Divorce debate challenges Pope Francis

Google – AFP, Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere (AFP), 28 February 2014

Pope Francis attends his general audience at St Peter's Square, at the

Vatican, on February 26, 2014 (AFP/File, Vincenzo Pinto)

Vatican City — The issue of divorce is stoking a spirited debate between Catholic cardinals and revealing the challenges and expectations for Pope Francis after his promises to put the Church more in touch with modern life.

The question is whether divorcees who re-marry should be allowed to take part in the most sacred point of Catholic mass, Holy Communion, which is forbidden under current rules that in practice are often not observed.

Changing the doctrine could in turn alter Church rules on marriage annulments and raise broader questions about the institution of marriage, prompting lively exchanges between traditionalists and reformers.

Priests walk in the midst of faithful to give

 the holy communion during Pope Francis'

 inauguration mass, at St. Peter's square at

the Vatican, on March 19, 2013 (AFP/File,

Gabriel Bouys)

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon in France, told Vatican radio that a meeting of cardinals from around the world in the Vatican this month devoted "80 to 90 percent" of the time to discussing the issue.

German Cardinal Ludwig Mueller, head of the Church's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has said the current rules are "impossible to change" and that people should stop thinking of marriage as "a party in a church".

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, a member of the council of eight cardinals established by the pope to advise him, has taken a more lenient line and has asked Mueller to be "more flexible".

A survey by the Spanish-language network Univision in 12 mainly Catholic countries found that 75 percent of Europeans, 67 percent of Latin Americans and 59 percent of Americans were at odds with the Church on the issue, while in Africa 19 percent of respondents disagreed.

The issue is one of very personal anguish for many Catholic couples, who say they are being treated as second-class believers, and has led to acts of defiance.

The German diocese of Freiburg im Breisgau last year said it was authorizing re-married divorcees to receive Holy Communion on a case by case basis -- prompting a quick telling off from the Vatican.

The issue would affect millions of Catholics around the world, with around a quarter of Catholic marriages ending in divorce in the United States alone.

Lyon's Archbishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin,

 attends the first national synod of the United

 Protestant Church of France, at the Grand

 Temple in Lyon, on May 11, 2013 (AFP/

File, Philippe Merle)

Some theologians and clergymen have called for changes to facilitate the annulment of marriages in cases in which it could be argued that the wedding took place under social pressure or was not fully understood.

Re-marrying would then be allowed under Church rules and the couple would be allowed to take Holy Communion.

Another possibility could be the Orthodox model, which allows some divorcees to re-marry in church and take Holy Communion but gives only a blessing for the second marriage and does not consider it a sacrament.

Francis mentioned the Orthodox solution as a "parenthesis" on the plane during his return from a visit to Brazil and it was raised again by some cardinals in their consistory this month in which they said it could happen following "a period of penitence".

The issue is likely to dominate a synod of world bishops planned for later this year and another one in 2015, which Francis has said should focus on families.

The divorce debate was raised in an unprecedented questionnaire sent out to dioceses worldwide to find out the approach taken by parishes on many issues, including same-sex couples and pre-marital cohabitation.

Vatican expert Henri Tincq, writing on the website Slate.fr, said the divorce issue is particularly complex on a theological level since "a sacrament is given by God and can never be taken back".

Related Articles:

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon, how do we know when a divorce is appropriate or not?

Answer: It’s appropriate when the energy and consciousness of the one is on a different reality from the other, and it’s obvious that it will never change.

This isn’t about enlightenment, either. It’s about your individual paths. Although contrary to your society, the rules of the church, and what your family wishes for you, sometimes you go through "partnership stages" that are appropriate but temporary. It can also be between two enlightened souls who simply needed to be together for a while.

So if you’re going to separate a partnership, do it with integrity. Do it in a way where you offer friendship. Do it with wisdom and maturity. Never slam the door. Offer the other person your maturity all your life, and always give them the opportunity for forgiveness and discussion.

As you grow older, you’ll eventually see the dynamics of growth, and why a temporary partnership might have been needed in your own personal path, or in theirs. Sometimes it’s only about being a time placeholder, keeping each other in a place so that something else could happen. Each path is different, and there are as many who will stay together until they stand and hold hands on the other side of the veil. Then they’ll do it again the next time around! Don’t pass judgment either way. There is appropriateness in many things that result in growth and maturity for either or both of those involved.

