Divorce Big Data Exposed: Is Marriage Really Heading Toward Extinction?
Source | Mr. Slash
ID：isslash
1
Recently, the Ministry of Civil Affairs released a set of marriage data. Here is a brief summary:
The marriage registration rate has declined for 4 consecutive years, dropping by 7% year-on-year in 2017!
Meanwhile, the divorce registration rate has risen for 15 consecutive years, climbing to 3.2‰ in 2017!
The trend of late marriage is obvious, with the average marriage age in Jiangsu already at 34.
In addition, in contrast to the increasingly serious aging of the population, the birth rate keeps declining.
Hidden within this is one reassuring piece of information:When it comes to marriage, Chinese women have begun to awaken!
They are mentally independent, refusing to be their parents' puppets in life; they are financially independent, unable to endure compromising themselves in marriage; they are firm at heart, and their own wombs are not controlled by others.
So when facing a low-quality marriage, they will decisively choose to return to being single.
When facing growing age and parental pressure to marry, girls still insist on marrying for love.
2
Indeed, love is the foundation of marriage, and what many people do not know is that a low-quality marriage is worse than high-quality singlehood.
My little aunt discovered more than ten years ago that her husband was cheating. She was so furious that she ran to her uncle-in-law's workplace and made a scene. He missed his chance at promotion and has been depressed and unsuccessful ever since.
Although the two did not separate, the rift between husband and wife deepened day by day with the passage of time. At first they quarreled and smashed furniture, and later the two barely communicated at all.
They slept in separate rooms and did not eat at the same table.
Last year, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer. The doctor said this was inseparable from her long-term accumulated resentment.
After the surgery, the doctor comforted my aunt, saying that bad emotions amplify physical pain, so she must remain optimistic and cheerful.
At that moment, my aunt covered her sunken chest with both hands and suddenly burst into loud crying. The depression and hatred suppressed for years seemed to find an outlet, and she nearly cried herself unconscious.
After my aunt recovered and left the hospital, the first thing she did was go through the divorce procedures with my uncle-in-law.
Later I visited her at home. Her face was calm, she had gained a lot of weight, and even the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes had been smoothed away.
My aunt said that after divorcing, she especially regretted not divorcing earlier. The two had grown to detest each other, yet she had stubbornly persisted for more than ten years. She had been so foolish.
It turns out that resenting one person exhausts all of one's own feelings, and one can see nothing else at all. Now, the sky looks blue and even the air seems fresh.
The resentment and bad emotions in a garbage marriage make people live in gloom, and health is threatened as well.
In Mr. Carder's mailbox, it is written:
I thought the spring breeze for ten miles was not as good as you, but when the snow fell thick and I walked alone in silence, gathering the courage to go on by myself, I discovered that the spring breeze, summer moon, autumn frost, and winter snow of that time were all more beautiful than you.
As a netizen joked: I thought you could shelter me from wind and rain, but unexpectedly all the wind and rain came from you.
3
A low-quality marriage hides the mutual compromise of two people, and the ones hurt most are often the children.
The author Yuexiake once wrote the story of Miss Tang:
Miss Tang's parents often quarreled, and whenever they quarreled they would smash things.
Cups, wine bottles, radios, pots, bowls, ladles, basins, televisions... Her parents competed in smashing them. After a thunderous crash, her parents' curses poured down like a torrential rain, mixed with all kinds of shattering sounds, surging in from all sides.In the innocent world of a child, everything instantly fell apart.
The quarrels her parents had back then were deeply buried in her soul. For more than twenty years, she escaped her original family, studied, and healed herself, always trying to wash away those sorrowful memories that had seeped into her bones.
Yet after desperately escaping "home," her terror of "home" had penetrated deep into her bones. She was afraid of forming a family, and she was still afraid of "abrupt" sounds.
Her younger brother's situation was even worse. He was silent and withdrawn, eccentric in personality, dropped out of school, often disappeared, and found it hard to adjust himself, frequently falling into confusion and unable to extricate himself.
The low-pressure environment of a garbage marriage is like a pair of ruthless, invisible hands. It not only makes husband and wife lose the ability to perceive happiness, but also grips the children by the throat, suffocating and oppressive.
No one knows when it began, but people no longer believe in "better to tear down ten temples than destroy one marriage." Instead, they comfort women stuck in the mud: Just divorce. Children are the most sensitive. If husband and wife are like this, the children will not be happy either.
Women gradually understand:A makeshift marriage hurts children more than divorce.
Marriage is like a tree. A low-quality marriage will not produce beautiful flowers, only bitter fruit.
4
Looking back on his life, Mark Twain wrote these words:
Time flies, life is short. Do not waste time on quarrels, apologies, sorrow, and blame. Use time to love, even if only for an instant, and do not let it down.
Only high-quality singlehood can lead to better love.
"Miss J with No Story" once wrote about the reason her parents divorced: simply because her father flicked cigarette ash into the orchid pot her mother kept.
Her mother said to her with tears in her eyes: I hope you can understand Mom. A lifetime is too long.
When her mother met the right person, the two turned ordinary days into poetry.
He would change the flowerpots for her mother's plants and flowers to beautiful ones, match the newly bought light green checkered tablecloth with new plates and bowls and chopsticks, and choose a pair of creamy white square-heeled leather shoes for her red dress.
He would take the mother and daughter for walks in nature when the seasons changed, to look at the alternation of time...
Miss J finally understood her mother. She saw what a beautiful marriage looked like, and she also saw what a happy woman looked like.
The romance of growing old together is not making do until old age, but having someone accompany you with care through wind and frost, rain and snow, thousands of mountains and ravines, and still be willing to hold your hand, quietly watch time flow by, and fear not a head full of gray hair.
5
The ageless goddess Yu Feihong said on "Round Table" that she is not an advocate of celibacy or unmarried life, and she believes that women being single is not a social problem.
The currently rising divorce rate is precisely a silent rebellion by most women who want a truly love-based marriage against worldly prejudice.
In one sentence, she pointed out the crux of low-quality marriage:The loneliness of two people is sadder than the solitude of one.
Do not marry for the sake of age, a house, or face. When you are going to marry, it must be because you have met a good person worthy of entrusting your life to, and you can shoulder responsibilities together, manage the marriage with care, face storms together, and grow hand in hand.
Life is hard, both long and short. Do not throw yourself into a garbage marriage and spend your whole life in bitterness and grievance.
Whether married or single, we should all live nobly and beautifully, not wasting time, not wasting this life.
As Robin Williams said:
I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It is not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.
Author: Mr. Slash. This article is original by Mr. Slash. Please indicate the source when reposting: Mr. Slash (ID: isslash). Think like an actor, act like a thinker.
Image: janicesung
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