09-13-2019, 06:45 AM
As for the low divorce rates in the 1930's:
1. Divorce was then under stigma in much of America. America was more religious, and organized religion had more power over the culture and legal order. Divorce was not easy to get, as shown by the frequent travels of those who would get a divorce to Nevada. Neither Reno (which usually required an arduous journey by car over treacherous mountain roads such as US 40 or US 50 through the Sierra) nor Las Vegas (then a hick town separated from Los Angeles and San Diego by a long journey through the Mojave desert). Maybe the trip would give potential divorcees a chance to reconcile as they shared the ride. Train travel might have been easier, but even that gave a couple a long time in which to contemplate what they were doing. Divorce was far more difficult, legally and logistically, in the 1930's.
OK I am using part of the story as told by contemporary movies.
2. The social pressures against divorce were far stronger in the 1930's. "What about the children?" People were much more protective of children then than now, let alone in the time of liberalization of divorce laws after WWII. By the 1970's children were pawns in their parents' world of 'finding themselves', especially in the "sexual revolution". Pornography may have played a role in exciting men to dump their aging wives for newer models just as advertising got men to dump older morels of car for newer, more appealing ones. Human relations became a commodity in the Sexual Revolution.
3. America in the 1930's was more a time of small business, whether in farms or mom-and-pop retailers. To divorce meant that one might have to close a business to split it, and there were few buyers with ready cash. Economics matter far more in difficult times than in easy times. People often had started over under difficult circumstances in the 1930's and had cause not to do so again.
1. Divorce was then under stigma in much of America. America was more religious, and organized religion had more power over the culture and legal order. Divorce was not easy to get, as shown by the frequent travels of those who would get a divorce to Nevada. Neither Reno (which usually required an arduous journey by car over treacherous mountain roads such as US 40 or US 50 through the Sierra) nor Las Vegas (then a hick town separated from Los Angeles and San Diego by a long journey through the Mojave desert). Maybe the trip would give potential divorcees a chance to reconcile as they shared the ride. Train travel might have been easier, but even that gave a couple a long time in which to contemplate what they were doing. Divorce was far more difficult, legally and logistically, in the 1930's.
OK I am using part of the story as told by contemporary movies.
2. The social pressures against divorce were far stronger in the 1930's. "What about the children?" People were much more protective of children then than now, let alone in the time of liberalization of divorce laws after WWII. By the 1970's children were pawns in their parents' world of 'finding themselves', especially in the "sexual revolution". Pornography may have played a role in exciting men to dump their aging wives for newer models just as advertising got men to dump older morels of car for newer, more appealing ones. Human relations became a commodity in the Sexual Revolution.
3. America in the 1930's was more a time of small business, whether in farms or mom-and-pop retailers. To divorce meant that one might have to close a business to split it, and there were few buyers with ready cash. Economics matter far more in difficult times than in easy times. People often had started over under difficult circumstances in the 1930's and had cause not to do so again.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.