enabled people to focus on the real problem, the welfare of the children.”
The decree is also known as the Family Law, with the stipulation that children over age 14 be allowed the choice of which parent they want to live with.
—New York Times
1195 Super Powers’ Divorces
Here are total number of divorce cases from the two highest divorce countries in the world, based on the United Nations Demographic Yearbook of 1976:
1971
1972
U. S.
773,000
845,000
U. S. S. R.
645,000
652,000
1973
1974
U. S.
915,000
977,000
U. S. S. R.
679,000
743,000
1196 750,000 Half-Orphans Yearly
One-sixth of America’s school-age youngsters live with a single parent. Because of their parents’ split-ups, over 750,000 children become half-orphans yearly. The number of unmarried couples living together has also doubled since the early 1970s, and for those under age 45, the increase is fourfold!
1197 Family Of 28 Children Divorced
From an Atlantic City courtroom emerged this unusual story. True, the wife had deserted her husband, but it was a “wholesale” desertion.
The Italian husband was originally a widower with 17 children. She, also Italian, was originally a widow with 11 children. The wedding made a combined family of 28 children. But it was not one big happy family. Mrs. De Parsio finally deserted her husband, taking her 11 children on a truck one night and headed towards Philadelphia. This left Mr. De Parsio with his original 17 children. The number of broken lives!
1198 Inter-Faith Marriages
One-half of the church members in the nation marry outside their own faith. One-half of these mixed marriages involve Catholics. The divorce rate among inter-faith couples is more than twice as high as among those who marry within their faith: 15.2 percent for the former, 6.6 percent for the latter.
—The Gospel Banner
1199 Re-Marriage Statistics
Insurance statistics point out these trends:
Most divorced persons who remarry do so within a few years after the dissolution of their last marriage. According to the experience in New York Sate, about three-tenths remarry the year the divorce is granted, about one-half within the space of two years, and three-fourths before the lapse of five years. However, remarriages do occur even after 20 years, but these account for only 1 or 2 percent of the total divorced who remarry.
About 40% of those who divorce and remarry may have their second marriage again end in divorce.
1200 Most Married And Divorced
The Free Press reported the death of Tommy Manville who died at 73 in New York City. Known as “Marrying Manville,” he had married 11 times in his life. Manville inherited 10 million dollars from his father, and the flamboyant millionaire-playboy spent a good part of it on his divorces.
But the official record belongs to a lady, Mrs. Beverly Nina Avery, a barmaid in Los Angeles obtained her 16th divorce in 1957. She thus set a monogamous world record for the most divorces and marriages. Outside the court, she confided that five of her 14 husbands had broken her nose.
1201 Biggest Alimony
According to Guinness Book of Records, the greatest sum ever paid in a divorce settlement was $9.5 million from Edward J. Hudson of Texas to his wife in 1963. Mrs. Hudson was reputedly already worth $14 million.
1202 No Answer To This One
Chicago, July 1, 1975 (AP)—Syndicated columnist Ann Landers, who offers advice on personal problems to millions of newspaper readers across the nation, says that she and her husband of 36 years will be divorced.
Ann Landers, 57, the pen name for Mrs. Jules Lederer, acknowledged that “the lady with all the answers does not know the answer to this one.”
She wrote: “The sad, incredible fact is that after 36 years of marriage Jules and I write these words, it is as if I am referring to a letter from a reader. It seems unreal that I am writing about my own marriage.”
The columnist for Field Newspapers Syndicate of Chicago, married Lederer on July 2, 1939. They had one daughter.
Her column began 20 years ago and recent statistics reported that it appeared in 731 newspapers with an estimated readership of 54 million persons.
1203 Stalin’s Daughter
A bleak Svetlana Peters lives with her 10-month-old daughter, Olga, at her new home near Phoenix, after a widely publicized break with husband, Wesley. The woman who grew up in the Soviet Union as Stalin’s daughter said she had found intolerable their communal lifestyle at Taliesin, the architectural community founded by Frank Lloyd Wright. Mrs. Peters had hoped for a reconciliation, but her husband declared, “There is no possibility of picking up the pieces.”
1204 Chapel On The Hill
Until last summer, the congressional prayer room—a tiny hideaway off the Capitol rotunda whose existence is unknown to most tourists—had been restricted to “prayer only” for nearly two decades. But reporters Vera Glaser and Malvina Stephenson did some digging and discovered that House speaker Carl Albert okayed its use as a chapel for divorced congressmen who wanted to remarry quietly.
—Christianity Today
1205 Space Science Not Enough
A wire-service release from Cape Kennedy throws doubt on the idea that science alone can solve human problems. The county in which the Kennedy space complex is located reported two divorces for every three marriages (almost twice the national average). Doctors have identified as many as 5 percent of the aerospace work force as alcoholics. A survey revealed that one birth in nine was illegitimate.
