WHO WE ARE: Better to have loved and lost ...

Wednesday May 9, 2007 04:08 PM

Who We Are

To learn why we're no longer cultural clones of the Americans, go to The Tribal Mind

A column about Australia by David Dale, published in The Sun-Herald, 10/5/2009
The seven year itch is a myth. In this country, the theory that marriages are most at risk after seven years is not supported by the facts. It's actually 8 years and 11 months. For marriages that have ended in Australia, that's been the average gap between joining and separating.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Today's column is supposed to be about finding love, not losing it. This is part two of a study of the mating habits of the tribe called Australians, based on research by the Bureau of Statistics. Last week's column offered the optimistic revelation that 95 per cent of Australians over the age of 35 have had at least one live-in relationship in their lives. Here's more detail on how they did it (with a bit on how they lost it)...

If you're looking for love, get more education and get a job. Australians mostly bond with people who have the same educational background. But the bureau warns: "Men with a lower level of education were more likely to have never partnered (10.4 per cent of men with no tertiary qualifications compared with 5.0 per cent of those with tertiary qualifications). Men who were not working in 2006-2007 were almost three times as likely to have never had a live-in relationship as those who were employed."

If you can't find an atheist or a Buddhist, a Christian will do. Australians tend to bond with people who share their religion - or lack of it. The bureau says 87 per cent of couplings are between people of the same belief system. These are the exceptions: "Only 34 per cent of couples involving a Buddhist were same faith partnerships. A higher proportion were 'Buddhist- Christian' couples (40 per cent). Of the 26 per cent of couples involving at least one person with no religion, 52 per cent were matches where both partners were non-religious, while most of the remainder (46 per cent) were a no religion-Christian couple."

Men are more annoying than women. That's what we have to conclude from the fact that wives are far more likely to end relationships than are husbands. In 2007, 13,216 divorces were initiated by men, 16,172 were joint projects and 18,571 were initiated by women.

Most marriages end in death. That's another way of saying that around 40 per cent end in divorce. These are the raw numbers: each year there are about 116,000 marriages and about 48,000 divorces. The divorce rate has been declining over this decade, which looks like good news until you realize it's because the marriage rate was declining over the previous decade.

A terminated de facto relationship is likely to last two years, while a terminated marriage is likely to last at least nine years. The bureau looks on the bright side: "In considering the apparently brief duration of de facto relationships, it should be kept in mind that this median is only for those relationships that have ended - a greater number have gone on to become a registered marriage or remain as long term partnerships. In addition, where de facto relationships are being used by couples as a step before marriage, those that end before marriage may reduce the number of marriages that would otherwise end in divorce within a short period."

So there's no reason for pessimism, as long as you're looking for love in all the right places. Give us your theories at Comments

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

COMMENTS

"Men are more annoying than women."
David, you need to learn to think more independently and not simply regurgitate what the ideologues at university told you.
Normally when a man gets divorced he usually separates from his wife, house, car, assets, future income and children.
When a woman gets divorced, the guy she no longer likes is forced to move out of *her* house.
Who do you think is more likely to initiate divorce? Im surprised the figure for women is not higher.

by RealityCheck on May 10, 2009 at 05:33 AM

Two questions RealityCheck:
1. Why is it OK for you to refer to "his" wife, house, car, assets, future income and children, but question the house as "hers"?
2. If you're right, why does such an enormous body of empirical research demonstrate a 'feminisation of poverty' largely as cosequence of divorce - that is that women do substantially worse than men financially when marriages and de facto relationships end?
Maybe it's certain entrenched attitudes of male privilege and 'ownership' that result in women initiating divorce far more than men. Thanks for proving the point!
BTW - I'm a bloke

by DelusionCheck on May 10, 2009 at 08:22 AM

DelusionCheck BTW Are you Gay?

by Bob on May 10, 2009 at 10:40 AM

BTW . yes thats exactly proves the point of Reality Check. The women didn't earn the assets in the first place, even though they get most of them at separation ,they then go on and still do no good. Often they left the decent hardworking husband for a better looking bloke only to find out he is a further drain on her assets as already provided by her first husband.
And for reality Check ....Right on!!

