Why Marriages Fail?

The marriage is considered to be the combination of two lives for passing the Life span with mutual interest. According to an other saying Husband and the wife are considered the wheels of vehicle if any one of them

faces problems; the other will likely suffer the same. There are two types of marriages prevalent in the world. The First one is Love marriage and the other one is arranged marriage. In western countries mostly the love marriages are preferred over the arranged marriages because they have open society norms. But in Eastern Countries mostly the marriages are arranged by the parents of the boys and girls. The nature and problems of the marriages vary from the type of society. There are some societies where the marriages are regarded good and lawful relationship between the Wife and husband and it last for long time. But in the west in some countries, there are several problems because both the wife and husband have to work and look after the children. There are usually rifts upon the family background of the either side, financial matters and other domestic problems which cause divorce or separation legally from the life partner.

Main reasons of failure:

The main reasons of failure are giving below. These are related with natural, human relationships in marriage.

1. It is observed that often couples fail to anticipate differences which result from diverse cultural backgrounds, differing family experiences, gender, and so on.

2. the Couples fall into the concept of a "fifty-fifty" relationship, meaning they honestly expect their spouses to meet them halfway on all aspects

3. The society has taught us that humankind is basically good. Therefore, often the couples fail to anticipate and assess their self-centered natures that demand their own way.

4. The married couples fail to cope with life's trials or hard times. When painful trials come into the marriage, instead of standing together through them, couples tend to blame each other or in other words think something is wrong with the spouse and the way they handle the pain and this leads to their separation .

5. Many people have got a fantasy view of love and life. They abruptly feel stuck with person who does not appear to loving and become deceived into the wrong belief that the next one will be better than the
 current...

6. It is also observed at large scale that many people lack a vital relationship with region background. It could be that they have never come to a specific point in time when they asked their deities into their lives as a result he has no impact on the marriage relationship.

7. The Marriages are often forced, in such condition the circumstances lead to divorce due misunderstanding between the Couple. They are married with the will of their parents. They do not appear too interested in them selves.

8. The women are very jealous with other women so they do not want their love divided in two parts; this is an other important cause of failure of marriages.

9. The heavy drunkards often beat their wives and inflict punishment which causes a serious reaction and the circumstances lead them to separation.

10. There is an other common failure of parenting is to not instill principles in children. They are merely programmed like read only memories. That is, they are told what to do in different situations instead of being given the moral, economic, or health principles involved. As a result, the children form their own principles from the statements from their parents, which seldom are the principles that the parents wanted to instill.

Measures to escape failures:

Now the question arise how to escape the failures of marriages. Well to sustain the successful marriages the following point will be useful

· Firstly the marriages should not forced or conditional which may cause initial displeasure which lea to divorce.

· The like-mindedness is an other asset to sustain a successful marriage.

· The marriages both either arranged or love marriages may considered as the most important relations between the couple and they should be cooperative to each other and forgive the small rifts otherwise they will occur as big problems and lead to divorce.

· Finally the Wife and Husband has sacred relations in all religions of the world , so they must care each other as their impact quarrels may not affect the Life and nature of their children after their birth.

· It is generally observed that divorce is the legal right separation of both husband and wife, but it may practice when there is solution otherwise divorced woman has no value in the society as compared

Husband who can marry any girl.

Conclusion: Finally the marriages are very sensitive relations so they have some critical nature of notion. All depends upon both the husband and the Wife to spend the life in such a way that they can live a happy life and establish an example for the people who follow this relation. They must take care of each other and know the interests of each other in order to properly understand the likes and dislikes of each other. Furthermore in joint families, they should be given freedom to interact each other as they need the support of one other to pas the long span of age.

Communal livivng

Some social groups have attempted to organize themselves and function without marriage. These include communes, religious orders, and special social or occupational categories such as warrior castes. In the United States, the best known of such groups are the Shakers, a religious community among whose central rules are celibacy and communal living without marriage. Although the group has lasted since the late 1700s, its numbers have now dwindled from a high of about 4,000 in some sixty communities in the mid-1800s to fewer than a dozen members in one community in 1991 (Foster 1991). Similarly, many communes founded in the 1960s either folded or instituted monogamous marriage. The two types of social groups that have survived without marriage are religious orders and caste or castelike groups such as the Hijras in India. However, all of these groups are institutionalized within a larger society and are able to attract new members from that society.