1206 Mail-Order Divorce?
Group divorce is being conducted by a U. S. Nevada judge. He handles up to 15 cases at one time, often disposing all of them within ten minutes. The judge now plans to handle routine cases by written affidavit, opening the way for mail-order divorce.
1207 Divorce Photographer
Photographer Louis Grenier has started a new photo finish business—selling divorce albums. Grenier said he would stay with the couple in throes of divorce proceedings, taking candid shots. “It will be a record of how things were,” he said, “to serve as a warning to both parties so they won’t let things get that bad again the next time around.” He set a basic fee of $200 a day.
1208 Marriage, Swedish Style
Marriage seems to be going out of style in Sweden—and church leaders say it’s because belief also is passe. A study released by the state statistical bureau tells how bad the situation is.
Since 1966 the number of marriages has plummeted 35 percent, and 1971 recorded the lowest number of marriages in a century. The sharp decrease is most evident in the age bracket of twenty-three to twenty-six. Bureau head Erland Hofsten says couples no longer consider marriage necessary. “Our love is so strong there’s no need for a ring or a marriage certificate,” chant young couples.
But such a free-wheeling view of marriage causes problems for children, and Sweden’s legislators are concerned. For three years they have been at work on new marriage and divorce laws. A proposed law would make it more difficult for couples with children to get divorced than for those without any.
1209 Busiest Shop In Town
Franklin C. Bailey of Los Angeles is in charge of what he calls “the busiest repair shop in town,” and adds that “just around the corner is the busiest wrecking business.”
The repair shop is the marriage counseling service he runs as counselor of the Conciliation Court of Los Angeles. The wrecking business around the corner is the divorce court.
“Mr. Bailey lists as the major complaints from the 10,000 people who have passed through his office, in this order: sex, money, children, and trouble with in-laws.
But he says that the real problems are selfishness and greed.
1210 Six Months’ Cooling Off
Chief Justice Emeritus Samuel H. Silbert of the Common Pleas Court, Cleveland, Ohio, had presided over more than three thousand divorce cases.
Said Judge Silbert, “Marriages need more solemnity and dignity. They should take place in a church if it is possible. Certainly elopements and running into a city hall for a quick ceremony should be forbidden. I advocate a six months’ cooling-off period before either marriage or divorce. No one should marry before twenty-one. I think the most horrible thing parents can do to their children is to allow early steady dating.”
1211 Marriage Hangs By A Thread
The Balante of French Senegal and Portuguese Guinea, Africa, have the most curious divorce law in the world. The length of their marriage depends upon a garment. On her wedding day the bride receives a single gift—a wrap that serves as her wedding gown. The marriage lasts exactly as long as the gown endures. As soon as it becomes threadbare the marriage is dead. If the bride is happy she wears the gown so infrequently that it will last a long time. Otherwise she sees to it that it is soon rent.
—Selected
1212 Husband’s Rights Upheld
Miami Circuit Judge John J. Niblack ruled that reading the Bible, requiring your spouse to wear skirts instead of blue jeans and insistence on church attendance do not constitute grounds for divorce. The judge said William Connelly, 25, was well within his rights on all three points and denied Mrs. Martha Connelly, 19, her petition for divorce.
1213 Epigram On Divorces
• To call me a judge is something of a misnomer. I am really a sort of public mortician. In the past eleven years I have presided over the final obsequies of twenty-two thousand dead marriages. The trouble is this: I have buried a lot of live corpses. There was no sure way to discover and resuscitate the spark of life that surely remained in many of them.
—A Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Toledo, Ohio
• Society bandleader Herb Sherry, whose nine orchestras have played for some 10,000 weddings over the years, instructs his musicians: “Always play your best. Remember, one out of every five brides gets married again!”
• “In California, a book How to Do Your Own Divorce, contains the forms and explains how to fill them out—without a lawyer’s help. It is a best-seller.”
—The Bible Friend
• A Hollywood wedding is one where they take each other for better or for worse—but not for long.
—E. C. Mckenzie
• Billy Graham said, “A broken home is never good for children or for anyone else. All a divorce does is dissolve the marriage. It rarely solves problems. It is frustrating to the children. It makes them feel insecure. It goes against the words of Jesus. I know a man who was on the verge of divorce. He was converted to Christ, and God gave him a new love for his wife and children. I am convinced that many marital problems have a spiritual basis—marital unfaithfulness, selfishness, and quarreling.”
See also: Husband and Wife ; Marriages ; Moral Laxity ; Matt. 10:21, 24:38. Mark 10:11; 13:12