by wrongway on May 10, 2009 at 10:44 AM

Delusion check, a rather delusional Lenore Weitzman, published some rather faulty research which was take to prove that following divorce a mans standard of living rose whilst a womans fell.
http://www.acbr.com/biglie.htm
an enormous of emprical research does show the feminisation of poverty, but mainly because the woman looses the contribuiting male income.

by swine fever on May 10, 2009 at 11:02 AM

No so much a question of male earning capacity, or feminisation of poverty for that matter. More so the entrenched bias in the Family Court system that systematically denies justice to dads.

by Jone on May 10, 2009 at 11:48 AM

As someone who has studied Family Law in my opinion the vast majority of research suggests that financially women are significantly disadvantaged by divorced compared to men. To the point of poverty and having to rely on government handouts. This can be attributed to a number of things, largely that women have put their careers on hold to raise children and are therefore less experienced and less likely to obtain gainful employment. In regards to the generalisations made by Reality Check, if a wife is not working and relying largely on her husbands income generally she is raising "his" children (since we seem to like using ownership terms here), looking after "his" house and giving him needed support to obtain the amount of income he does. Why should then everything he earns be "his" when it's clearly a joint effort?

"Often they left the decent hardworking husband for a better looking bloke only to find out he is a further drain on her assets as already provided by her first husband." Wrong way can we keep comments to an intellegent standard without the blatant generalisations please?

by ping on May 10, 2009 at 11:52 AM

Men don't initiate divorce because they are onto a good thing. Marriage works out well for most men. Women are usually the ones who suffer the most in a marriage (hassled for sex all the time, having to have kids and look after them, having to cook and clean). To most men a wife = slave.
No wonder women are wanting divorces.

by yeah on May 10, 2009 at 12:29 PM

Sometimes, I do think of how our marital relationships and its related demography haved changed overtime and through generations.
As both males and females become more financially independent, educated and expect greater equality / balance in many aspects - why would anyone allow/tolerate continuous treatment as:
a) a slave to the other,
b) bearer of imbalance manual/grunt work,
c) an emotional/stress punching bag,
d) sole atm machine....
If the other doesn't hold his/her share of life responsibilities, one would wonder if the union could continue survive time.
Marital relationships will probably need to evolve like everything else inorder to be successful - that we knowfrom the theory of evolution & survival of the fittest no? who knows....

by Lollipopworld on May 10, 2009 at 03:12 PM

Wrongway said "The women didn't earn the assets in the first place."
Er, most women work. If they don't, they are usually looking after �his� children. Or her parents, or his parents.
Are you honestly claiming that most women sit around getting their nails while having affairs with blokes better looking than their �decent hardworking husband(s)�?
What universe are you living in? None that resembles the reality on this planet, that�s for sure.
Are you suggesting that fathers shouldn�t pay child support? Since when did being a deadbeat become something to crow about?

by turnback on May 10, 2009 at 03:17 PM

"feminisation of poverty"!?
- maybe true across the wider society - but definitely not true in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs ... you only have to look at the local Westfield ... anorexic, botoxed women driving their oversized designer 4WDs
- some women ... and I emphasis some ... are just plain lazy

by richo on May 10, 2009 at 03:49 PM

And still we are fighting instead of working out how to get along and understand each other. What is the REAL motivation for marraigeand WHAT training are we getting to be a good spouse???? Of course men dont initiate dirvorce as much as women! Look at the laws and penalties they are up against. Time for an overhaul of the law courts.

by Matramonially raped on May 10, 2009 at 04:00 PM

Hi Bob. I'm flattered of course, and sorry to disappoint you but no, I'm not gay. But I'm sure there's someone, somewhere out there for you. Good Luck!

by DelusionCheck on May 10, 2009 at 06:16 PM

in response to * by yeah on May 10, 2009 at 12:29 PM
If thats the way the marriage is, why bother kooking yourself to a man than? I tell you why, that's because it's a way to enrich yourself financially when you divorce him. When you look at the Celebrity divorces and the absurd amount of of millions paid to the woman, no wonder a marriage then a divorce becomes so attractive to women. I called this high class prostitution.

