These Divorced Men and Women!

By divine will the first marriage in history was proclaimed .. Adam and Eve. And by the will of man the legislator, the first divorce in history was proclaimed!!

Who were the first divorced couple?...

Can we ever know?

And from that day on, the chain has never broken: a marriage, then a divorce; a divorce, then a marriage ..

In 1948 the statistics in France showed that there were 57,000 divorces against 3,690,000 marriages .... And there is no doubt that this proportion was still higher in the United States, where one divorce is recorded for every four marriages.

In the last ten years, seven million young men in the United States have come forward seeking divorce for various reasons. Very often a lady files for divorce from her husband because he does not like listening to Chopin's music and prefers Mozart's, for example. Among the most curious divorce cases: a very respectable lady in Washington sought a divorce because her husband always wore neckties of one kind — blue with white dots — and at the very minute the judge was striking his gavel, proclaiming the wife's separation from her husband, this same lady was throwing herself into her husband's arms .. and we do not know whether that criminal husband ever bought himself another necktie. Divorce in France, however, is a matter of greater difficulty: it is rarely granted except in certain cases — conjugal infidelity, desertion of the marital home, beating, grave insults. And in England, where divorce is permitted only in cases of infidelity, the wife or the husband never lacks some means of separation.

The divorce statistics show that separation occurs most often between the third and the ninth year after marriage, and rarely happens after that, since by then the bond between the spouses

has taken root.

The chief causes of divorce are:

Material difficulties, sexual incompatibility, and lack of spiritual harmony.

And there is a large proportion of divorced women and men who are seized again by longing for married life, and so they try their luck once more — and this happens most often in the first two years after the divorce ...

Has each of them forgotten the first shock? Do they prefer the worries and cares of married life to deadly loneliness?

Do they hope for a happier life than the first?

In a word, do they become happier in their second marriage?

There is no doubt that a second marriage after divorce is attended by a great deal of good sense, wisdom, and steadiness of nerve. Because the first shock was a harsh one, the man is content with the least possible measure of virtues in his second wife, and the woman likewise ...

Those first illusions of dreams and fancies have evaporated, and good sense and clear sight have taken their place ... Perfection does not exist in people, and it is a mistake to demand perfection in ourselves.

And had this wise clear-sightedness of the second marriage accompanied married life in the first marriage, the causes of divorce would have almost disappeared ..

Here, in the second marriage, the slightest shock leads to catastrophe .. and the two spouses know it; they know that they can do nothing but come to a sincere understanding ... And hence we find that the second marriage, among divorced men and women, is happier than the first.

— I shall never marry a third time, says one divorced man.

— You love your second wife very much, then? More than the first?

— Very, very much.

— And why?

— She is kind, intelligent, prudent, beautiful ..

— And did you come to know her after your divorce?

— I knew her before my divorce.

— Really!

— Yes — I forgot to tell you that I married my first wife.

From Constellation magazine