To those obsessed with the divorce rate, and the belief that there is any segment of the Torah observant community that has a greater or lesser percentage of failed marriages:
There is probably no feasible way to study this scientifically. But there are anecdotal reports that are enough to give us a good idea.
There are several types of people involved directly in gittin. These include dayanim, toanim, sofrim, matrimonial lawyers, mediators, and various therapists and counselors. Ask them if they are busy. I did. They are very busy.
Our population has grown, so more gittin does not imply that the “rate” is increasing. But it does imply a reasonable chance that almost everyone knows someone who is divorced.
Today’s world is different. Our young people are apt to feel entitled, and preparation for marriage has not kept pace. Perhaps the damaging role of the Internet is the ease of communicating with others, getting to feel supported in the efforts to leave a marriage. Accessing services is also easier.
Is the rate rising? I have no reason to believe that. I bet it fluctuates, and there could be an upticking of the numbers. But there is a larger population, and even the same old rate would mean higher numbers.
I would point out a few issues, probably deserving of another thread, that are significant underlying factors in current divorces.
One – withholding or secret keeping of information prior to a shidduch. There are young people with various issues, mental illness, etc. whose parents do not disclose that information prior to the shidduch. The discovery after the fact is quite shocking, and some of these issues are interferences in conducting a normal home. Gedolim are not consistent in when to disclose, but I have yet to encounter anyone that says to not disclose at all prior to the completion of a shidduch. yes, Chassidishe, Litvishe, and Yeshivishe communities are equal on this.
Two – getting married for the wrong reason. Some newlyweds that are in trouble will share that they got married because their friends were all getting married. There is not an ounce of saichel to this. If your friend is hungry, do you go to eat?
Three – poor preparation. So many couples today have no clue what marriage means. No idea how to communicate. No idea how to be respectful of the other, the in-law family, the other’s choices of career, learning, and personal choices. Parental role models are often inadequate, and the teaching by chosson and kallah teachers (which has overall improved over the years) is still woefully inadequate.
Four – lack of skills. How many young marrieds have a clue how to manage a budget? Do they know how to juggle the responsibilities between the religious and the mundane? How aware are they that the squeezing of one’s hands by davening is unrelated to kavana, which is a spiritual connection? Do they know how to instill true ruchniyos in their home, or are they obsessed with chumros?
Five – living for others. We have never been as preoccupied with image as in our generation. We need x because someone else has it. We are busy with what others think of us. We must appear perfect for the pictures. Societal recognition has surpassed in importance what we want HKB”H to think of us, and what we think of ourselves and each other.
Six – we have become overly shallow. The labels we apply to things and people are not just inaccurate (we can’t really know all we think we know) but actually serve to limit our experience. One facet of this is the midoh to be “dan lekaf zechus”, which is so often trashed in the labeling process. We generalize way too often. We struggle to find the good in others or in events. A classic example is getting stuck in traffic, when we later discover that had we been somewhere earlier, we could have been in an accident.
Seven – poor prioritization, sometimes horrific. We suffer from a sense of priorities that is sometimes so thwarted that it is senseless and even dangerous. Do we consider or reject a shidduch based on appearance, levush, or pedigree? This subject is really a long one, and deserves its own forum.
I could go one and on, but this sampling is a start. What is critical is that these issues are equal opportunity. Large families do not suffer from worse marriages or more divorces. There are factors that distinguish the happy from the miserable, but Chassidish versus Litvish versus Yeshivish are not among them.