As I discussed before, your cultural rules are often designed to look like they’re also the "rules of God," but often they’re just the rules of Humans who are doing their best, without full understanding of how big God really is.

The Dutch Don’t Care About Marriage

Americans can learn a lot from their indifference.  

Slate, Katie Roiphe, October 30, 2013

Being single in the Netherlands is pretty great. (Photo by Ferdy Damman/AFP/
Getty Images)

I was in Amsterdam for probably three hours when I began to see that having children and not being married was not a big deal there. In fact, marriage itself is not a big deal there. I was there to talk about my book In Praise of Messy Lives, which was coming out in Dutch, but what passes in America for a messy life is in Amsterdam just, well, how things go.

The Dutch attitude, which I like, is that marriage is not for everyone; it is a personal choice, an option, a pleasant possibility, but not marrying is not a failure, a great blot on your achievements in life, a critical rite of passage you have missed. Sometimes people get around to getting married, and sometimes they don’t. Several Dutch women in their 40s, with children and rich romantic histories, tell me about marriage, “It just wasn’t something that mattered to me.”

Katie Roiphe, professor

at the Arthur L. Carter

Journalism Institute at 

New York University

As a popular view, this laissez faire approach accommodates the vicissitudes of the heart, the changing nature of love, the great variety of forms attachments take in real life. It acknowledges that things change, and to exit a relationship with kids is less violent somehow, less publically absolute, than to exit a marriage. A bit of tolerance, of bemusement, of compassion or imagination is built into the system.

I try to describe to a couple of audiences in Amsterdam the against-the-grainness of someone, especially a woman, who has not married in America. I try to explain how having children outside of marriage is still considered an alternative, and essentially inferior life choice. I mention that an American writer wrote a coverstory in the Atlantic on the remarkable and exotic fact that she was in her late 30s and had never married. This sort of blew their minds. Who could possibly care? It seemed like a crazy American thing for marriage to matter so much. To them this obsession, this nagging necessity for weddings, the lack of general acceptance toward other pretty common ways of living, is so foreign, so uniquely American, such a quaint narrowness, that it’s incomprehensible as an actual mode of modern life.

At first I started fantasizing about whether I could move to a steep little Dutch house, and if I could balance a child on a bicycle. But it also seems to me it would be a great thing if we could absorb some of the Dutch attitude toward conjugal life. I am not here arguing against marriage, but against marriage as a rite of passage, against the assumption of all little girls that they will one day be married in a white dress on a green lawn, against the socially engraved absolute of it, the impossible-to-evade shining ideal.

What would it mean to end the centuries-long American fixation on traditional family structures? Would we be able to look at families living outside of convention without as much judgment, as much toxic condescension? Would the “smug marrieds” Helen Fielding wrote about in Bridget Jones’ Diary be less smug and just married?

If we woke up one morning and discovered that in America marriage was suddenly regarded as a choice, a way, a possibility, but not a definite and essential phase of life, think how many people would suddenly be living above board, think of the stress removed, the pressures lifted, the stigmas dissolving. Think how many people living unhappily would see their way to living less unhappily. In Edwardian England, the cultural critic Rebecca West wrote about the “dinginess that come between us and the reality of love” and the “gross, destructive mutual raids on personality that often form marriages.”

Whatever one thinks about the institution, the truth is that marriage is increasingly not the way Americans are living. If one goes strictly by the facts—that the majority of babies born to women under 30 are born to single mothers, or that about 51 percent of American adults are married—one has to admit that marriage can’t be taken for granted, assumed as a rite of passage, a towering symbol of our way of life. But somehow this hasn’t dimmed our solid sense of marriage as the American normal.

If we suddenly stopped being in thrall to the rigid, old-fashioned ideal of marriage, we could stop worrying about low marriage rates and high divorce rates. We could stop worrying about single mothers and the decline of marriage as an institution, especially in the lower middle class, and the wasteful industry of wedding planning. We could instead focus on actual relationships, on intimacies, on substance over form; we could focus on love in its myriad, unpredictable varieties. We could see life here in the amber waves of grain not for what it should be, but for what it is.

Katie Roiphe, professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, is the author most recently of Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, and In Praise of Messy Lives.

Related Article:

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon, how do we know when a divorce is appropriate or not?

Answer: It’s appropriate when the energy and consciousness of the one is on a different reality from the other, and it’s obvious that it will never change.

