Common-law marriages are nothing new, they happened even in Jesus' time, as the Bible relates about the women who was married five times, whom Jesus met at Jacob's well and who was then living with a man who wasn't her husband. What is new is the large number of people who live in common-law relationships and that society has resigned itself to accept these relationship. The social stigma appears to have vanished, and even Dr. Laura now calls such relationships simply "shacking up."
The consequences of divorce and separation are a number of social ills that affect mostly our children. Nowhere are these consequence more prevalent than with children from common-law relationships.
StatCan reported the percentages of children 10 years old who saw their parents separate:
Children who lived with two married biological parents 14%
* Children who lived with two parents who got married after cohabitation 26%
* Children who lived with common-law parents 63%
StatCan also noted that the age of children whose parents separate is constantly dropping. 91% of children are born into families with two parents, but fully one fifth of those are living common-law. The number of common-law "marriages" has more than doubled over the past two decades, from 6% in 1981 to 14% in 1995. Not only that, but the rate of increase is accelerating. It has become an escalating cycle: women whose parent's union broke up before they were 15 are 75% more likely to choose living common-law themselves, something that is more typical in Canada than elsewhere. A UN study found the following percentages of women aged 25 to 29 who live common-law:
Canada 40%
Italy 2%
U.K. 10%
Germany 11%
France 14%
Sweden 48%
[No comparable statistics relating to that trend in men of the corresponding age group were offered in the article. --WHS]
The social consequences of "non-traditional marriage" are well documented. Children of those marriages:
* perform relatively poorly in school,
* are more likely to exhibit criminal behaviour,
* have more difficulty in their personal, social, and sexual relationship,
* are twice as likely to drop out of school, and, if they are teen aged girls growing up without a natural father at home,
* are 2.5 times more likely to become pregnant (elsewhere I read that 51% of those pregnancies will result in abortions, but it seems that that statistic relates to the US).
3 comments:
I chose to comment on this entry because i find the topic, informations, facts and statistics very interesting. this is so because, I have always define a family as a married couple with children, and i have never heard of a common law marriage.
I agree with the writer that common law marriages can effect the children. this is so because, the children may not get proper teaching and attention as it is noted that the number of parents separating after a common law marriage is most as compared to married parents. children will also not be able to see the importance of bulding a family with married couples and will therefore take family building for granted.
However, on the other hand, children with parents having a common-law marriage will be able to learn more of life as their parents are more likely to separate hence they will experience and learn things not experienced by others and hence build a more matured mindset.
In conclusion, i feel that the effect of common-law marriage on children depends on the individual children themselves.
I find this article really interesting because this is a very really serious problem in this society. With this rising statistics, it will be a main concern to the world. This means that lesser children have both their biological parents living together as a family as they grow up, and hence, instilling a different mindset for the children: Being a single or common-law parent is not something bad and to them, it may even be their ideal home setting.
Do we really want our society to be like that? A single mother or father with a different spouse every once in a while?
Thus, i think common-law parents is not a good example for children and thus, i do not agree to it.
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