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I'm sorry.
I have to say it.
I didn't buy the grew apart after 40 years of marriage business for one second.
question: Why exactly did we all have to read earnest accounts of 'gray divorce' & suchlike for a solid week?
Off-topic, I know.
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2 comments:
Ugh. That second link hit on a pet peeve of mine. It blames "gray divorce" partially on modern longer life expectancies.
This ignores the fact that life expectancy is longer today mostly because of improved infant and maternal mortality. If a person 125 years ago survived childhood and childbirth, they were likely to live to age 70+. I've got plenty of 90-year-olds in my genealogy. Average life expectancy was around 50 because so many dead babies and dead mothers skewed the curve. It's not like everyone reached age 50 and croaked. So to blame higher modern divorce rates on improved mortality is ridiculous.
"It's not like everyone reached age 50 and croaked. So to blame higher modern divorce rates on improved mortality is ridiculous."
Things may have improved more than you think.
From here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
We find that in 1900 a white male who made it to age 30 had a further life expectancy of 35 years ... he could expect to make it to 65.
Today's life expectancy for the same 30 year old white male is 47 years.
White females who made it to age 30 in 1900 could expect to live another 36 years. Today, 61 years [NOTE: This probably shows better chances of *not* dying in childbirth].
Things *have* gotten better by quite a bit in the last 100 years. But, even more important, is the chance of a married 50-year-old couple *both* being alive in 1900. I think that the odds were lower back then, possibly by quite a bit, although this table doesn't provide the raw numbers to compute this. I wouldn't *blame* modern mortality improvements for the increase in later age divorce, but I'd be surprised if it had no impact, either.
-Mark Roulo
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