This isn’t about enlightenment, either. It’s about your individual paths. Although contrary to your society, the rules of the church, and what your family wishes for you, sometimes you go through "partnership stages" that are appropriate but temporary. It can also be between two enlightened souls who simply needed to be together for a while.

So if you’re going to separate a partnership, do it with integrity. Do it in a way where you offer friendship. Do it with wisdom and maturity. Never slam the door. Offer the other person your maturity all your life, and always give them the opportunity for forgiveness and discussion.

As you grow older, you’ll eventually see the dynamics of growth, and why a temporary partnership might have been needed in your own personal path, or in theirs. Sometimes it’s only about being a time placeholder, keeping each other in a place so that something else could happen. Each path is different, and there are as many who will stay together until they stand and hold hands on the other side of the veil. Then they’ll do it again the next time around! Don’t pass judgment either way. There is appropriateness in many things that result in growth and maturity for either or both of those involved.

As I discussed before, your cultural rules are often designed to look like they’re also the "rules of God," but often they’re just the rules of Humans who are doing their best, without full understanding of how big God really is.

'Younger wife' for marital bliss

BBC News

Pop star Beyonce and rapper husband Jay-Z married last year

The secret to a happy marriage is choosing a wife who is smarter and at least five years younger than you, say UK experts.

These pairings are more likely to go the distance, particularly if neither has been divorced in the past, according to the Bath University team.

The findings predict a happy future for pop star Beyonce Knowles, 28, and rapper husband Jay-Z, 39.

The work is published in the European Journal of Operational Research.

The researchers studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship.

Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples to see which had lasted.

For better or worse

They found that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.

If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.

Add in a better education for the woman - Beyonce has her high school diploma, unlike husband Jay-Z - and the chances of lasting happiness improve further.

Those who have never divorced fare better too. But couples in which one member has been through a divorce in the past are less stable than those in which both members are divorcees.

Dr Emmanuel Fragniere and colleagues do say that men and women choose partners "on the basis of love, physical attraction, similarity of taste, beliefs and attitudes, and shared values."

But they say that using "objective factors" such as age, education and cultural origin "may help reduce divorce".

Malaysia state in honeymoon offer

BBC News

Crystal-clear waters and palm trees may help couples stave off divorce

A state in north-east Malaysia says it will offer free second honeymoons to couples on the brink of divorce.

Ashaari Idris, a government official in Terengganu, said troubled couples would be allowed to spend two nights at one of the state's scenic island resorts.

He said those who wished to take part would have to apply, undergo an interview and also commit to marital counselling.

He said the programme was aimed at building family ties.

"After marriage, some are unable to cope with the new challenges," Mr Ashaari told the AFP news agency.

Couples faced issues like financial problems or difficulties with their in-laws, he said.

"I want to strengthen family ties. If a marriage breaks down, it will hurt the children and it will have serious implications on society," he said.

The Muslim-majority state had already carried out a pilot project involving 25 couples, he said.

Matchmakers find business booming on Wall Street

By Claudia Parsons, Reuters, Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:17pm EST 

 

A street sign is seen in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York, February 10, 2009. (REUTERS/Eric Thayer)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's all doom and gloom on Wall Street but high-end matchmakers say when America's wealthiest bachelors are humbled, some start looking for love.

 

"In these economic times, the dynamics have really shifted in favor of relationships," said Rachel Greenwald, matchmaker and author of a new book called "Why He Didn't Call You Back."

 

"Casual dating seemed to be a by-product of the go-go days of past years when the stock market was booming," she said.

 

"People had disposable money and they wanted disposable relationships. Now things have really shifted emotionally."

 

Samantha Daniels says she has more clients than ever willing to pay $25,000 and up a year to meet women through her company Samantha's Table. She said some men simply have more time to focus on relationships because their business is on hold, for example those in real estate or hedge funds.

 

Others are not in the mood for endless first dates with different women and want a partner who will deal with their ups and downs.

 

"Everything is so volatile every day, and some days you're in a really bad mood," Daniels said. "Nothing is worse than if you're in a really bad mood and you have to put on your happy face for a first date and be all energetic and happy.

 

"Men need to have something in their life that's stable. Usually it's their business life, but if it's not that, they're looking to have some stability in their personal life," she said.

 

Matchmaker Janis Spindel also said business was booming.

 

"The other day I had a 30-year-old who wrote me a check for $30,000 up front without batting an eyelid," she said.

