According to the Pew Research Center, 57% of divorced or separated adults consider religion very important to them. Another 24% find it somewhat important. So, it's undeniable that religion will play at least a small factor in many divorce decisions, no matter the denomination.
Though it has several denominations, Christianity follows the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as written and explained in the Bible. The religion, which believes in only one God, is firmly centered on beliefs around Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection. It is also the largest religion in the world, having had more than 2.3 billion followers around the globe in 2015.
contemporary teaching of religion on marriage and divorce
Many people wonder what the Bible says about divorce. Generally, in Christianity, marriage is viewed as a life-long promise between partners. While many believe that means God hates divorce, and Christian divorce is indeed normally frowned upon, that isn't the end of the story. Reasons for acceptable divorce in the Bible may include unfaithfulness (Matthew 19:9) and abuse (Exodus 21:10-11).
Judaism, one of the world's oldest religions, is centered on the belief in one God and his covenant, meaning a special agreement between God and his people. All of the laws and teachings in Judaism originate from the Torah, the sacred book in the Jewish religion.
Since Jewish couples sign a ketubah, or marriage contract, when they get married, a legal document under Jewish law is required for divorce under some denominations. That's called a "get," and the cases in which it may be given include situations of infidelity, abuse, or irreconcilable differences. In Orthodox Judaism, a religious divorce must go through proceedings before a rabbinical court before a "get" is granted.
Divorce is allowed in Hinduism, but it appears to be rare in that religion when compared to others. Historically, divorce was forbidden in Hindu relationships as women had an inferior standing in culture and society. And since Hinduism considers marriage a sacrament and life-long promise made in the presence of several gods, divorce was never an option. However, the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 in India allowed divorce under certain conditions, including infidelity, abandonment, cruelty, and absence of communication, among other reasons.
As with many other religions, divorce is allowed in Islam, but it is considered a last resort. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad reportedly said, "The most detestable of lawful things before Allah is divorce." So, Islamic couples may be encouraged to work with their mosque to resolve any differences before taking steps to divorce.
When it comes to remarriage, different rules apply to men and women. Differences include the principle that a man can immediately remarry after a valid divorce whereas a woman must not remarry for a certain period of time (usually three months).
Since Buddhism doesn't have strict tenets about marriage, divorce is allowed in the religion and is unrestricted. Divorce may actually be recommended if an unhappy marriage causes stress or suffering.
After all, no matter your religion, divorce can be a touchy subject. Though views on divorce have changed with time, there can be a stigma associated with it that's hard to shake. Some people undoubtedly worry a divorce will cause judgment or even shame from others in a religious community. Or they might be concerned that it will cause a loss of friends or push them away from their faith. According to the study referenced above, people can experience a drop in religious involvement after a divorce, especially in middle age.
But, to many, that need not dictate how people navigate their own marital challenges. Similar to how religion is a very personal decision, divorce is a unique topic to each individual, with no one-size-fits-all answer. Not all people in the same denominations have the same beliefs, and views on divorce may differ between people within a religious group. Plus, views within religions and society generally can evolve.
I am honored to be invited to address your committee about what we know and do not know about the effects of marriage and divorce on families and children and about what policies and programs might work to promote and strengthen healthy marriages, especially among the poor. My goal is to briefly summarize the evidence in three areas: (1) what we know about the effects of marriage, divorce, and single parenthood on children; (2) what we know about the effectiveness of policies and programs that seek to stem persistently high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing; and (3) what we know about the likely effects of these policies on low-income families and children. The central focus of my remarks will be to explicate the role that marital education, family counseling, and related services might play in promoting and strengthening healthy marriages and to discuss what we know about the potential of strategies that seek to ameliorate the key stressors (for example, job loss, lack of income, domestic violence, and childbearing) that make it difficult to form marriages in the first place or act as a catalyst that eventually breaks up existing marriages.
If the failure of parents to marry and persistently high rates of divorce are behind the high percentage of children who grow up in a single-parent family, can and should policy attempt to reverse these trends? Since Daniel Patrick Moynihan first lamented what he identified as the decline of the black family in his 1965 report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, marriage has been a controversial subject for social policy and scholarship. The initial reaction to Moynihan was harsh; scholars argued vehemently that family structure and, thus, father absence was not a determinant of child well-being. But then in the 1980s, psychologists (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980; Hetherington, 1982) began producing evidence that divorce among middle-class families was harmful to children. Renewed interest among sociologists and demographers (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1994) in the link between poverty and single parenthood soon emerged, and as noted above, that work increasingly began building toward the conclusion that family structure did matter (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994). Of course, the debate was not just about family structure and income differences; it was also about race and gender. When Moynihan wrote in 1965, 24 percent of all births among African-Americans occurred outside of marriage. Today, the black out-of-wedlock birthrate is almost 70 percent, and the white rate has reached nearly 24 percent. If single parenthood is a problem, that problem cuts across race and ethnicity.
The focus on marriage was met with skepticism by others. Critics argued that marriage was not an appropriate province for government intervention and that income and opportunity structures were much more important factors than family structure. They questioned why the focus was on low-income families when the normative changes underlying the growth in single-parent households permeated throughout society, as witnessed by the prevalence of divorce across all economic classes.
One of the striking findings of the three-year evaluation was that, among the 290 two-parent recipient families who were part of a follow-up survey sample, families in the MFIP group were 19.1 percentage points more likely than families in the group who received traditional welfare payments under the Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program to report being married and living with their spouse. Most of this increase in marital stability was a result of fewer reported separations in MFIP families as compared to AFDC families, although some of it was a result of small reductions in divorce. Because there is some question about how families on welfare might report their marital status, MDRC also obtained and analyzed data from publicly available divorce records. We did this for some 188 two-parent recipient families who were married at study entry. (The other 100 or so families in the original survey sample were cohabiting, and we did not look for marriage records for them). The data confirmed that these couples were 7 percentage points less likely than their AFDC counterparts to divorce. This gave us confidence that MFIP did indeed reduce marital instability. (Again, divorce records would not tell us about the separations we found in the survey, so the effect should be smaller than the 19 percentage point effect we found there).
The pattern of rising divorce rates, followed by a plateau or fall in some countries (particularly richer countries) might be partially explained by the differences in divorce rates across cohorts, and the delay in marriage we see in younger couples today.
Economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers looked in detail at the changes and driving forces in marriage and divorce rates in the US.14 They suggest that the changes we see in divorce rates may be partly reflective of the changes in expectations within marriages as women entered the workforce. Women who married before the large rise in female employment may have found themselves in marriages where expectations were no longer suited. Many people in the postwar years married someone who was probably a good match for the postwar culture, but ended up being the wrong partner after the times had changed. This may have been a driver behind the steep rise in divorces throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
We see both of these factors in the analysis of divorce rates in the US from Stevenson and Wolfers.15 This chart maps out the percentage of marriages ending in divorce: each line represents the decade they got married (those married in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 1990s) and the x-axis represents the years since the wedding.
We see that the share of marriages ending in divorce increased significantly for couples married in 1960s or 70s compared to those who got married in the 1950s. The probability of divorce within 10 years was twice as high for couples married in the 1960s versus those who got married in the 1950s. For those married in the 1970s, it was more than three times as likely. 2ff7e9595c
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