Marriage Definition

To this point, the institution of marriage has been discussed as if all marriages were the same—a living arrangement legally contracted by or for two people of the opposite sex. However, this description has been limited insofar as it describes monogamous marriage. There are other types of marriage, which include more than one husband or wife at the same time (plural marriage or polygamy), several husbands and wives (group marriage), or ones that are not contracted on the basis of the state's rules and regulations specified earlier (common-law marriage).
Monogamy is the only legal type of marriage permitted in the United States. It is illegal to have more than one spouse at a time (bigamy), and most citizens comply with this rule. There are a few exceptions, however. In some western states, members of some fundamentalist Mormon groups practiced polygamy until the late nineteenth century (Hardy 1992). While those who practice group marriage and those in homosexual unions may wish to call themselves married and hold rites or ceremonies to make a public statement that they are married, the states do not recognize such unions. In Vermont, however, homosexual couples can apply for a "civil union," through which they receive nearly all of the legal benefits and protections given to married heterosexual couples.
While having more than one spouse is illegal in the United States, polygyny (one husband with two or more wives at the same time) is the preferred form of marriage throughout most of the world. Seventy-five percent of the world's societies prefer this type of marriage (Saxton 1993). Preference, however, does not necessarily translate into practice, because the number of men and women of marriageable age in most cultures is about the same, meaning that there are rarely more than a few extra women available as second or third wives. Thus, even when polygyny is preferred, there are only a few men, mostly wealthy ones, who have more than one wife at a time (Broude 1994).

Group Marriages

Group marriage (when men and women living together consider themselves married to each other) is illegal, but there are examples of it throughout the history of the United States and in other societies as well. However, in no society is this type of marriage the primary form of marriage. It was practiced by members of the Oneida Company in the mid-1800s in Vermont and then in New York when the group was forced to move because of community disapproval. A study of more than 100 group marriages in the early 1970s showed that such arrangements do not last long: only 7 percent of the "multilateral marriages" studied lasted longer than five years (Constantine and Constantine 1973). Most of these groups consisted of two couples who lived together, sharing economic resources, services, and child care as well as sexual access. Communication and personality conflicts were the primary reasons for dissolving the group, and bonds between same-sex members of the group were the primary factor responsible for success.
In the United States, common-law marriage is recognized in fifteen states and the District of Columbia. These states are Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. If a heterosexual couple who are of legal age and legally competent to marry (e.g., they are not already married) make an agreement to live together as husband and wife and actually do cohabit, they are legally married. A ceremony is not necessary, nor is compliance with the other formal requirements governing marriage in their state (Knox and Schacht 1991). This practice stems from the tradition that marriage contracted between two adults was their own or their family's business. Historically in continental Europe and England (societies that are the source of much of U.S. law and custom), marriage needed neither civil nor religious sanction. However, the Catholic Church became more powerful during the Middle Ages and assumed control over marriage (Goody 1988). Even though private arrangements continued, these marriages were not recognized as valid by the church (Saxton 1993). In the United States, marriage became regulated by civil laws in the nineteenth century, but some "states took the position that private marriages were valid so long as they were not expressly forbidden by statute. Such unions were called common law" (Saxton 1993, p. 198). In all societies, a marriage is generally not recognized as such unless the couple is deemed married by the community. However, once a marriage is recognized by one state, it must be recognized by all other states (e.g., a common-law marriage officially recognized by Texas must be recognized in Oregon even though Oregon does not officially sanction common-law marriages).

What are Marital Rituals?

