Cooling-Off Legislation/ Triple wed and double standards?? - 4/1/07

Mon Apr 2 00:47:24 EDT 2007

- COOLING-OFF LEGISLATION INTRODUCED IN ALABAMA
- WHAT WOULD YOU CALL AN 80-YEAR MARRIAGE?
- DOUBLE STANDARD FOR THE TRIPLY WED
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- COOLING-OFF LEGISLATION INTRODUCED IN ALABAMA

> Montgomery Advertiser, April 1, 2007
> Letters
> Cooling-off period could save marriages
> 
> A CNN/Time poll showed 61 percent of people asked believed divorce should be
> more difficult to obtain when minor children are involved. Sen. Hank Erwin has
> just introduced a bill (SB 289) that would require a one-year waiting or
> cooling-off period for people seeking a divorce if they have minor children.
> 
> Louisiana recently did just that by requiring a one-year waiting period and
> separation if children are involved. Amazingly, this measure was lead by Sen.
> Bob Kostelka who is a retired judge.
> 
> Kostelka stated, "'Divorces were often granted before the couple had worked
> out issues of child custody and support. That removed the option of
> reconciliation, because they would be divorced before they had settled
> important issues, that might have prompted the couple to reconcile.'"
> 
> The eight states with the highest divorce rates (Alabama having the sixth
> highest) have the shortest waiting period (Alabama's waiting period is 30
> days). The eight states with the lowest divorce rates had the longest waiting
> period.
> 
> Social science has determined that children of divorce are at much higher risk
> of social ills such as dropping out of school, juvenile delinquency, teen
> pregnancy, substance abuse and teen suicide.
> 
> All children need a loving, caring and intact family, and parents should have
> every option available to save a troubled marriage for their children's sake.
> A waiting period or cooling-off period may very well lead to more
> reconciliation and less divorce.
> 
> The law should encourage marriage, not divorce.
> Alan Rusmisel
> Birmingham

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- WHAT WOULD YOU CALL AN 80-YEAR MARRIAGE?

As people live longer, we should see more 80th wedding celebrations but
what's interesting about this one are the AOL survey results that accompany
the article:  

> What would you call an 80-year marriage?
> A blessing
> 93%
> A curse
> 7%
> Total Votes: 13,631

Couple Celebrate 80th Wedding Anniversary
AP
March 30, 2007

LUBEC, Maine (March 29) - Kathleen Tarbell "fell head over my stomach" for
her husband Waldo when they met at a dance. They married in 1927, during
Calvin Coolidge's presidency and are celebrating their 80th wedding
anniversary this weekend.

Waldo is 101 and Kathleen will turn 100 in June. The anniversary party will
be Saturday afternoon at Oceanview Nursing Home, where the couple shares a
large room.

Maine's Office of Vital Records could not immediately determine if the
Tarbells' marriage is the longest in the state. The 2007 Guinness Book of
World Records lists a Rhode Island couple wed for 83 years as having the
longest marriage among living people.

Kathleen, a native of Pembroke, moved to Waldo's hometown of Meddybemps
after they married. Two years later, they moved to Pembroke, where their two
children, Helen Brown and Elliot Tarbell, were born.

Waldo and Kathleen lived in their home in Pembroke until a few weeks ago.

"I had to go to the hospital to have some X-rays taken. My back was killing
me," Kathleen told the Bangor Daily News. After she was hospitalized, Waldo
was moved to the nursing home and she later joined him.

For 37 years, Waldo worked for Maine Central Railroad, at a starting wage of
37 cents an hour. After their children were raised, Kathleen worked for 32
years as a "herring choker and wrapper" at sardine factories.

"Sometimes it'd be 10 o'clock at night before we'd get done. We'd go into
work at eight in the morning. By the time we got home and got turned over in
bed it was time to get up again," she recalled.

Kathleen has been a Democrat  her entire adult life. Waldo, originally a
Republican , turned Democrat. "She converted me," he said.

They remain up to speed on current events. Kathleen reads the newspaper
every day, and she thinks the war in Iraq  is "scandalous."

"Somebody ought to take Bush and wring his neck, and I might be the one to
do it," she said with a sparkle in her eye.

