Cynthia Sarkis – Mtv
The word “I wish you well” has always been the star of weddings in Lebanon. It is said to “whoever wants to, whoever doesn’t want to”… The same word is used today, but for divorce, which has become a social condition that should be stopped at, so as not to even say that it has become more like a trend.
It is as if something went wrong in society in just a few years, and divorce turned from an anomalous, exceptional, and rare condition, to a normal, and even increasing, state in a very worrying way, and the numbers are the greatest evidence.
According to data from the General Directorate of Personal Status, about 8,541 divorce cases were registered in 2023, after the number in 2019 was about 7,646. As for the divorce rate out of the total number of marriage contracts, it increased from 22.4 percent in 2019 to 28 percent in 2023… and the numbers are still increasing. This is happening in parallel with the gradual decline in marriage contracts.
The reasons here are multiple. The decline in marriage contracts is of course due to the difficult economic conditions in Lebanon and the inability of the Lebanese young man to bear the burdens of married life, starting from the dream house, which has become a dream. In addition, a large number of young people migrated, or at least moved to Arab or foreign countries with the aim of working and securing a better future, which helped delay marriage.
As for divorce, its causes are also multiple, starting, of course, from the decline in citizens’ purchasing power due to successive crises, which has put financial pressure on the golden cage, turning it into a plastic cage. In addition to the above, there is a new factor of great importance, which is social media, which shines with exaggerated ideal images that do not actually express real married life, and which has created a harmful gap between dream and reality into which those who contemplate the false ideal of married life fall. Here too, comparisons abound, and with them problems abound, making the gap between men and women even bigger, often ending in separation.
The numbers also show that divorce is more common among new couples, and here we can refer in this context to hasty marriage, without thinking carefully about discovering the other and making sure that we have chosen the “right partner.” Marriage is a long journey with many roses, as well as many thorns, and whoever wants to follow it should prepare himself heart and soul, so that the word “I hope you” is not the most urgent thing they wish for, of those who have drank the cup of divorce.