 

Amy Andersen, founder of Linx Dating in California, said February is set to be her best month ever.

 

She recently spent a week at a luxury hotel in New York interviewing some 20 women for a client who wanted to meet a graduate of the same Ivy League university he attended.

 

The client, who paid more than $50,000 for the search, is "slowly dating one of the girls and trying to figure out if there's long-term potential there," Andersen said.

 

NOT SUCH A GREAT CATCH

 

But while super-rich men in finance may be more open to love, they are not quite the catch they used to be.

 

A blog claiming to be written by wives and girlfriends of bankers, Dating A Banker Anonymous (http://dabagirls.wordpress.com), features tales of disgruntled women forced to give up pricey restaurant meals, for example, for home cooking.

 

It warned women this week to expect little more for Valentine's Day than a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park -- a far cry from the diamonds and ritzy nights out they might have enjoyed in years past.

 

Daniels said finance used to be the first occupation women would say was attractive in a partner.

 

"Women are realizing at this time they'd rather be with someone in an occupation that doesn't have as much risk associated with it," she said. "They want a more traditional type, going back to what their grandmother used to say -- 'You want to be with a lawyer or a doctor.'"

 

Men too are looking for something different, Daniels said.

 

"They've seen a lot of friends whose wives or girlfriends left them because times are tough," she said.

 

DIVORCE IS LIKE FUTURES MARKET

 

Divorce lawyers say hard times also can destroy love.

 

"I have some situations brewing now where the lack of resources has definitely caused some stress on the relationship and brought things to a head -- business opportunities dried up or people are at home now whereas they used to be at a job," said Brett Kimmel, whose clients have included rapper 50 Cent.

 

He said divorces are becoming more complicated because couples are finding it harder to sell their home and to split up other assets. "Cases are taking a lot longer."

 

Raoul Felder, a high-profile divorce lawyer, said there had been a spike in divorces as the economy started to tank because "a lot of mice want to leave the sinking ship."

 

He forecast there would be more when the economy picks up but said for the moment, there is a lull because financial uncertainty makes couples think twice about embarking on a potentially costly divorce.

 

"It's a bit like buying futures because divorce takes eight months to a year to be finalized," he said. "You're really guessing what's going to be happening eight to 12 months away."

 

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Sandra Maler)

Marriage Lessons for New Couples

The Jakarta Globe, Putri Prameshwari, February 1, 2009

A couple say their vows at a mass wedding in Tangerang. (Photo: Prasetyo Utomo, Antara)

Alarmed that more Indonesians are divorcing over the contentious issue of polygamy, the central government is considering making premarital counseling mandatory for all couples planning to wed, a senior Ministry of Religious Affairs official said on Sunday.

Nasaruddin Umar, director general of religious guidance at the ministry, said that the number of women who cited polygamy as the reason for seeking divorce had risen from 813 in 2004 to more than 1,000 in 2008.

“On that basis, we’re considering compulsory pre-marriage counseling,” Umar told the Jakarta Globe.

The ministry will draft a regulation requiring all couples, regardless of their religious faith, to take a course to learn about the requirements of marriage before they tie the knot, he said.

“Couples who don’t have [a course] certificate will not be able to get married,” he said.

Umar said Indonesia was not the first country to adopt such a policy, noting that Christian churches in most countries required premarital counseling. However, that policy is generally not government mandated, whereas the Religious Affairs Ministry’s new policy would be a state regulation.

Statistics were not immediately available on the number of countries that legally require premarital counseling. China insists that couples take a premarital course, but it mainly provides information about contraception and HIV/AIDS.

Umar said that the ministry was working with several state Islamic universities across the country to formulate a curriculum for the premarital course.

“Hopefully, we can start by the end of this year,” he said.

While polygamy is legal in Indonesia, it remains an extremely sensitive issue, with proponents saying men have the right under Islamic law to have multiple wives, while women’s groups say the practice is discriminatory.

Government officials and lawmakers have from time to time debated this issue, with no result, though President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2006 extended a ban on civil servants engaging in polygamy unless they received permission from their superior and their first wife, according to presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng.

Under Article 4 of the Law on Marriage No. 1/1974, a husband may remarry up to three times if his wife gives her consent, or cannot meet her marital obligations. He is also allowed to take a new wife if his existing wife falls sick, is physically handicapped, or is unable to give birth. However, the government rarely enforces the restrictions.

