Divorce Attorneys

“The apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman is the chief and noblest purpose of marriage,” wrote John Milton. “Where loving [conversation] cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony"–dry, shrivelled, and dispensable. Aptness can strain cheerfulness: candid conversations between spouses can be very painful. Cheerfulness can strain aptness: blissful domestic ignorance can be very tempting. But aptness and cheerfulness properly belong together in a marriage, Milton tells us. Where they fail, the marriage fails.

An apt and cheerful conversation about marriage must be part of our dialogue today. For marriage is one of the great mediators of individuality and community, revelation and reason, tradition and modernity. Marriage is at once a harbor of the self and a harbinger of the community, a symbol of divine love and a structure of reasoned consent, an enduring ancient mystery and a constantly modern invention.

To be “apt,” our conversation cannot wax nostalgic about a prior golden age of marriage and the family, nor wax myopic about modern ideals of liberty, privacy, and autonomy. We cannot be blind to the patriarchy, paternalism, and plain prudishness of the past. Nor can we be blind to the massive social, psychological, and spiritual costs of the modern sexual revolution. To be apt, participants in the conversation on marriage must seek to understand both traditional morals and contemporary mores on their own terms and in their own context–without deprecating or privileging either form or norm. Wooden antiquarianism, a dogmatic indifference to the changing needs of marriages and families, is not apt. Chronological snobbery, a calculated disregard for the wisdom of the past, also is not apt.

To be “cheerful,” our conversation must proceed with the faith that the crisis of modern American marriage and family life can be overcome. Marriage and the family are in trouble today. Statistics tell the bald American story. From 1975 to 1998, roughly one-quarter of all pregnancies were aborted. One-third of all children were born to single mothers. One-half of all marriages ended in divorce. Three-quarters of all African-American children were raised without fathers. The number of “no-parent” households increased five-fold. Children from broken homes proved two to three times more likely to have behavioral and learning problems as teenagers than children from two-parent homes. More than two-thirds of juveniles and young adults convicted of major felonies from 1970 to 1995 came from single- or no-parent homes. So much is well known. It brings little cheer.