Civil Marriage Gap/ eHarmony/ Broken Hearts - 8/06

[Smartmarriages]

- OUR BUCKETS GOT A HOLE IN IT: PLUGGING THE CIVIL MARRIAGE GAP
- EHARMONY.COM
- MARRIAGE PARTNERSHIP MAGAZINE
- DIVORCED WOMEN 'MORE LIKELY TO SUFFER HEART DISEASE'

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- OUR BUCKETS GOT A HOLE IN IT: PLUGGING THE CIVIL MARRIAGE GAP

> Hello Diane:
> The Smart Marriage Conference was great.
>  
> New news. Beginning August 21, Teresa Rankin will become the Executive
> Director of First Things First of Gaston County, Inc. She leaves the job of
> Sr. Vice President at the Gaston Chamber of Commerce to work with us. This is
> huge! She has already signed on as one of your readers.
>  
> Now for my request.
>  
> Can you ask your readers if they can tell me about any pre marriage training
> offered to couples that will be married by magistrates?  Possibly some states
> or counties have laws that require those to be married by magistrates to have
> some marriage education.
>  
> Recently, I did a small but meaningful piece of research. I found that during
> the past three years 31.8% of all marriages in Gaston County were performed by
> magistrates. This, to me, is quite alarming. These couples get married,
> probably in very short notice, with no pre marriage training. I strongly
> suspect they are very large contributors to the 66% divorce rate here.
>  
> Any input from you or your readers would be most appreciated. If I can learn
> what works in other communities making it work here would become much easier.
>  
> William Seabrook 
> Gastonia, NC 
> 704-865-8460
> mrsea9332 at aol.com

You are correct.  It's said that, on average, 25% of marriages in America
take place "down at the courthouse" and that these marriages are at higher
risk due to several factors including poverty, lower-education, lack of
faith community support, and more are remarriages with children, and/or in a
hurry or "impulse" weddings.  To make matters worse, this the most
underserved group - they do not receive premarital education or preparation.

And, the figures may be higher.  Here is a clip from the listserv archive
from a 2003 USA Today article:

> There's no national data on how many U.S. marriages are performed by clergy
> vs. a civil authority such as a notary, judge or justice of the peace. But
> in the 18 states that have tracked data for any significant period of time
> since 1980:
> 
> - 14 showed a growing or essentially steady rate of civil marriages - more
> than 40% of marriages in 2001. That's up from about 30% in 1980.
 
No state requires premarital education for these civil marriages just as no
state REQUIRES premarital education for any marriages. In the handful of
states (FL, MN, TN, OK, MD) that "offer incentives" for premarital education
(marriage license discounts and reduced wait for license), the incentives
apply across the board to those that marry in a faith or civil ceremony.

However, there are two exemplary programs, both in Michigan, that tackle
this problem.  I'll post this to the list and invite others working on
secular marriage preparation to write in.  Let's also hope there are a bunch
that are applying for the demonstration grants that are addressing this one.

Adrian Michigan: Judge Jim Sheridan very early on in 1997, invited all those
that performed civil marriages in his county to sign a Community Marriage
Policy (CMP).  He realized that the conventional McManus CMPs that organize
clergy in a community left out the civil celebrants and the most challenged
couples.  This effort landed Sheridan on Oprah, by the way.  I am not aware
of others that have followed his lead. I'd love to hear from you if you've
done so.   

Grand Rapids, Michigan: Mark Eastburg, director of Healthy Marriages Grand
Rapids, points out that if we we continue to focus our efforts only church
weddings, we're not going to change marriage success rates and we'll end up
looking like we don't know what we're talking about.  Mark presented his
model for preparing couples that marry in civil ceremonies at Smart
Marriages and includes guidelines for implementing and avoiding pitfalls. He
was part of a keynote panel, but also did a full workshops on this model. I
strongly encourage anyone working in a CHMI to get the workshop recording
and to get busy closing this gap in your community.

to order, call 800-241-7785:
> 754-317
> Strengthening Courthouse Weddings
> Mark Eastburg, PhD
> The 25% of couples who marry in civil ceremonies fall through the cracks
> and miss out on marriage preparation. This program identified their special
> needs and designed a program that works in collaboration with the courts to
> fill this void.  