Sri Nur Herawati, a consultation coordinator at LBH Apik, a legal aid institution for women, has called on the government to revise the law, saying if a wife refuses to allow her husband to marry another woman, he often marries illegally.

China divorce rate rises by 20%

BBC News

The divorce rate in China has increased by almost 20% over the past year, with 1.4m couples filing for separation during 2007, government officials say.

Some experts put the rise down to a change in the law which has made divorces easier to obtain.

Others say China's one-child policy has produced a generation of adults focused on their own needs and unable to sustain a relationship.

The government also reported that the number of marriages rose by 12%.

The rising divorce rate is part of a long-term trend.

Since China began its market reforms in the late 1970s, the number of people getting a divorce has quadrupled.

This has been exacerbated by a change in the law in 2003 allowing couples to divorce in a day, analysts say.

Previously, couples needed permission from either their employers or community committees to divorce.

The increase in break-ups did not mean that Chinese were losing faith in marriage, said Xu Anqi of the Shanghai Academy of Social Science.

"People's expectations are higher. The things couples compromised on 10 years ago aren't tolerated today," she told China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

"What are you doing here?": man asks wife at brothel

Wed Jan 9, 2008 10:23am EST

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

"I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper on Wednesday.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

(Writing by Chris Borowski, Editing by Matthew Jones)

Spears hospitalized; loses right to see kids

CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Britney Spears was derailed yet again in her struggle to get her life back on track, losing custody of her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline.

Spears appeared conscious as she was taken from her home.

A court commissioner Friday gave sole physical and legal custody of the former couple's two little boys to Federline and suspended the troubled pop star's visitation rights.

Spears was hauled away from her home to a hospital by paramedics a day before, after police had to intervene when she refused to return the children to Federline after a court-monitored visit.

Commissioner Scott Gordon ordered another hearing January 14.

Federline had previously been awarded temporary custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James because Spears has defied court orders, resulting in limitations on her visitation.

"I'm not happy about any of these events," Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said when he left a closed-door emergency hearing Friday afternoon. "There's no winners here."

Federline was not in court for the hearing, Kaplan said.

The attorney had said he did not expect the ruling to be released until Monday, but it was issued shortly after the hearing concluded.

Law professor Steve Cron, who is not involved in the Spears-Federline matter, predicted Spears will face sanctions from the court for her behavior.

"My guess is that she won't be seeing her kids for a while," said Cron, who teaches at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

Gordon has little option other than to further reduce the time Spears can legally spend with her children, Cron said, "at least for the time being until she gets some help. She's obviously a very troubled person."

The 26-year-old pop star remained hospitalized Friday.

Her latest troubles began around 8 p.m. Thursday when officers were called to her home to help resolve a dispute over her refusal to turn the children over to Federline, as dictated by their custody agreement.

It took two to three hours to resolve the conflict, said Los Angeles Police Officer Ana Aguirre.

"There was a time where she was within the residence and wasn't available to be speaking to the officers, apparently," she said. "There was no threat to the children."

"Police resolved the conflict," Aguirre said. "Both children were turned over to her ex-husband Kevin Federline for custody, and she was in fact taken to a local hospital for medical treatment."

Early police reports said officers thought Spears might have been under the influence of some substance, but Aguirre said there was no evidence of that.

"Our understanding is that was not the case," she said.

Officers at the scene determined that paramedics "needed to be called" but it was unclear why, she said.

"We're not aware of any type of injuries that she sustained" and she was not combative with authorities, Aguirre said.

Spears wasn't arrested in connection with the custody dispute, Aguirre said.

"There was no actual crime that was involved," the police spokeswoman said.

Kaplan said he went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after Spears was admitted there, but he declined to provide details about the pop star, her ex-husband, or their two sons.

Spears' mother, Lynne Spears, also would not disclose information about her daughter's condition. "Just say prayers," she told the celebrity news show "Access Hollywood" by phone Friday.

Hospital spokeswoman Simi Singer wouldn't confirm or deny reports in entertainment media that Spears would be held for 72 hours for psychological evaluation. The reports didn't identify their sources.

Spears "needs an enormous amount of help to find out why the erratic behavior," said Ruth Schreibman, a marriage and family therapist who does not treat the pop star.

"Is she bipolar? Is she depressed? Is it postpartum depression? Is it drugs and alcohol?" she said. "There's just so much attention and it's such an accelerated speed of life that how can there be any normalcy?"

