by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Proudly announcing his divorce.
Saint Angela Merici wisely observed, “disorder in the world is the result of disorder in the family.” Over the last generation, the disorder in American family life has grown exponentially. In 1940, there was one divorce for every six marriages; by 1975, the U.S. divorce rate had climbed to one in two. Liberated from the matrimonial ties that bind, families are cast adrift. Amid their wreckage we find our children. A million divorces affect children each year. One in ten children will suffer three such marital dissolutions. “Perfect married life means the spiritual dedication of the parents for the benefit of their children,” the Angelic Doctor Saint Thomas Aquinas counsels, but social scientist Travis Hirschi reports that “the likelihood that the biological parents of a particular child will marry and stay together throughout the period of child rearing is lower today than at any time in the past.” It is in the wisdom of the past that we find the answers for today and the hope for tomorrow. That is why we are pleased to offer our readers the following adaptation of an article originally published in the Brazilian Catholic journal Catolicismo in October 1951. It comes with our heartfelt prayers for their families.
1940 Marital Status of Men and Women per 1,000 population
| Never Married | 29,129 |
| Married | 60,278 |
| Divorced | 14,047 |
| Widowed | 7,844 |
CPS* 2014 Marital Status
| Never Married | 140,870 |
| Married, Spouse Present | 123,911 |
| Married, Spouse Absent | 3,609 |
| Divorced | 25,302 |
| Separated | 5,499 |
| Widowed | 14,204 |
2.3 per 1,000 population in 1963 were divorced.
4.8 per 1,000 population in 1975 were divorced.
From 1960 to 1966, for all men under 70 years of age, who had ever married, 15% were divorced; 31% for women.
On analyzing many of the works that have been written against divorce, we can conclude that overall they deserve praise for their seriousness, clarity, and balanced reasoning.
However, nearly all use arguments that are somewhat academic. The arguments they proffer are fine for persuading well-intentioned intellectuals, but as a general rule they are entirely ineffective for the vast majority who make up public opinion, which, ranging between indissolubility and divorce, strongly leans towards the latter.
So one who is pro-divorce may be reduced to an embarrassed and bored silence by listening to conclusive arguments proven by facts and figures (which superficial souls always like) on how divorce is harmful to the family and the country.
Distant Memories by Thomas Francis Dicksee
He might even remain silent for a while, muttering something under his breath. But soon he starts all over again with the same point: “So, the unhappy spouse cannot begin his or her life again? Is it just to deprive spouses of the right to rebuild their happiness?”
All of us who have fought against divorce know how frequent this attitude is. The clearest arguments, the most penetrating arguments, simply roll off this attitude like water off a duck’s back! For, the divorce advocates merely retreat into themselves when exposed to the hammer of logic. And when the firing stops they re-emerge unchanged from their lairs. Therefore, an effective anti-divorce campaign must take this fact into consideration if it wants to gain ground. We must realize that we have not yet fully explored the way to approach or penetrate mentalities like this. It is essential to identify the cause of this state of mind so we may find the argumentation that will meet it.
That is why I want to speak about romanticism.
