Thursday, 29 January 2009
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Marriage, Divorce and Cultural Differences
by Molly
When you travel abroad as a single man or woman, there is always the little thought in the back of your mind that maybe, just maybe, you will meet someone on this trip that will make it all worth it. Sometimes it happens, but you realize down the road that cultural differences are just too great to overcome.
In my experience, some of the people I know from other places take certain things much more seriously than we do in the US. For example, one of my Turkish friends invited me to his apartment, and we made dinner with some of our other friends, which I took pretty casually. I later found out that it was a very big deal that I had been invited to his personal home, and he was offended that I had not taken the invitation more seriously. But being invited to another person's home where I grew up was a pretty commonplace event among groups of friends and aquaintances, and I didn't understand why he would be offended that I took it lightly.
In a similar way, relationships are oftentimes taken much more seriously in some places than in others. There are certain places that you go where a marriage actually is forever....and divorce is simply not an option, or is certainly not the "norm." So, if you are just plain fed up with the soaring divorce rates in your country, these may be your first option for a little getaway! But, if you like to keep your options more open, maybe you should look into the first group of countries listed below.
According to an article in Divorce Magazine, these are the top ten countries with the highest divorce rates:
Sweden 54.9
Belarus 52.9
Finland 51.2
Luxembourg 47.4
Estonia 46.7
Australia 46
United States 45.8
Denmark 44.5
Belgium 44
Austria 43.4The countries with the lowest rates included:
Albania 10.9
Azerbaijan 10.3
Italy 10
Georgia 6.6
Armenia 6Turkey 6
Bosnia and Herzegovina 5
Macedonia 5
Sri Lanka 1.5
India 1.1What do you think about these statistics? Would you agree/disagree? Have you ever personally encountered problems with these types of differences?
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About the Author
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- From: Molly
- About Me: Age: 23 Hometown: Colorado Favorite Places Traveled To: Peru, New Zealand, Greece, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Portugal and California!! Ideal Vacation: Around the world!! I'd love to take a trip from one end of the globe to the other and then back. That would be ideal. If not that, I want to go to Ghana, South Africa, Thailand, Japan, oh no.....this is turning into quite the trip!
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Comments (8)
I think the same problems with relationships still exist -- but in certain countries, divorce is not allowed, or will bring serious punishment if done.
It's all about the culture, obviously. In certain places people are raised to believe that marriage is a very important thing, no matter what the reason for that belief. It's not always religion that causes people to consider marriage to be sacred. (Sacred meaning secured against violation, infringement, etc., not a religious thing in the way I'm using it) Me, for instance. Whereas I am a Christian, I'm extremely lighthearted about religion; so my reasons for considering marriage a sacred thing aren't simply because of my religion. I could be of any other religion and still have the same opinions on it.
There are places where a divorce can't happen. There are places where people are taught to try harder to keep their marriage together. Likewise there are places like the United States where half the time it seems like people get so frustrated that they don't want to try anymore.
I mean, really, there are so many reasons for divorce rates being the way they are, that it'd take a long time to go in depth about it.
i think that when u marry someone it should be 4ever
wow i'm surprised that the united states is not number one on the list... anyway cultural differences can be much more insidious than that; sometimes you won't even realize that that is what's making two people uncomfortable...
For White South Africans we are casual about divorce but in Black South Africa it is far rarer. Marriage is not always about love. It is about family and business. It is also possible for a man to have multiple wives.
Divorce isn't very common in Malaysia, but it's growing (unfortunately).
Wow, I thought US was going to be number 1 too.
Well, it's better to be divorced than to be stuck in a dead end relationship for the rest of your life. Yeah, you may not get divorced, but I don't think it'd be pretty healthy for your kids, having them live with their parents arguing all the time.
Happiness is more important than marriage and it is the key to a healthy family. Sometimes marriage is not forever. High divorce rates are not necessarily bad, and low divorce rates are not necessarily good and it certainly does not automatically mean the relationship is more healthy.