by Johny Doeg on May 10, 2009 at 06:16 PM

I am female, married at 25, seperated at 29 and divorced by 30. I am now 32. I didn't initiate talk of marriage but I initiated the seperation, division of assets and the divorce. When we got together, I had been saving for a house so I had quite a lot in the bank & I owned my own car. My father raised me to get an education and a good job so that I would never "need" a man but rather "want" a man.
I thought I was in love but as someone said to me when I seperated, "love is blind, but marriage is an eye opener". In my case, it certainly was. I cannot blame him becasue I was naive. I had stared working when I was 15 and continued to work while studying. He came to the relationship with nothing, which was fine. I come from a working class family and although I like nice things, I don't have delusions of being rich. Once we got married, I realised that my x-husband couldn'y keep a job. He spent more money than he made - which was funded by me. If that wasn't stressful enough, he spent half of what was in the savings account as I had placed all my savings in a joint bank account - in total he withdrew about $70k. He had another $30k in debt in credits cards that I didn't even know he had & was always "working late"...code for cheating. I confronted him & he agreed to marriage counselling. 6 months after counselling finished he was at it again. Not that this was a surprise becasue we had 2 Counsellors and both of them said that he was not going to change becasue he didn't think he had to. When the "experts" say a relationship is about 50/50, it doesn't mean we have to wash dishes an equal number of times in a week. It refers to the effort that's put into the relationship. People think that once you're married you can sit back and watch life unravel... you have to put effort into your relationship all the time. When he finally said to me that he kew I would never leave him becasue it would be too embarassing for me, I took the challenge & 6 months later he was on the street with nothing. At the time, I was earning twice what he was earning. I lost a lot financially getting married becasue I paid for all of that. He went through savings & earnings while we were married & did the same at the divorce. I didn't benefit financially in any shape or form from being married or getting divorced. But I benefitted from getting my life back. There are no children from the marriage so I was able to make a clean break. I am not naive anymore but I don't think relationships are as complicated as they're made out to be either. I wouldn't rule out getting married again... but I wouldn't have joint bank accounts & I wouldn't do it without a pre-nup.

by Bernadette on May 10, 2009 at 06:17 PM

I think it is all balderdash by the Institute,who use correlation,as a tool to suggest a human law.Seeing others are as much disadvantaged as advantaged by the University educated most of their lives,more so when HECS fees simply make people in debt to banks,to hold marriage up as some normalising bond seems to be the height of contempt for why other relationships fail among the non university educated. Perhaps the whole cause of failure among the non-university educated is because too much emphasis put on all the wonder benefits to the rest of society that the University education brings.Having seen any number of governments come and go that didn't get the education of Australians right at all,it is then further evidence of the contempt of the University educated to others in their requirements about how the university educated know the normalising behaviours required of a decent society..

by philip travers on May 10, 2009 at 06:28 PM

"Are you honestly claiming that most women sit around getting their nails while having affairs with blokes better looking than their �decent hardworking husband(s)�?"
Well, errm, that's exactly what happened to me. And quite a few of my friends. Of course, none of them behaved that way in the beginning. Only when they were well comfortable in the marriage.
As for the constant claim women are entitled to huge unearned assets because they looked after children and house. Well, they benefit too from doing that, so it's not really a service as in one that should be paid for. It's like me demanding payment for fixing my own car.
Plus they're getting all their bills paid, which is often much more expensive than the equivelant cost of half a maid and nanny.
The "deadbeat dad" claim is also a complete ruse. If a man has his children stolen from him along with many of his assets in a divorce he didn't want or ask for, of course he's going to be bitter about having to cough up large chunks of money to mum and her new boyfriend. The deadbeat dad line is a hoax that describes a tiny portion of dads.
I'm tired of women becoming sanctimonious and defending the marriage/divorce ruse. Us men are waking up, and all the shaming language in the world isn't going to change that. The evidence is all around us that we're getting scammed and we're tired of it.
Don't marry, co-habit or have children guys. It's a licence for women and the government to enslave you and steal your property.

by watchman on May 10, 2009 at 08:44 PM

Good gracious, no wonder so many marriages fail when we have the plethora of archaic attitudes on here throwing blame between men and women. The 10 posts above here seem to have taken the personal vengeance and launched WWIII on each other - I wonder how many of you have stable mariages yourselves.
If this small smaple is anything to go by, I'm not surprised both men AND women initiate divorces and 40% of marriages dissolve regardless of the initiator.
Also very little mentioned in the article or by anyone here willing to pause for a second and think scientifically - issues such as infidelity, illness, financial hardship and all matter of reasons cause people to end a marriage.
Seems a few on here are either jealous or scorned or both about financial earnings and assets. More than a few bitter divorcees perhaps?
I'm a 27 y.o. unmarried male who's very much not heading into marriage with any me vs her attitudes and know I'll be doing my best to die next to her still happy.