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- EHARMONY.COM

> Just saw in Marriage Partnership Magazine that eHarmony.com has a new
> service "designed to help married couples experience stronger, happier
> marriages"  Has anyone looked into it?  What's your opinion?
> Veronica Wildanger
> San Jose, CA

Yes, we've announced this new service on the listserv in Feb with a USA
Today article. See:
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/2006-February/002924.html

> "We call it a marriage wellness service," said company founder and pitchman
> Neil Clark Warren, 71, whose ebullient manner and upbeat commercials have
> been parodied by Jay Leno and on "Saturday Night Live."
> 
> Couples willing to put their trust in computerized relationship analysis
> start by filling out 310-item online questionnaires concerning
> communication, romance, sex and other topics. They then receive a
> computer-processed marriage profile that points out strengths and possible
> problem areas.
> 
> The fee: $75 per couple.
> 
The more cynical among us chalk it up as being in eHarmony's best interest
to do everything they can to make certain that the marriages that "match" on
that are successful - great for their advertising claims.  See the Wall St
Jrnl article on this challenge faced by all the internet "match sites":
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/2006-April/002982.html

Others say the new service is just another way to make more money by having
a product for the "already married". Whatever, it certainly can't hurt to
work at strengthening marriage and I see it as part of the "marriage
education" effort, though it's true I haven't checked it out. I'd be pleased
to hear from any that have tried it.  I had several posts today about the
eharmony matching service just as I do every time I mention it on the
listserv - one whose kid got married on the site and a few that didn't get
lucky so lucky.       - diane

################################
- MARRIAGE PARTNERSHIP MAGAZINE
Your email, like a dozen others today, points out that Focus on the Family
has its own marriage magazine, Marriage Partnership.  So we have Marriage
Magazine, Marriage Partnership, and Hitched.  I'll be there are more.  -
diane 

#################################
- DIVORCED WOMEN 'MORE LIKELY TO SUFFER HEART DISEASE'
LIZ HULL
Daily Mail (UK)
August 6, 2006

(This article is from the UK but reports on University of Texas research
reported in the American Journal of Marriage and the Family.  - diane)

Any woman who has been through the stress of a divorce will be in no doubt
of the heartache it can cause.

But now researchers have discovered that going through a marriage break-up
can literally lead to a broken heart.

They say women who divorce are 60 per cent more likely to develop heart
disease in later life than those who remain in a married relationship.

Even those who find new happiness and remarry are still likely to suffer ill
health as a consequence of their previous failed partnership, the experts
said.

Men, in contrast appear to be physically unaffected by divorce, with marital
loss having a negligible effect on their chances of developing heart
problems.

Researchers believe that the emotional stress of a marriage breakdown,
coupled with the subsequent social and economic changes, such as moving home
and a reduction in income, trigger physical and mental problems in women.

These, they say, can put them at higher risk of suffering cardiovascular
disease.

Women are also more content in themselves if in a family environment,
whereas job and career prospects are more important to a man's self
satisfaction, the researchers said.

'Our results reveal that women with a marital loss have a higher risk of
disease in late-midlife compared to continuously married women, whereas
marital loss is not associated with men's risk,' a spokesman for the
University of Texas, who carried out the research, said.

'Women tend to value themselves more in terms of family
relationships...whereas men value themselves primarily in terms of their
occupation.'

Academics interviewed around 10,000 middle-aged men and women every two
years for a decade as part of a wider health and lifestyle survey.

They discovered that over the 10-year period more than a 10th of respondents
- 1,030 people - developed cardiovascular disease.

The findings, published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, showed
that 11.6 per cent of divorced women and 10.7 per cent of remarried women
had heart disease, compared to 8.7 per cent of continuously married women.
Risk of developing cardiovascular problems also increased with age.

At 51, 10.9 per cent of divorcees and 9.8 per cent of remarried women had
heart disease, compared to 7.3 per cent of women who remained married.

Nine years later, by the age of 60, 33 per cent of divorced women and 31 per
cent of remarried women had cardiovascular problems, compared to just 22 per
cent of those who were married and had not suffered a break-up.

Divorce rates have quadrupled in Britain since 1970 with around one in four
marriages now breaking down.

About half of marriages of twenty-somethings end in divorce with the highest
rate being among 25 to 39-year-olds, according to the Office for National
Statistics.

Earlier this week Beverly Charman won Britain's biggest contested divorce
settlement after a judge ordered her insurance broker husband to pay her
£48million following their separation.

The study will come as a further blow to thousands of women, such as Heather
Mills, currently going through stressful separations form their partners.

Earlier this week Miss Mills revealed she had felt 'abandoned' following the
breakdown of her relationship with ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. She said:
'It's like a physical pain. It just goes on and on.'


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