Increased youth crime rate is caused largely by absent fathers .
as a result of divorce made too easy. Consider this chilling forecast. .
When we pass the year 2000, we will see two groups of working age .
adults emerging. One group will have received psychological, social, .
economic, educational and moral benefits and the other group will have .
been denied them all. The first group will have grown up with a father .
present in the house and the second group will have not had a father .
present. The groups will be roughly equal in size. In order to be .
divorced in my parent's era of the fifties, one mate had to be proven.
adulterous. Legally, one party was deemed guilty and one was innocent. .
That finding affected each party financially and socially enough so .
that most couples tried hard not to divorce. In Canada the rate of .
divorce in 1951 was one out of twenty couples. In the late sixties, .
the "sexual revolution" began and couples rebelled against the .
constraints of marriage. Movie makers and journalists became rich .
extolling the virtues of free love and liberation.
The addition of more grounds for divorce and the elimination .
of the need to appear in court made it easier for couples to split.
Now there are "no fault" divorces which further decrease the stigma. .
By 1987 one out of two couples divorced. Since then, the annual .
divorce rate has dipped slightly. The stigma is almost gone. Books are .
written about doing your own divorce. One can obtain a low budget .
quickie divorce by phone or fax to the Dominican Republic in about .
three days. There are "divorce parties". Even the Royal Family .
discusses its divorce dilemmas on t.v.
The divorce picture is not all rosy. According to sociologist .
Lenore Weitzman, divorced women get by on about 64% of the income they .
had during marriage. For their children, this translates into less .
money for school activities, clothes, opportunities for traveling and .