Marriage Survey – What is the Purpose of Marriage – paper survey and website survey 2003-2006
Introduction
The Project’s goal was to examine reasons for the high divorce rate looking to discover some new information that had not been considered before.
Over a three year eriod, we interviewed over 260 married couples who attended workshops and counseling sessions and responded to our website questionnaire regarding the reasons they got married. These couples ranged from being engaged to having been married up to 15 years, they were in the middle class income categories, they worked in both the professions and blue collar jobs, and they were within the 25 to 40 year age range. We analyzed results and determined that there were 7 main reasons people gave for why they marry.
Method
Respondents were asked to make a list of the most important reasons they believe they got married. Then they were asked to justify those reasons and prioritize them. By analyzing the 260 responses we were able to create a single unified list which follows:
Results
7 Main Reasons People Marry –
1. Companionship and sex
2. Having children
3. Having a home
4. Because friends are
5. To have a sense of security
6. Family expectation
7. Fear of growing old alone
When asked, the overwhelming majority of married couples (90 plus percent) stated that they initially experienced getting from their marriage what they originally expected.
Discussion
We concluded that If we define satisfaction as ‘getting what one expects’, we can unequivocally state that there should be a high satisfaction rate. Therefore, based on the results that individuals attained what they expected from marriage, which is equivalent to being satisfied – the divorce rate should be much lower than it presently is.
Most people in this survey got married to someone whose company they enjoyed, they wound up having a family, a home, available sex, and a sense of security, etc . In other words all the things they believed were the reasons they wanted to get married occurred. If this sample is reflective of the general population then why do 50% of marriages fail, or equally sad, so many persist in an unhappy state?
At The Human Development Company we believe that there is another reason people get married – more central to personal happiness than the 7 reasons people believe they marry for, and therefore more important to a successful marriage. Unfortunately it is not common knowledge. Our parents, family, friends' parents, never sat down and explained that marriage holds a promise beyond the obvious.
We often enter into marriage thinking that it is going to be the answer to all the personal problems and issues we faced prior. We already placed most of those issues into the ‘not-to-be-opened till after death’ file of our memory. This is where we keep painful experiences from childhood, teenage years and young adulthood. In this file we hold messages about our intelligence, capability, attractiveness, sexuality and our very existence.
We hope that getting married to a wonderful person will put the final nail into the coffin of those bad memories. What we don’t realize is that human being attempts to reach equilibrium, homeostasis, and peace within.
During dating we do our best to forget about bad events and experiences, negative feelings and thoughts about ourselves, relationships and the opposite sex. In relationships, especially marriage, there is a natural urge to begin the healing process. We hope, subconsciously, that this is a safe place to bring the pain to light, while consciously we ignore the need, often blaming our partner for our own inability or fear to share painful truths. Often we don’t even have enough clarity about past events to be able to share with them our pain in a meaningful, coherent way.
We further theorized that one way to explain the high divorce rate, in view of what the satisfaction rate should be but isn’t, is that there is yet another component of marriage that people are expecting to get, which they are not aware of. This component is generally not brought into consciousness until much later in the marriage when one or both partners realize their needs have not been met. This component must be vital enough to cause the breakup of the marriage even though the conscious reasons given for marriage were satisfied. We hypothesize the reasons as being – 1. Couples assume that marriage automatically brings with it unconditional love – which they realize soon enough is not the case. This causes major disappointment, lots of blame, lots of pain, 2. Couples enter marriage in pain from childhood and adult experiences – and believe that the marriage itself heals – they will be able to put it all behind them. Only to find out that the marriage exacerbates the pain.
Our theory for successful marriage is – that the need individuals have but are not aware of – is not the 7 things people expect, but the opportunity to help each other heal and grow – which is the one variable not given any attention to in a marriage – and our belief is that the lack of opportunity to find healing in the marriage causes the high divorce rate.
