Divorce and Remarriage

4/29/22, 3:58 AM 12: Divorce and Remarriage

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12.6: Is Marriage a Failed Institution? Objective: Interpret the failure or success of marriage as an institution

This chapter has considered failed marriages and the attempt by many of those who divorce to create new marriages. The media, religious leaders, and politicians, looking at the statistics on divorce, portray an image of marriage in U.S. society as a failed institution. But we must not lose sight of two facts: (1) Overwhelmingly, most people want to get married. As Margaret Talbot has put it, “The right to divorce is deeply ingrained in American culture precisely because so is the ideal of a mutually fulfilling marriage”

(2000:2). (2) The overwhelming majority of those who divorce remarry. Thus, we must conclude that the institution of marriage in the United States is not dying but is, rather, quite alive.