Rituals are social interactions that are repeated, coordinated, and significant. This is the classical, anthropological definition going back to van Gennep’s work in 1908. Rituals can be everyday interactions, or they could be once a year, but they’re repeated. They’re also coordinated. You have to know what is expected of you in a ritual; you can’t have a meal ritual together if you don’t know when to show up for it, and you can’t dance together if you don’t know what kind of dance you are going to do. You’re not going to have much of a sexual life if you don’t end up in the same space at the same time. Rituals are not only repeated and coordinated, they are significant. A ritual is something that has positive emotional meaning to both parties.
This matter of significance is what distinguishes a ritual from a routine. A marriage routine is something that you do over and over in a coordinated way, but that does not have much emotional meaning. You can have dinner together as a couple every night, while one of you watches television and the other reads the paper. This is probably a routine because it lacks emotional significance. Of course, one couple’s routine might be another’s ritual. I have a friend who is very busy, as is her husband (their kids are grown). She told me about the mundane activity she and her husband do every Saturday that helps her feel close to him: they do errands. For them, this is a ritual of connection. You see, if they did their shopping efficiently, they would divide up, right? Rituals are not efficient; they are about connection. So my friend and her husband do errands together and talk along the way. I bash TV all the time, but I know a couple who, when they watch a favorite TV show, sometimes take turns giving each other a shoulder rub, with one sitting on the floor and the other on the couch.
Almost anything can be turned into a ritual of connection, if the focus is on the relationship. Some couples check in with each other by phone a couple of times a day. It’s only a ritual, though, if both of them know it’s a connection time. If just one person likes to call and the other person says, "Yep, yep, busy, busy, I’ll talk to you later," this is not a ritual, because it is not coordinated--and it’s probably not emotionally significant either. In fact, the demand-withdrawal cycle ruins rituals; both people have to be into it.
I divide marriage rituals into rituals of connection, rituals of intimacy, and rituals of community. Examples of a connection rituals include good-byes in the morning, greetings in the evening, and going out for coffee and conversation. I talked to a woman who said she and her husband always say "I love you" when they part in the morning, because they never know that they will see each other again. Working in the garden together can be a connection ritual. I’ll have more to say later about greeting rituals.
Intimacy rituals include dates where you’re going out to have some special time together, patterns of sexual intimacy, and special occasions such as anniversaries or Valentine’s Day. By the way, I think anniversaries are the least intentionally celebrated ritual in the American family. You ask most people about their anniversaries, and they respond sheepishly that they don’t do much for it. Anniversaries they tend to occur on days like Tuesday, most of the rest of the world doesn’t know about it, and there are kid events to go to. But anniversaries are really the birthday of our marriage, and we tend to let them go without much ritual.
Community rituals are couple activities where the partners give and receive support in their larger world, such as joint involvement in a religious community, neighborhood activities, joint friendship activities, and joint community action. I have become aware recently through an initiative I have been working on, called Family Life 1st (FamilyLife1st.org), that faith communities tend to offer opportunities and committee involvement mainly for individuals, not for couples. Few couples seem to have a couple identity as members of their faith community. Why not have couples who co-chair activities, for example? Faith communities create rituals of community for couples only at the time of the wedding, then drop them, unless someone in the family plans a community rituals 25 or 50 years later. It’s shameful, really, how little the ritual life of most faith communities has touched the life trajectory of marriage beyond the launching stage.
Rituals have been an invisible and neglected area of marriage, even if our own field. We have tended to focus on communication skills and conflict skills, which of course are crucial, but my view is that often it’s the rituals of connection and intimacy and community that provide the foundation upon which we build when we try to engage conflict management skills. To switch metaphors, the rituals put the water in the well, the water we drawn on during times of conflict and struggle.

What is Intentional Marriage?

An intentional marriage is one where the partners are conscious, deliberate, and planful about maintaining and building a sense of connection over the years. My emphasis here is on rituals, but a lot else goes into being intentional about marriage: attending marriage education experiences, building a community of support for one’s marriage, setting boundaries with children. In some ways ours is a movement to promote being intentional about marriage, to promote mindful marriage. Because in this era, if we are not intentional, we will become an automatic pilot couple. What I mean is that the natural flow of marriage relationships in contemporary life, with our crammed schedules, endless tasks, kids to care for, and ever-present television and other media is towards less focus on the couple relationship over time, and therefore towards less connection, less spark, and less intimacy. This is not being dysfunctional, this is being normal.
I work in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is right near the Mississippi, the farthest north where big ships can navigate the river. I like to use Mississippi analogies when I talk to couples. Getting married, I say, is like getting into a canoe in the Mississippi River at St. Paul. If you don’t paddle you go south. Not that I have anything against the south, but if you don’t want to go there, you’ve got a problem. If you want to stay at St. Paul ? it’s a pretty powerful river ? you’ve got to paddle. And if you want to go north you have to have a plan. To grow closer over the years, you have to be mindful and intentional not only because of the pace and distractions of life, but also because of what research has shown is the loss of intensity that occurs from daily living over many months and years, from sleeping beside the same person every night and having sex 3.25 times a week in the first five years and then 2.5 in the next five years. (I never knew what those decimals meant in the studies. False starts, perhaps?)
Let’s see, where was I? I was saying that going on automatic pilot is not about being dysfunctional; it’s about focusing on other things. That’s even before we have kids. But after we have children, the current gets really swift. With new babies, our first priority is naturally the care of a creature that nature has programmed to get our attention. And our second priority is self-care. We tradeoff child care so that we can get some individual down time. We end up borrowing on our marriages, not just for a short time but for a long time. We borrow on each other’s good will and time and energy in order to do our job as parent and in order to have down time for self-care. We evolve good parent-child rituals, but we lose our marital rituals. People can be quite gifted at family rituals with the whole family, and quite dumbfounded about what they would do as a couple. Couples who courted through having long, romantic dinners are sometimes nervous about dining alone because they are not sure what they would say to for an hour or more. So they make sure they invite other people along for company.
And so, our marriages go on automatic pilot. During courtship the marriage is figural in our lives—front and center, if you will—and the rest of our lives are ground. When we get married, and particularly after we have children, this reverses: other things—the children, our work, our hobbies, our religious involvement—become figural and the marriage moves to the background and only gets our attention when there’s something wrong. The antidote to becoming an automatic pilot couple, I am saying, is to be an intentional couple who cultivates rituals over the years.