CB ilaine, I gave you too much credit, or not enough.
You asked: "if I decide I don't want to be married to John Doe, that doesn't make John Doe a bad man". Answer: no, but does it make John Doe a good husband?
If it marks him as being any better at anything, it marks him as a better ex-husband than a husband!!!
You also wrote: "if staying married is, ipso facto, evidence of a good marriage... " but forgot to twist things around in the right order: divorce is, ipso facto, evidence of a bad marriage! You are the one concluding without data, erroneously, that American men make better husbands. I am pointing out the opposite.
So, despite availing themselves of the better husbands (by choice, your hypotheses), american women somehow find themselves in a very high rate of bad marriages (by virtue of the high evidenced rate of bad marriages).
Your obvious counter-assertion is, of course, that if only women everywhere could avail themselves of the services and support that you and your ilk provide here in the USA, they too would be escaping the shackles of matrimonial horror at an even more alarming rate then the women in the US currently enjoy.
Conveniently impossible to validate. Convenient for us however, we don't have to enter the world of the hypothetical. We only need to look only within the confines of the USA and examine marriage and divorce stats. Provided courtesy of the US Census bureau.
Let's start with Asian men. Latest data shows 66.6% of Asian men have been married at least once and 54.4% of Asian men have only been married once and are still married. So 12.2% of Asian men have become ex-husbands at least once. Coining a term, definitionally, the "ex-husband rate" of Asian men is 18.8% (12.2% ex husbands at least once/66.6 married at least once).
Now White, non-hispanic men. The same percentages are 72.6%ever married, 45.1% once, still married, leaving 27.5% ex-husbands. Thus, white-non-hispanic ex-husband rate is 38%, more than DOUBLE the rate of Asians. Crash the Asian men aren't better husband theory.
Oh, maybe you are tempted to claim that it's because Asians are economically disadvantaged relative to whites, so despite having you and your ilk available, they are trapped by disadvantageous economic forces. Sound good?
Let's check statistics for blacks. Ex husband rate of 45%, even higher than whites... crash goes the economic advantage theory. Ha Ha.
Hispanics? Those latino husbands you disparaged? 28% ex-husband rate.
So whites make better husbands than Asians? The data suggests otherwise.
Let's take this further using the same census data for women. 79.3% of White non-hispanic women are ever married, 42.1% once, still married. Skipping steps, we get an ex-wife rate of 47%.
Firstly, Jay was right: 50% of White american wives become ex-wives, give or take one-digit rounding. Secondly, American women make better ex-wives than American men make ex-husbands.
American men might be marrying non-american women for good reason!
But the really fun part is here:
Americans do have a high divorce rate, because we have the ability to get out of bad situations. Divorced people tend to remarry, and they remarry for love.
What do you think the data shows for second marriages?
79.3% of American white non-hispanic women marry at least once and of this 47% become ex-wives at least once.
19.3% of American white non-hispanic women are married two or more times and 10.6% are still in their second marriage (the one for love, presumably by choice etc. etc.)
If you care to calculate the ex-wife(again) rate, that's 45%.
Comparing "bad situation" rate for first and second marriages in the USA the data is:
race men women
1'st 2'nd 1'st 2'nd
White non hispanic 38% 37% 47% 45%
Asian 18% 30% 25% 31%
Hispanic 28% 31% 37% 40%
Black 45% 41% 57% 56%
What this data shows, generally speaking, is that for all ethnicities neither men nor women do particularly well the second time round. Furthermore, if the rate at which their other half doesn't leave 'em is any indication of spousal merit, Asian men top the list.
Women, if you want the odds in your favor, marry an Asian man who's never been married before. Men, if you want the odds in your favor, marry an Asian woman who's never been married before.
Sorry Ilaine, but the facts support Jay.
Divorce is an industry in the USA, and it is obviously conquering both experience and love. |
