Significant feature of modern marriages - early termination:

Shorter shelf life for true love?

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

If you are a fan of “Zobra the Greek,” you would have heard this already. Chances are you probably remember the lines verbatim too. Anthony Quinn, playing Zobra describes his devastating married life: “Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.”

This was in 1964. More than forty years later, in the movie adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” the main character Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) talks about another kind of catastrophe. A married woman who seemingly has everything she could ever want, she yet realizes how unhappy her marriage really is and that life needs to go in a different direction. “The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.” The catastrophe here is not marriage, but its early termination – divorce.

Ordinary

In the modern world this is apparently an ordinary, everyday occurrence. It seems probable that even as you meet your significant other, fall in love and plan your “happily ever after” wedding, even as you take your marriage vows (“Do you take this man or this woman to be your husband or your wife, to have and to hold... till death do you part?)in the back of your mind you are thinking, “sure I take this person. But if it does not work I will file for a divorce and get on with my life.”

Where has all the love gone?

If you had these thoughts in the back of your mind, on your wedding day, or secretly harbor them till you make the plunge, you are not alone. Statistics reveal nowadays, 60 per cent of marriages ends in divorce. Instead of the conventional “till death do us part,” it seems to be divorce that makes most couples apart today.

Finding answers

What are the reasons that have made people so intolerant that they are at the divorce court fighting over small details such as not folding the Sunday newspapers properly or sharing household responsibilities? Where does all the love and understanding go when the couple is constantly bickering and not ready to make allowances for each other? Does the shelf life of true love keep getting shorter and shorter?

So many questions. Who has the answers? Perhaps feminism is to blame for the fragile state of the institute of modern marriages. Yes, says historian and feminist writer Stephanie Coontz.

She thinks feminist reforms gave women the opportunity to get out of unhappy or unfair marriages, and in that sense feminism was the catalyst for many divorces in the 1970s and 1980s. “Once feminist reforms gained women access to better jobs and outlawed discrimination in pay, hiring, and promotions, women who were unhappy in their marriages no longer had to stay married out of dire economic necessity.”

According to Coontz there was another way that feminism destabilized marriage. When women went to work in the 1970s, whether from necessity or choice, they began to feel entitled to ask their husband to do more at home, and when their husbands resisted they felt entitled to press the issue, instead of “gracefully giving in,” as the advice books of the 1950s had advised wives (but not husbands) to do in case of disagreement.

It is probable that feminism initially led to more outright conflict in marriages because women felt less pressure to simply put up with bad behavior or an unfair division of labor.

Feminism though is not entirely to blame. Part of the blame should go to the way human beings are wired. This is why though in fairy tales, marriages last happily ever after in real life science, tells us wedded bliss has but a limited shelf life. Research reveals newlyweds enjoy a big happiness boost that lasts, on average, for just two years. Then the special joy wears off and they are back where they started, at least in terms of happiness. This is when many couples mistake the natural shift from passionate love to companionate love for incompatibility and unhappiness and decide to go separate ways.

“Working together”

As Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California, and the author of “The Myths of Happiness” says “We move into a beautiful loft. Marry a wonderful

Marital status – divorced

partner. Earn our way to the top of our profession.

How thrilling! For a time. Then, as if propelled by autonomic forces, our expectations change, multiply or expand and, as they do, we begin to take the new, improved circumstances for granted.”

Prof. Lyubomirsky does not mince her words “It’s cruel but true: We’re inclined — psychologically and physiologically — to take positive experiences for granted.”

This is so, because although we may not realize it, we are biologically hard-wired to crave variety. Evolutionary biologists believe that when your spouse becomes as familiar to you as a sibling — when you become family — you cease to be attracted to each other.

This could be why even when you love someone deeply and feel you are ready even to die for that person, you still feel trapped and need to propel your life in a new direction.

Is there then, no key to keep a marriage from crumbling? According to

Linda M. McCloud, author of “Top Reasons People Divorce” there is no one key. But several sets of keys. “They work together in harmony.” Notice the phrase she uses is “work together” because that is what marriage is - two people working together for a lasting future.”

Could Oscar Wilde have known better when he said, “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” Perhaps.

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Ethnic minority women face job crisis in UK

Women remove hijabs or make names sound more English to beat discrimination, says parliamentary report Large sections of minority ethnic women are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts, with some removing their hijabs or making their names sound more English to try to beat discrimination, a report from MPs and peers says.

Furthermore, the rate of joblessness for ethnic minority women has failed to come down in the past three decades, finds the report from the all-party parliamentary group on race and community.

Muslim women celebrate Eid al-Fitr at the Regent's Park Mosque in London. AFP

The report finds that prejudice and discrimination explains a quarter of the higher unemployment rate faced by women from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black communities.

The report finds some employers assume Muslim women would stop work after having children and the MPs and peers say the government must end its “colour blind” approach to improving employment equality.

The report from the cross party group is an attempt to put discrimination issues back on the agenda, coming at a time when the official equalities watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is facing large budget cuts and criticism over its effectiveness.

Affected categories

The report found: “Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are particularly affected, with 20.5% being unemployed compared to 6.8% of white women, with 17.7% of black women also being unemployed.”

The higher unemployment rate covered all ages, dashing hopes that more enlightened attitudes mean the problem is lessening for younger women.

The report cited research from Professor Anthony Heath of Oxford University: “The unemployment rate of black women has remained at roughly double that of white women since 1972.

There has been no decrease over time or over generations in ethnic minority unemployment rates overall (both men and women), and that the second generation still experience unemployment rates which are as high as those of the first generation.”

Research by Professor Yaojun Li found the same was true for predominantly Muslim Pakistani and Bangladeshi women trying to find work: “After 1983 the unemployment rate of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women has remained consistently and substantially higher than the rate for white women.”

The report found:

* Some employers’ attitudes worsened when they realised women with European-sounding names were black.

* Some Muslim women were removing their hijab to increase their chance of getting work.

* Black and Asian women complained of being asked during job interviews about their plans for marriage and having children.

* Fewer Pakistani and Bangladeshi women were taking up their children's free nursery places than white women.

Reluctance

The report found ethnic minority women “deselecting themselves” from the job market and deciding not to apply because of the extra barriers they faced.

The MPs said the approach of successive governments must change: “We believe that evidence shows that there are varied and complex barriers facing Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women which are different from those facing white women or ethnic minority men. “Based on this, we would argue that the government's ‘colour-blind’ approach to tackling unemployment is not appropriate in dealing with the specific issues facing women from these groups.”

Labour MP David Lammy, who chairs the all-party group, said: “It is staggering that in 21st century Britain there are women who felt they had to remove their hijab or change their name just to be able to compete on the same terms as other candidates when looking for jobs.

“All unemployment is tragic but we simply can no longer remain so casual about women that are simultaneously the victims of both sexism and racism when they are competing in the labour market.

www.Guardian.co.uk