From: loca@netcom.com (John Hoag)
Subject: Re: Interracial Dating, ABCD's, and Dissension
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 16:37:23 GMT

moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:

>The amount of eve-teasing that goes on there is shocking.  

What's "eve-teasing"?

>This divorce rate is in large part due to cultural acceptance of
>divorce.  Far more women stay in unhappy, abusive relationships in
>countries where divorce is not culturally acceptable.  I'd rather have
>a high divorce rate and happier people.

It's a double-edged sword.  A high divorce rate is not an indicator of
happy people.  I read an interesting poll some months ago (sorry, I've
forgotten the source) which asked men and women in the U.S. whether they
were satisfied with their present relationships.  The results were
something like: 70% of men said they were happy with their current
relationships, while only %40 of women said the same.  

Forcing people, men or women, to stay in abusive relationships is one
thing.  At the other extreme, however (the case in America), is a culture
which bashes the institution of marriage, even fidelity, honor and mutual
respect in non-married relationships so badly that it becomes unfashionable
and culturally unsupported for two people to stay together for a lifetime.

Increasingly in America, men and women alike are bailing from
relationships as soon as they stop being "fun", unwilling to see
relationships through the inevitable difficult periods which must arise,
however infrequently, over a period of many years.  The unspoken cultural
ethic seems to be, "If you're not having fun, get out of it."

At the same time, the popular media presents a never-ending onslaught of
cynical humor about relationships, depictions of married people being
nasty to each other, married people abusing each other, married people
cheating on each other, married people dropping each other in favor of
newer, fresher relationships.  It's almost as if the advertising ethic of
throwing out the old and buying the NEW IMPROVED product became, through
sheer repetition and the power of mass media, a new cultural archetype, a
model for behavior which transcended consumerism in the marketplace and
became consumerism in relationships.

I've seen the personal tragedy of the American culture's acceptance and,
yes, encouragement of divorce -- divorce for reasons having nothing to do
with abuse, physical or psychological -- again and again.  I've seen
women, as well as men, behave unconscionably toward those they vowed to
love and honor for the rest of their lives.  It's as if such vows are only
valid for the time it takes to speak them.  At a later time, the attitude
all too often becomes, "That was then.  This is now."  

This, too, is culturally accepted.  And it's not pretty.

If the truth were spoken in the vows of perhaps even a majority of those
getting married in America today, they would say, "I will love and honor,
for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part
-- or until I'm tired or bored or feeling dissatisfied with it for any
reason."

So, it does cut both ways.  Happiness comes from within, not from the
nature of divorce laws, whichever way they are cast.  There are injustices
in all systems.  I only wish things like honor, loyalty, fidelity,
dedication, sacredness, and common decency were more enthusiastically
embraced in this culture than the excitement of some concept of "freedom"
which embraces none of the above and leaves many a personal life in ruins.

	- John Hoag (loca@netcom.com)