Culture sets couples up to fail
by Lolita Nikolova (.pdf)
References:
Kilborn, Peter T. (2004). An All-American Town, A Sky-High Divorce Rate. The New
York Times, 2 May 2 2004 (external link)
Malinowski, B. (1978). The ethnography of Malinowski: the Trobriand Islands 1915-
18. London: Routledge (external link)

I wish I knew Ellen Brown from Roanoke, the divorced mother of three who was in
2004 at 52 and could tell her: Ellen, you look right. Culture sets couples up to fail.  
But what to do?

As a cultural anthropologist, the words of Ellen make me feel physically the painful
everydayness that so many have been going through being divorced. Even the
word divorce has the spilling effect and in Past it was one of the most resentful,
while today there are even divorce parties.

The article of Peter t. Kilborn (2004) is not outdated although probably the statistics
today would provide even more sad data about marriage and divorce. However,
divorce is not an invention of the 19 or 20th century. We need to believe that the
divorce has existed since the marriage had been invented. This is for instance, the
way one of the most prominent anthropologists in the world, Bronislav Malinowski,
describes the divorce by Trobriands (after the Trobriand Islands):

“The formalities of divorce are as simple as those by which marriage is contracted.
The woman leaves her husband’s house with all her personal belongings, and
moves to her mother’s hut, or to that of her nearest maternal kinswoman. There
she remains, awaiting the course of events, and in the meantime enjoying full
sexual freedom. Her husband, as likely as not, will try to get her back. He will send
certain friend with “piece offerings” (koluluvi, or lula) for the wife and for those with
whom she is staying. Sometimes the gifts are rejected at first, and then the
ambassadors are sent again and again. If the woman accepts them, she has to
return to her husband, divorce is ended and marriage resumed. If she means
business, and is determined not to go back to her wedded life, the presents are
never accepted; then the husband has to adjust himself as best he may, which
means that he begins to look for another girl. The dissolution of marriage entails
in no case the restitution of any of the inaugural marriage gifts exchanged, unless
… the divorced woman should re-marry” (Malinowski  1978: 133).

Today our life is more complex, but many of the structural components of the
divorce from the traditional society do exist although the complexity creates the
illusion that not the people but it is the culture that makes the couple up to fail. As a
matter of fact, what I have learned in the US where I have been living since 2000,
we, the people, are responsible for our life. The main reason of divorce is not the
social or cultural environment but the relationships between the couple and the
absence probably of enough knowledge on how to keep the love and friendship in
our everydayness despite all provocations of life.

For the 21st century generation could be helpful if everybody knows that the divorce
is as old as the marriage. Also, during more that at 8-10,000 years the human
society has been improving the marriage as the most successful form of social
and cultural reproduction.  Today even the gays want to marry! Can especially the
young people look in the best instances of the happy marriages before making
final decision? I think so.  We all are not always perfect performers on the social
stage of life, but we all can be wise in the most crucial moments of our life. And if
after all divorce happens – well. There is a cure – we know from history that divorce
is just a twin of the marriage.  

And in the way the mother loves all her children, we obviously also need to love the
divorce and to believe that it gives a new chance for improvement of the
humankind.