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Number of NZ couples getting married continues to fall
(www.1news.co.nz)
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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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I think this is a cool statistic. Marriages are falling due to changing attitudes (and possibly increased costs), but out of those who marry there are far fewer divorces (not just fewer due to fewer marriages, but the rate is lower).
Presumably this is because fewer people feel pressured into marriage so make more deliberate choices.
I'd be curious to see this split by religion (not sure if this data exists). Divorced people I know seem to have been pushed into marriage by their beliefs and I'd love to know if my small sample size is representative.
On the downside, there are now people who just have "partners" and when they "break-up" they don't say "I'm divorced" they just say "I'm single". Then they are dating again, even in their fifties, still looking for The One.
I don't see how having a long path of ex "partners" can be a replacement for marriage. Surely it's better to commit to one person, instead of multiple "partners"? Not that anything is guaranteed, of course.
A self-styled pastor in Christchurch once said that a partner is what you have when you don't love someone enough to call them your wife or husband.
I don't see how being married to somebody you no longer love is a good thing for anybody. I don't think humans were built for lifelong marriage in the first place. Our biology just doesn't work like that.
Also all this "one man, one woman" marriage is a relatively new institution. For tens of thousands of years it's been one man and many women in a marriage. It's only been a couple of hundred years where marriages were officially one man one women. Even then infidelity is rampant and always has been.
People figured out thousands of years ago that marriage is good. There can be abusive marriages and the types of societies that encourage marriage also do not encourage interfering in bad marriages. In general though, most people are honest and have good intentions and are not trying to take advantage or abuse other people, so most marriages should work fine. At least in Christianity they offer the right to divorce for reasons such as adultery, but divorcing someone doesn't mean you can hop into bed and shag the next person. People need to get over biology and have real purpose. Acting on impulse and chemical feelings in the brain just doesn't lead to any good when the first marriage fails.
One man, one woman applies to Christianity but not to Islam. There are muslims who advocate for men to have multiple wives but only if they're rich, presumably. There is an Islamic sect (from India) that makes a philosophical argument for this. They also make a practical argument that after World War 2 the population would have recovered faster if men had multiple wives.
Infidelity is only rampant because people have Reddit levels of belief in decency. If people are shunned and shamed then they won't engage in that behaviour. Only a very few psychopaths or narcissists would test the rules. That's why they used to kill people for infidelity, it weeds out the psychos who are naturally impulsive and inclined towards evil.
Thousands of years ago marriage consisted of one man and multiple women. Mostly the women were bought from their fathers, they had no say in who they were going to marry. Also it was common to take the virgins of the people you conquered in wars as you wives or concubines or sex slaves. Marriage was good for the man, not so much for the women.
But they don't. As I said people just fall out of love.
I don't care what your god has to say though. I don't believe in your god and I am against forcing people to believe in your god and doing things your god commands you. You obey your god and as long as that doesn't involve other people I don't care.
They get to determine what their purpose in life is, not you.
Have you ever read the bible? It sounds like you never did. For example
2 Samuel 12:11-12
Here because David had sex with Batsheba God decides to punish him by having his wives raped. Later on his own son indeed rapes all of his wives on the roof in the view of the entire town.
Maybe they just don't believe in your god. Have you ever considered that?
Why should they be shamed or shunned for mutually consensual sex?
Depends. If you read the bible god did indeed order the stoning of women who commit infidelity but the men were never commanded to be killed. At worst they paid some money. If they raped a woman their punishment was to marry that woman so that they could continue to rape her legally for the rest of their lives.
Or maybe that's a really unhelpful paradigm and people are starting to think more critically about how relationships work rather than accepting the default (western, patriarchal?) approach.
I'm glad there's some change from the social perspective.
The change you're talking about is fat ugly redditors in poly-amorous relationships. That's what we'll get - and children will grow up with weirdo parents. It just becomes about money and getting a good deal on rent. Whatever the cost.
I would prefer children growing up with weirdo parents than religious parents.
What religious group do you hate the most?
Evangelical Christians by far. After that the Scientologists.
Boring reply... everyone hates evangelical christians and scientologists lol
Well then I am in good company.
Or, hear me out, you date multiple people at once, all consenting and above board, and you enjoy your time with each of them no matter the length of time, because everything in this world is fleeting.
I knew a woman who did this once, she was dating 2 guys and she also slept with her gay ex-husband. Totally whacko stuff.
I think he was pawbably bisexual, but you seem to think folks need to make up their mind...
Why is that whacko?
She couldn't make up her mind, that in itself is nuts. She seemed to have a lot of drama in her life. She even got into a traffic accident and the other person was calling up and threatening this woman and she was telling me about it. Everything in her life was just crazy. She had a chin like Jabba The Hut but guys on Tinder would bust a nut in her after like 2 thrusts.
Honestly you sound jealous of her life.
It sounds like she made up her mind that she wanted to have sex with multiple partners at the same time. Was she cheating on any one of them, or did they all know about each other?
You're just a bad person, got it.