The Anti-Divorce Movement: A Persuasion Paper

For the last two decades, divorce has become ever more prelivant in society. Studies conclude that less than one-third of all marriages end in divorce.   The effects of divorce can be very devastating, especially when children are involved.   Everyone who has ever listened to the news has heard the dismal statistics of adolescents coming from broken homes. The statistics showing the effects of a fatherless household includes:
• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S.D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless home
• 85% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Criminal Justice&Behavior, Vol 14, p.403-426, 1978.)
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (National Principals Association Reports on the State of High Schools.)
• 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Center for Disease Control)
• 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. Of Corrections 1992)(Schildt, 1994)
As these statistics show, growing up in a single-parent home can increase an behavioral problems in adolescents.   In an article titled, "Are single parent family a cause for social dysfunction?", Patrick Fagan and Stephanie Coontz answers bluntly “Yes. Broken families strongly correlated with a range of social pathologies.” Many people share this viewpoint across the country, including religious and political leaders.   Many religious and secular groups share the idea that divorce is bad for the family and bad for the country.   Politically, Conservatives and liberals alike have voiced similar opinions on the issue of divorce.   Hillary Clinton, a feminist and liberal, wrote a book called "It Takes a Village" that discusses her “ambivalence (ce) about no-fault divorce when children are involved.”   There is a growing grassroots effort among many different groups to try to...