##########################
- DOUBLE STANDARD FOR THE TRIPLY WED

Diane! 
It's almost midnight and you haven't sent the New York Times article on
changing perspectives on candidates divorces. I hope you will. I think this
whole discussion is very interesting.  I also want to make a point that I
hope you are willing to share with the newslist.  The article identifies
TRENDS. First that ³the stigma of divorce is lower than in the past, even
the stigma of a second divorce². Second, that there is harsher judgment
against women than men who marry "three times or more". BUT the point I want
to make is that the NY Times identifies these trends based on the opinions
of two "divorce experts" and then fails to mention that the experts have
been married numerous times. Constance Arons has been divorced twice though
several years ago she said she is no longer going to get married, just have
a partner. That is not an option open to someone like mayor Giuliani. (We
might be less judgmental about divorce but I don't think we'd elect a
cohabiting president.)  I also know someone that knows professor Cherlin and
he's on his second or third marriage like so many of the marriage and
divorce experts.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if the
topic is about social values about divorce I think it would be very helpful
to also identify the experts' experiences. As I read it I also wondered how
many times the reporter might have been divorced. Reporters often give this
kind of information.  Please do not identify me but if you use this I wonder
if you could say if you agree that a good journalist should ask these
questions. It seems to me that if there is a double standard it is for the
EXPERTS. Why can we ask them about their academic research but not about
their "life research"?  I think it would be a helpful if journalists asked
these questions not just of the candidates but of the experts. I also wish
we could ask the experts at Smart Marriages to be open about their marital
experiences.  Some of them, like Pat Love, are very open which is very
helpful. I wish you had a bio for each presenter that included this
information.  It seems as if it would be an obvious thing to ask someone
when they are applying to present at a MARRIAGE conference. Maybe you could
also ask people writing on this newslist to include that information. I
wonder about a lot of the comments. I am single. Never married.  - Anonymous
Please!

Hmmmmmm.... You make interesting points. One thing for sure, the times are
changing. Candidate and Mrs Guiliani were on 20/20 Fri night basically
discussing their love affair - how challenging it was for them when they
fell in love at first sight and he was inconveniently still married. Barbara
Walters acted as though they were talking about the weather. THAT
was some kind of cultural marker. Felt like we were in France. (Ooops, now
my bias is showing. Which I've been accused of all day because I sent out an
article last week where someone wrote an article in the Orlando Sun that
apparently was in favor
of John Edwards - I didn't even notice.  I was focused on the "martial
discussion". Oh well....probably lots more of that to come.) I also know
that some reporters DO ask these questions of experts but that they'd have
to ask a lot of questions to get to the bottom of what forms our bias - it's
not just our own histories of marriage and divorce and remarriage and
redivorce, but our parents' and siblings and children and neighbors - and
the quality of the marriages and divorces and stepchildren and our
upbringing and our culture and on and on.  And, I know I've seen news
articles in which Ahrons HAS discussed her divorces so it probably depends
more on the reporter than the expert's level of transparency.  As for
conference presenters my impression is that so many of them are very open
and, I agree, it always makes things "seem" more complete if an expert
shares their life experience - at the conference or in the media - though,
really, we never ever have the whole story. Let's see if the list has any
light to shed. I'm too tired to think about it anymore tonight but do
appreciate your points.  - diane

A Double Standard for the Triply Wed
New York Times 
By MIREYA NAVARRO
April 1, 2007

WHEN Judith Giuliani recently revealed that she had been married not twice
but three times, her disclosure caused a stir. In all the public accounts
about her relationship with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor,
why had it never come out that she had an earlier, four-year marriage before
she wed Bruce Nathan, long assumed to be her first husband?

Asked in an interview with Barbara Walters on ³20/20² that was broadcast
Friday whether she had deliberately hidden the first marriage ³because it
might look bad that you had now three husbands,² Mrs. Giuliani said Mr.
Giuliani, now a Republican presidential candidate, always knew. But she
acknowledged that his run for national office required her to go public.

³And when I was asked, we discussed it,² she said. ³That was my decision.²

Mrs. Giuliani, who married Mr. Giuliani in 2003, didn¹t say why she never
bothered to correct a false impression, but women who have had multiple
divorces say it is not always in their best interest to acknowledge previous
marriages. Those who have said ³I do² three times or more say they sometimes
feel self-conscious about being deemed incapable of keeping relationships or
lacking in values, and that women are judged more harshly than men.

But divorce experts say the stigma of serial marriages and divorces is on
the wane. It is too early to tell how the idea of a thrice-married first
lady may turn off conservative voters, but high divorce rates and longer
life spans are making third marriages more common and socially acceptable,
sociologists, family therapists and divorce lawyers say.

³The stigma of divorce is lower than in the past, even the stigma of a
second divorce,² said Andrew Cherlin, a professor of public policy at Johns
Hopkins University who specializes in marriage and divorce trends.
³Researchers used to think that people in third marriages were very
different ‹ not as good at keeping a marriage together by temperament or
taste.²

³But these days, with so much more divorce, third marriers aren¹t
necessarily so different.²

There is little information on people who marry three or more times because
the demographic is relatively small. Census surveys show that only 3 percent
of men and women marry three times or more, compared with 13 percent of men
and 14 percent of women who marry twice.

