Last post started from the thought of the upcoming office Christmas party which generated the thought about divorces which drove me to look up divorce rates in the Nordic countries. Not very surprisingly, the divorce rate in Scandinavia is the highest in the world. Only Norway has the lowest divorce rate among Scandinavian countries at about 42%.
- Sweden 55%
- Finland 52%
- Denmark 46%
- Norway 42%
I forgot to look up Iceland, but anyway…
So basically we could safely assume that almost half the marriages will end up in a divorce. This happens in Scandinavia where people marry usually very late after they’ve already been living for years together and had several children together. If a marriage is to happen so late, we would assume is very unlikely to end up in a divorce. And it still does, for 50% of the marriages.
In the 50% that’s left of the marriages we can still assume that there is some percentage that don’t get along and would end up in a divorce if it wasn’t for the kids or other things that make them reconsider the divorce. But those people are still unhappy and on their way to divorce so we could assume that actually the percentage of marriages that fail is greater than the ones that succeed.
With these percentages in mind, I’m thinking that “until death do us part” doesn’t make much sense anymore besides it actually being a stupid old phrase. Turns out there’s a greater chance that something else will get in the way before death gets there. So maybe the whole attitude towards marriage it’s not the right one.
Seems that marriage does not have the same significance it had hundred of years ago (at least not in the developed countries, we should not forget that India still has a 1.1% divorce rate 
Marriage it’s not a bond for life anymore, but more a way of celebrating the fact that after a long time spent together, two people are still able to love each other and be part of each other’s life. And that’s actually quite an accomplishment.
With every more year spent together people should be happy and grateful that they are still together. If you think like that it’s much harder to take your partner for granted as it usually happens in marriages (because of the “till death do us part” thing). If you scratch that phrase and replace it with “till we are not happy together anymore”, then since you know that your partner will leave you once he/she’s not happy anymore or you could do the same thing, I think it’s going to be much easier to appreciate and be grateful for your partner and your happiness.
qed
