In the final analysis, during those times when wives were socially and financially dependent on their husbands, divorces and annulments were rare. Scandalous, in fact. Like washing dirty linen in public. Marriages survived because most women had no choice. The ones who dared to get divorced were the ones who were financially capable of supporting themselves, or who had enough goodies on their wayward husbands to ensure comfortable financial support.
Sexual infidelity is not some recent phenomenon. It is as old as man. It is not the destroyer of marriage. Marriage–traditional marriage–is dying because it has outlived its usefulness. We are entering an age when there is a serious need to review the institution of marriage so that it will evolve into something more responsive to the needs of the times.
Mr. Brooks states :
Marriage is in crisis because marriage, which relies on a culture of fidelity, is now asked to survive in a culture of contingency. Today, individual choice is held up as the highest value: choice of lifestyles, choice of identities, choice of cellphone rate plans. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but the culture of contingency means that the marriage bond, which is supposed to be a sacred vow till death do us part, is now more likely to be seen as an easily canceled contract.
Marrige is a choice of lifestyle. By two individuals. The decision to marry is an exercise of that freedom that he calls a wonderful thing.
We simply cannot live in the past. If marriage is to survive this dizzying pace of cultural and social changes that we are experiencing, it has to evolve. As we all do. After all, marriage is not an abstract but a relationship. And relationships, including the perception of relationships, change too as people do.
Finally, even assuming that marriage originated from standards of morality (which it did not since marriage–or “shacking up” in primitive societies were based on the need to build a bedrock of society), even moral standards change. Otherwise, civilized nations would still be practicing drawing, hanging and quartering.
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