Back When Marriage Was Forever

By Kathy A. Schaeffer

It is an established fact that divorce rates in the 1950s and 1960s were relatively low and strikingly lower than they are 50 years later. In 1950, there were 2.6 divorces per 1,000 people. By 1960, it was actually lower and had a rate of 2.2 per thousand, the same as it was in 1957.

When people committed to each other in a marriage ceremony, they knew that when problems arose, they would tackle the problems together and solve them. It is a sad commentary that contemporary society has changed it to "when problems arise, we'll just go to the divorce attorney together."

That is a statement that no one would disagree with, but why was it so different back then? I can just speak about my own observations and my childhood. They are wonderful memories of family life and of parents who have recently celebrated 53 years together.

My parents are and have always been two parts of a whole. That fact was solidified in my mind a few years ago when my mother needed to stay in the hospital for a few days. They had given her pumpkin pie with one of her meals and she put it into her bedside drawer because my dad really enjoys pumpkin pie. She must have felt like a little girl "hiding" that pie to give to her "boyfriend" without getting caught!

When I went to see her in the hospital during that same period of time, my father mentioned that he wishes they could bring another bed into that room so that he could sleep there, too. Two parts of a whole, yes. Each part can work independently but neither part will ever work as well without the other.

So . . . back to the topic of divorce. If the subject ever came up for my parents, none of their five offspring ever found out about it. I highly doubt that it did. I do not wear rose colored glasses and of course I know that every family in the 50s and 60s were not families with Ward Cleaver or Jim Anderson at the helm. I also know that there was indeed a divorce rate, albeit quite a bit lower than it was by the time the wild 70s arrived.

Today I hear things like "we simply couldn't agree on finances and were never on the same page about money, so we're getting a divorce." In the 60s when I was a little girl, money problems were solved and there wasn't another option. My parents raised five of us in a one income family and they did a fabulous job with it. We had plenty of food and we always had nice clothing. If there were money worries, I didn't hear about them.

Sometimes I wonder if there were financial worries that we simply didn't find out about. I really should ask my mother about it sometime. I don't remember eating a lot of inexpensive things and my memory is that there was always enough food on the table. Once in a while, I was even allowed to get some fanciful new food I saw advertised on television even though my parents told me I wouldn't like such a thing. They were right in the end, but they allowed me to try anyhow.

My daughter was doing a school project a number of years ago and it involved interviewing her grandparents. My mother's advice to her in the financial questions section was to never get into debt. I consider it very sound advice since it seems the norm today is to have debt up to a young couple's proverbial eyeballs and fight for years, sometime decades, to claw their way out of it.

I've also wondered if sacrifices had to be made for things like gym uniforms and class pictures that someone always needed when there are five children in a family. I think one sign of really great parenting is to not let the children know about those sacrifices. Putting financial burdens on children never felt right to me and it surely wasn't done when I was a kid.

I find it distressing that "I do" in the 50s and 60s meant "I do forever" while today it seems to mean more like "I will try for a year or so to see how it goes." So many things are better in these early 2000s than they were in decades past, but I think family life could use a serious boost if it is to become strong once more.