Here is another way of looking at the marriage paradigm.

There was a show recently about "Starter Marriages." These were defined as the ones where the couple focus so much on the big wedding, and are so immature and ill-prepared for the realities and self-sacrifices of day-to-day marriage, that they end up divorcing when reality sets in, by year 5, and almost always before children are born.

The presenter said that one reason the divorce rate is so high is that so many people enter into marriage without a grounded sense of what the commmitment entails, or what one does to actually make it work-- compounded by our instant-fix society of today.

The people often go on later in life to marry again and for life-- having learned what's really involved, they are in better shape to make a commitment stick the second time around, and they choose partners who are aware of this as well.

The author who presented this said it had really helped to know, by making a study of this, that it happens a lot in our society today. She also said that it does not mean necessarily that one is subject to the same statistical probablilty of later failed marriages, as have been predicted in past generations' studies.

~Susan