Spears and Federline were married in October 2004. Her life has spiraled downward since their divorce in July. She has been photographed without underwear and appeared to be drunk and out of control in public. She shaved her head, beat a car with an umbrella and spent a month in rehab.

She had hoped to regain her pop crown with a much-hyped performance at MTV's Video Music Awards in September, but it was universally panned by fans and critics.

Still, Spears' latest album, "Blackout," earned positive reviews when it was released in October and brought Spears her first No. 1 hit in years, "Gimme More."

However, Spears remains a paparazzi target for her bizarre antics, which include frequent stops at gas-station bathrooms and holing up in a hotel room with a paparazzo.

Her 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, made headlines last month when she announced that she is pregnant.

Amy Fisher to promote sex tape with husband

From Richard Davis

NEW YORK (CNN) -- More than a decade after gaining notoriety as New York's "Long Island Lolita," Amy Fisher has settled with a Los Angeles, California, production company regarding the release and distribution of a sex tape featuring her and her husband.

Amy Fisher says her husband sold the tape during a rocky period in their relationship.

"It does exist, people are looking at it, so I agreed to -- not endorse it -- but [I] will discuss it," Fisher said at a news conference Friday.

Under the terms of the settlement with the Red Light District production company, Fisher agreed to an undisclosed sum of money and a promotional appearance at a New York City nightclub.

She described how her husband, Louis Bellera, sold the sex tape during an acrimonious divorce, and she denied being involved in its initial release.

The couple has since reconciled.

"I love my husband and I've done a lot of things, too," Fisher said. "I know he's very sorry."

Fisher, 33, drew mass media attention as a teenager in 1992 when an affair with Joey Buttafuocco ended with her shooting his wife, leaving her paralyzed.

Fisher received a five- to 15-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to first degree assault for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuocco. She served seven years in a western New York prison.

Joey Buttafuocco, then a 38-year-old auto body shop owner, pleaded guilty to statutory rape and served six months in prison.

Welcome to the 'Don't Divorce Me Club'

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- In the corner of a small Japanese restaurant, a dozen dark suited businessmen gathered at a large table.

A Japanese couple walk through a park
filled with cherry blossoms in Tokyo.

Smoke hovered over the dinner and beer disappeared as quickly as it was poured.

At first glance, it looked like a typical Friday night post-work scene played out all over Tokyo's taverns.

But then your eyes stop on a poster-sized sign propped up next to one of the middle-aged men.

It reads:

Three Golden Rules of Love:

• Thank you (say it without hesitation)
• I am sorry (say it without fear)
• I love you (say it without embarrassment)

All the men at the table stood up. Equally spaced out and still wearing their stiff black suits, they chanted in unison, "I can't win! I won't win! I don't want to win!"

The chant was followed by a deep bow, a straightening of the backs, big smiles and a burst of applause. The meeting of the "National Chauvinistic Husbands Association" was underway.

If you're confused at this point, don't fret. The group is called the National Chauvinistic Husbands Association because it's a club for bossy husbands who need help (a little lost in translation effect here).

So the title is appropriate for this group of men. In an abrupt about face from traditional Japanese relationships, the men are learning how to give their wives more respect.

More poster signs surrounded the men at the meeting:

Three Golden Rules of Renewing Family:

• Let's Listen
• Let's Write
• Let's Talk

Three Golden Rules for Extramarital Affairs:

• I don't do it
• I am not doing it
• I am not even thinking about it

And there's even a system of ranking your husbandry in the club:

Rank 1: Love your wife after three years of marriage
Rank 2: Help with the household work
Rank 3: No extramarital affairs, or at least keep it a secret from her
Rank 4: Ladies first
Rank 5: Hold hands with your wife in public
Rank 6: Listen to what your wife has to say carefully and seriously
Rank 7: Solve issues between your wife and your mother
Rank 8: Say thank you without hesitation
Rank 9: Say I'm sorry without fear
Rank 10: Say I love you without embarrassment

The meeting was jovial and there was laughter at times. But the undercurrent was serious and taken to heart by the 4,700 members of this Japanese club.

They're all acutely aware of a new law in Japan this year that entitles a wife filing for divorce to claim half her husband's company pension.

That change led to a spike in divorces in the country, as some Japanese women, tired of their long-absent salarymen, decided they're better off on their own.

