The social reality of marriage is rapidly changing throughout Europe, as becomes clear in the following passages excerpted from: WHAT EUROPE THINKS. A Study of Western European Values by Sheena Ashford and Noel Timms, Dartmouth Publishing, Aldershot 1992, pages 50 - 55.
Marriage itself is changing.
In the past thirty years the incidence of divorce within the countries of the European Community has risen sharply and is continuing to rise, except in the Republic of Ireland where divorce is still illegal. Marriages are now increasingly ended voluntarily, by divorce rather than by death. Yet marriage itself remains popular even among divorcees, so that serial rather than one-stop monogamy is becoming the norm.
Changes in the economic environment are also associated with developments in family formation and structure.It is now the norm for women to have paid employment outside the home. With more women in the workplace, the widespread segregation which once characterised the work and family roles of men and women has to some extent given way to greater interchangeability and more freedom of choice.When men and women have independent access to economic resources, there is greater pressure to negotiate roles and less willingness to accept roles which are ascribed.
Despite the pressures for change to which the family is exposed, its durability is impressive.
For the majority of people, the nuclear family has retained its status as the major source of intimacy and of sexual relationships, and is still the predominant context for childrearing. Men and women may have become more equal, but within even dual career households, the primary preoccupation of men remains work while women continue to take responsibility for home and children.
Indeed, in certain areas traditional family values have been reaffirmed in recent years. Anxieties about the rising incidence of sexually-transmitted diseases, and in particular the spread of AIDS, have brought about a reappraisal of the merits of promiscuity and have led to a reassertion of the values of fidelity and stability in relationships.
Furthermore, as the proportion of elderly people in the population increases, so too does the pressure on the family unit to extend its caring role.
The family would seem to be still very much at the heart of life in Europe.
Almost all Europeans claim that the family has some importance in their lives, and for more than eight out of ten, family is very important. This sets family apart from friends, politics, religion, leisure, and even work all of which are much less likely to be considered very important.
In the most family-oriented countries such as Northern Ireland, Eire, and Great Britain, around nine out of ten people consider that family is very important, but even in the least family-oriented countries like West Germany two-thirds still rate family as very important.
Europeans, it would seem, are primarily concerned with the intimate and private aspects of life and are relatively indifferent to events which take place in the public domain. For most people, in all countries, the central focus of life is the family.
Religious culture has little bearing on the esteem in which the family is held. In countries like the Republic of Ireland and Italy where the majority of the population are practising Roman Catholics, family life is given the same importance and is found to be just as satisfying as it is in other countries with a Protestant tradition.
There is certainly no evidence to suggest that support for the insitution of marriage is declining anywhere in Western Europe.
In the first EVSSG Study carried out in 1981, respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed that marriage is an outdated institution. A full three-quarters rejected the view that marriage is outdated.
By 1990, when the question was asked again, the proportion who disagreed had risen to nearly four out of five.
Far from falling out of favour, marriage is more popular now than it was ten years previously.
Young people, however, are more ready to see marriage as outmoded than are older respondents but even in those age groups where the institution of marriage is most strongly rejected the vast majority - nearly 80% - remain supportive.
Support for marriage may be as strong as ever, but expectations of marriage seem to be changing.
What do people believe is required for marriage to be a success?
There can be little doubt that for most people, whatever their nationality, trust and intimacy are more important than anything else in a marriage.
What matters most of all to people is faithfulness: more than four out of five Europeans rate faithfulness as very important to the success of a marriage.
The other trust and intimacy features are also rated highly. When Europe is taken as a whole, mutual respect and appreciation are considered to be almost as important as faithfulness.
Next in importance comes understanding and tolerance whichare considered to be very important by just under four out of five Europeans.
The sexual relationship itself is less important than a partner's constancy. Two out of three (63%) Europeans say that a happy sexual relationship is very important, still a clear majority but fewer than consider faithfulness to be important.
Where one lives and how one lives are less important to people than having a relationship which fulfils the need for mutual trust and support. Compared to trust and intimacy factors, material circumstances are less often thought to be especially important foundations for a successful marriage.
People do not generally rate religion highly as a factor in a successful marriage.
More than two out of five Europeans (43%) think that having tastes and interests in common is very important in a marriage, but only one in five think that social background (20%) or shared religion (22%) are especially important.
Countries vary in the importance they attach to religion.
In Italy and Spain, a shared religion is more often rated as important than elsewhere in Continental Europe. Overall, though, the countries most likely to acknowledge the importance of shared religious outlook to the success of a marriage are the Republic of Ireland, where a third of our respondents (33%) rate religion very important, and Northern Ireland, where nearly four out of ten (31%) people do so.
Most Europeans still think that children have a very important part to play in making marriage a success.
As many as three out of five (60%) think that children are very important but this varies considerably from one country to the next. In West Germany, for example, fewer than half (44%) feel that children contribute to the success of a marriage, but in Spain nearly three-quarters (72%) feel that children are very important. Children are more often seen as a necessary part of marriage in countries where Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion; countries with a Protestant heritage are more likely to minimise their significance.
Europeans are ambivalent about single parenthood.
There is very strong support for the view that children need a home with both a mother and a father to grow up happily: close to nine out of every ten (87%) respondents overall agreed with this statement.
Yet there seems to be a tension between public perceptions of the needs of children and the needs of adults. More than a third (37%) of respondents are ready to support a womans decision to have a child as a single parent, a slight increase on the proportion who supported single parenthood in 1981.
At the same time, the proportion of Europeans who believe that a child needs two parents in order to grow up happily has increased from eight out of ten (80%) in 1981 to nearly nine out of ten (87%) in 1990.
There is much more support for the right of a woman to become a single parent among young people than among older Europeans. Yet even among the young there are signs of a conflict of values between those which favour individual freedom and those which focus on the welfare of children: despite the extensive support for single parenthood (endorsed by 48% of the 25-34 age group), the great majority (84% of the 25-34 age group) remain convinced that a two parent home is necessary to childrens' happiness.
Other related documents you might want to read:
Link to our partners: the International Academy for Marriage Spirituality. Their email address is intams@skynet.be.
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