But third marriages are, by logic, more common among older Americans, and
when broken down by age the census figures show a significantly higher
incidence of marriage for certain groups. Eight percent of men and 6 percent
of women in their 50s had married three or more times, 2001 figures show,
and so had 7 percent of men and 6 percent of women in their 60s.

That¹s likely to rise as people who grew up in the 1970s, when divorce
became more commonplace, reach midlife, Dr. Cherlin said.

Multiple marriages used to be synonymous with movie stars or the very
wealthy, and today plenty of celebrities, from Tom Cruise to Jennifer Lopez
to Donald Trump, keep up with tradition. But even declared and potential
presidential candidates today, like Mr. Giuliani, John McCain and Newt
Gingrich, don¹t see previous divorces as a liability that would prevent them
from running for office.

Although third unions are losing shock value, some of the multiple married
say they are still fearful of negative attitudes. You can always blame the
first divorce on the ex, some experts noted, but by the second and third
breakup it gets harder to point fingers.

³Something must be wrong with you,² Constance Ahrons, a family therapist in
San Diego who researches and writes books on divorce and remarriage, said of
an attitude still seen today. ³We haven¹t gotten over that for second and
third marriages.²

For her third wedding, Donna Leeds surrounded herself with 100 friends,
relatives and clients and had the big celebration she had missed out on in
her first two marriages.

The third time was not the charm, however, and six years later Ms. Leeds
ended up divorced, again. ³I stayed with him for six years because I was
embarrassed of having been married three times and not making it work,² she
said.

But Ms. Leeds, 50, who owns a marketing and public relations firm in Long
Beach, Calif., says she has not soured on marriage yet. ³I¹m not going to
give the power to three mistakes,² she said. ³The right person would get a
whole brand-new shot.²

Still, Ms. Leeds, who is single, said that when a man asks how many times
she¹s been married on a first date, she says two, not three. ³I do feel
self-conscious.²

And she has heard the jokes. At a party once, guests were comparing the
length of their marriages and one of them noted, ³If you add up all the time
Donna has been married, she¹s been married the longest.²

Ms. Leeds was not amused. ³It was something that didn¹t need to be said,²
she said.

Sylvia Kendrick said she used to be so embarrassed about her first marriage,
at 18, that she swore her two subsequent husbands to secrecy and didn¹t tell
her children about it until they were teenagers. ³I thought they¹d think
less of me,² she said.

Part of her shame was the double standard she said divorced women have
experienced. In fact, some divorce lawyers said third wives have fared worse
than first wives in divorce settlements in the past, especially if the woman
herself has had previous marriages, because it was assumed that a third
marriage was worth less than the first.

³It¹s O.K. if the man goes out and gets married three or four times,² Ms.
Kendrick said. ³For the woman, it almost makes her look like she¹s sleeping
around.²

But by the time she divorced a third time five years ago, Ms. Kendrick, now
71, an interior designer in Newport Beach, Calif., no longer cared to hide
her past.

³I just became more comfortable with it,² she said. ³Fifteen years ago
people were going, ŒOh, my gosh!¹ Now people don¹t even bat an eye.²

There are many reasons some people persist in marrying despite previous
unsuccessful unions, even at a time when more and more couples are opting
for cohabitation, experts say. Having children, or providing existing ones
the security of a legal bond, is a major one. Another is the bias against
the informality of just living together when you¹re old enough to be
grandparents.

But romance also plays a major role. ³I felt ŒO.K., this is really my soul
mate,¹ ² Ms. Kendrick said of her third husband, with whom she lasted 20
years. ³He was in the beginning, and then he just wasn¹t.²

Third marriages can work out better, or not. There are no recent data on
whether these marriages are more or less successful than previous ones, Dr.
Cherlin said. (Some studies suggest that 40 to 50 percent of first marriages
end in divorce and that even a higher proportion of second marriages do.)

Lessons learned, more realistic expectations, maturity, financial security
and life circumstances can all combine to give a third marriage a good shot,
some divorcées said.

But some divorce lawyers are skeptical. Gaetano Ferro, president of the
American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, said he has clients who have
divorced three and four times because they are attracted to the same
personality again and again.

³I don¹t think people learn from their mistakes, or that you pick a better
spouse for the second or third time,² Mr. Ferro said.

Ms. Kendrick, who has four children and seven grandchildren, said she¹s done
with vows. She¹s financially secure, she works flexible hours and she has
found a support group in WomanSage, a national organization for women at
midlife.

³I have a big circle of friends who are all single,² she said. ³I¹m very
content.²

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/fashion/01Marriage.html?_r=1&ref=style&ore
f=slogin

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