by Shocked on May 10, 2009 at 09:00 PM

Expect for Bernadette I think alot of comments are not based on experience let alone reality. Before I get flamed as knowing nothing let me tell you I am a divorced dad of three young children so I am well qualified to comment.
There are no winners in divorce especially for the children. The children suffer and I see it on occasion with my oldest boy who remembers what it was like to live with his mum and dad and to then see his family get ripped apart by infidelity. He has had to cope with his father having to leave and in quick succession his mother's new partner in his life. Very confusing for a young kid.
I do my best as a Dad for my three on the fortnightly visits and school holidays. I have paid the price financially ie house and asset having to start again. But my main concern is my children. The sting in the tail for me is not having daily contact with my children, I am comforted to know they are happy and healthy.
Not every divorce is stereotypical ie mother and children in poverty and father financially better off. In my case mother has three incomes hers, partners and child support and father 60% tax liability ie third tax, third child support and a third to myself.
Cheers
Dafydd

by Dafydd on May 10, 2009 at 09:09 PM

Wow! I sense a lot of anger and gender conflict. No wonder there is so much divorce! I think there is so much divorce because there is generally in Australia a culture war between men & women. An alternate approach would be to value each other generally and get along! But then there is the Family Court driven divorce industry to consider

by OM on May 10, 2009 at 09:18 PM

Bernadette: My heart goes to you. That's a VERY expensive experience you just went through. Crikey.
I truly hope the next guy's a keeper.
As for me, I'm pretty happy being a statistic. =)

by Ronaldo on May 11, 2009 at 12:06 AM

I'll be doing my best to die next to her still happy.
* by Shocked on May 10, 2009 at 09:00 PM
---------------------------------------
So you'll be topping yourself at the wedding ceremony then...
It's so invigorating to see such youthful naivety, let alone such untainted by experience innocence! Try to hang onto that for as long as possible, because if you open your eyes to the reality of the World around you, it'll take a mere micro-second to be consumed by the truth of just how greedy, lustful and intellectually bereft the vast majority of men and women truly are - especially when they think someone they "love" has done the dirt on them. Oh: and keep an eye out for the interested third parties - those individuals who don't mind ripping into other people's business for their own selfish ends. They should polish off any remnants of romantic naievity you might still harbour, despite seeing the World a little more clearly than you do now. If you can cope with all of that and still raise a hearty smile, you might have a chance - but, it may pay to keep the "top yourself at the wedding ceremony" option high on the list if you wish to die happy. Good luck: you'll need it!!

by Steve C on May 11, 2009 at 11:34 AM

I'm doing just fine Ronaldo - I stopped feeling sorry for myself some time ago. I certainly hope the next one is a keeper! :)
Although I can definately relate to the concept of "once bitten, twice shy", I don't think divorce is the fault of either men or women. It's easy to place blame...it certainly stops individuals from having to take responsibility. We're all responsible for our decisions & behaviours whether we're busy providing or saping off someone else. I think divorce is more a sign of the times. I know many people of my parents generation who are miserable. I cringe whenever I am in a room with them. They torture each other but they would never get divorced because divorce is not something their generation is likely to do. Today divorce is not so taboo and being divorced doesn't carry the stigma it did once. Of course the fact that women can work & support themselves means they're less likely to hang around if they're not happy. We're also a more individualistic society which also doesn't help considering that relationships are all about compromise!

by Bernadette on May 11, 2009 at 10:45 PM

How hard it is to see beyond our cultural definitions. How about redefining relationships? That is the obvious question where few want to go. Until then, we have ourselves to blame for the whole mess called marriage. Good luck to all those who are trying to break away form it.

by cavedweller on May 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM

Women,are,of course, twisted, angry, confused and greedy, not to mention lazy and demanding, with a sense of unjustified entitlement. Watch out men, you can work 10 years and in a flash, when a woman 'changes her mind' loose the lot. Don't marry unless the laws change. The g-star (unmarried professional who sees woman for what they are.)

by James St.James on June 01, 2009 at 01:26 PM

The Sun-Herald

Who We Are

WHO WE ARE: Better to have loved and lost ...

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