Letter from the west [on high rates of divorce].

Hello, I figure out that since we as Africans can’t seem to stop the blind emulation of the western despoiled civilization and that issues such as early marriages, women and career, divorce, feminism and its unforeseen consequence and a host of other social vices have been exhausted. And the fact that the westerners have reached the pinnacle of their civilization and have seen where all the social experiments and the ugly head of the feminist movement has landed them; and the fact that they are tense and remorse now and saying “what if”. I decided to create this format to help relate from their own words what they say about the issues we now consider burning or rather controversial. Thus, I will be bringing you admissions, views and confessions of our supposed models[ those who have awaken from their deep slumber though]; these will be cut from their blogs, sites, books etc for your deliberation, you may find it hard to accept that “facts are facts and will not disappear according to your likes”,
Mr. man, September 28 2009 at 03:48 am commented on Cathy Meyers divorce support blog on about.com from U.S.A and he says, and in quote:
“I am recently divorced, and know quite a few friends who are. Not one of them, including me, did this because of cheating.
I think the rising divorce rate is driven by 3 things. In order of importance (most important first):
1. Pressure, economics, the change in the American lifestyle.
Since the 1970s, we have become a nation where many couples have both spouses working full-time. We are also moving around a lot, so our extended families are no longer nearby. On top of that, the economy and standard of living have declined so much that even with two working spouses, it is very hard to maintain the standard of living that couples had in the 1950s and 60s. By “standard of living”, I don’t just mean wealth. I mean a standard in which people could work AND rest AND be together at home.
If you think that the lifestyle that couples are living now isn’t destroying marriages, think again. If you work all the time, and spend your only “off time” tending children, chores and the household, how can a marriage possibly survive?
2. Lack of accountability, punishment, respect for law – call it ” – call it “personal responsibility”.
Yup – we are a nation of lazy, excuse-making whiners. Marriages don’t survive well in that environment.
3. “Feminism” – Please read before you blow a gasket.
No, I don’t really mean the movement for women’s rights. That’s why I put it in quotes. What I mean is that before the surge in feminism in the 1970s, males and females had much more clearly defined roles. That left women holding the bag for a lot of housework and chores, and rotten pay, and it wasn’t fair. BUT, we have replaced it with a system where only SOME of those inequalities have been righted, and I think that’s worse for marriage than what we had before. Women now work as much as men, compete with men, and although not equal, they are approaching the pay and careers of men.
Well, whoop-de-doo, because now they also have the stress, the lack of home time, and the lack of domestic time or skills that men always had.
That means that NEITHER partner in the marriage is much of a domestic home-maker. Well, SOMEBODY bloody well has to be good at that. Making a home is NICE THING TO HAVE. It’s important to marriage.
What has happened is that in our zeal to equalize things for women, we have made domestic life, or “homemaking” a dirty word.
—–
If we don’t retrench to a way of life that prioritizes plain, uncluttered, domestic life, less money, and less career pressure, the state of marriage is only going to keep getting worse”.
Muhammad Tijjani Nakande is a freelance writer, a neo pan African activist and the unauthorized compiler of remorse westerners thoughts, wrote in from Kano state Nigeria.