Sign of the times: Vienna to host 'divorce fair'

What an incredibly sad piece of news -- an AFP report says Vienna will soon be hosting what organizers say is the world's first 'divorce fair' later this month, aimed at couples "whose wedding dreams have turned sour and who need help in untying the knot as painlessly as possible."

While most exhibitors will be groups like lawyers, mediators, estate agents and life-crisis experts, there will also be some lectures that include things like a children's view of divorce to single-parenting issues.

So now we have wedding expos where brides and grooms can spend a day visiting thousands of vendors offering services for their wedding, and then they can visit a divorce expo where they can visit with vendors offering services for their divorce. It's too bad that we can't have "marriage expos" where people can gather and hear about the good side of marriage.

But I guess there's no money in that, is there?

Why are we waiting to get married?

A 2005 report by the National Marriage Project titled "The State of our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America" offered a list of reasons why Americans have become less likely to marry are:

• People are delaying first marriages (waiting to meet right person or complete postgraduate education).
• There is an increase in people choosing to be single for life.
• More people are cohabiting.
• There is a slight decrease in the tendency of divorced people to remarry.

Other findings from the report include:

• The divorce rate today is nearly twice that of 1960 but has been declining since hitting its high point in the early 1980s.
• Most people now live together before marrying for the first time. An even higher percentage of divorced people live together before remarrying.
• Divorced men are more likely to remarry than divorced women. Also, among divorcees who do remarry, men generally do so sooner than women.
• The likelihood of divorce is higher for blacks than whites and higher in the West than in other parts of the country.
• Americans increasingly view marriage and child rearing as separate pursuits.

More details here.