But these men say they don't want to be alone so they'll change for their wives.

As the men talked in their support-group setting, you quickly became aware of how rare it is to see men, especially businessmen, so emotionally intimate.

One man confessed his typical Japanese workday (spanning 16 hours at times) was making his wife angry. The group leader warned he's on the highway to divorce and he needs to put his wife before work.

Another man said he's too Japanese and can't seem to put his wife first. The group leader warned he's too old-fashioned.

Another man, married 22 years, shared the fear that he'll be alone in old age because his wife complains about his snoring. Heads around the table nodded up and down in sympathy.

I couldn't help but ask, "As an American, it seems so easy to hold hands or say 'I love you.' What's so hard about your rules or rankings?"

The group leader looked at me and said what's hard about the seemingly simple rules is following them fully and changing your behavior. He said it's easy saying it or doing it, but changing who you are and really believing it is quite another.

He also pointed out to me that the divorce rate in America is over 50 percent. In Japan, the rate is still below 10 percent. Maybe, he suggested, some of the ways the Japanese approach love and marriage isn't so strange after all.

After the meeting, we followed a young man named Yohei Takayama home. He'd just been promoted to "Rank 4."

He admitted that "Rank 5," holding hands with his wife in public, was not going to be natural or easy. He and his wife have been married for two years. His wife said he's been a member of the club for a year and a half and it's changed their relationship dramatically.

Namely, she said, he helps more around the house, listens to her more, and understands she also has a career that exhausts her. What they're growing into, she said, is a partnership. They went grocery shopping, and I noticed he carried the bags and helped her decide what to buy.

As they left the store to go home, he took her hand in his. It didn't look like the most natural thing in the world for him, but he was trying. His wife smiled as they walked home.

Is anyone faithful any more?

American writer Pamela Druckerman knows all the rules of infidelity. She spent three years studying adulterers, from Paris to Tokyo. She tells Polly Vernon why she thinks us Brits are getting it wrong.

The Observer, Sunday July 8, 2007

Pamela Druckerman doesn't look like the world's leading authority on infidelity. She looks like the primary- school teacher all the dads fancy; or one of those second-generation yummy mummies, the kind who sets up a stall in a farmers' market selling fashionable cupcakes. She sits in the window of a patisserie in North London; a super-pretty, soft, smiley blonde, with a latte and a laptop.

She's involuntarily fixating on passing Bugaboos. 'My husband said he might walk by with our daughter,' she says. She's American, and even though her husband is British, and they have spent the past four years living in Paris, her accent endures. 'I can't help checking out all the prams. It's a reflex.' She smiles.

I expected something a lot less wholesome from someone who's spent the past three years immersed in the world of international adultery. Pamela Druckerman has written the definitive guide on it. Lust In Translation: The Rules Of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee is the result of a long study of the world's philanderers. Druckerman has crunched numbers, collated evidence, and acquainted herself with the lexicon of adultery in two dozen cities in 10 different countries across the world.

She has interviewed adulterers (one-off; serial; recovering; flagrant; and tortured) and cuckolds (or 'men who wear green hats' according to the Chinese) in Moscow, Kazakhstan, London, New York, Paris, Indonesia, South America and beyond... She discovered that the Japanese don't count it as infidelity if they've paid for it, and that the best thing that can happen to them in one of their famous sex clubs is 'oral sex without showering first'.

She discovered that 40 per cent of Russians surveyed think affairs are 'not at all wrong' or 'not always wrong', and that upper-class Muscovites think affairs conducted at beach clubs do not compromise wedding vows one iota.

She discovered that Indonesian women in extremely traditional Islamic marriages 'have affairs, and the reasons they give for them are exactly the same as the reasons my girlfriends in New York City gave: my husband doesn't listen to me, I need someone who'll make me feel smart and pretty again; my husband doesn't do that, but my boyfriend does ...' She discovered that on average the British cheat more than the Americans - and the French.

Read More ...

Living Alone Doubles The Risk Of Serious Heart Disease

Living Alone Doubles The Risk Of Serious Heart Disease

MedicineWorld.Org

People who live alone double their risk of serious heart disease as those who live with a partner, suggests research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. This includes severe angina and heart attack.

The finding is based on a study of more than 138,000 adults between the ages of 30 and 69 living in one area (Aarhus) of Denmark.

Between 2000 and 2002, 646 people were diagnosed with severe angina, or sustained a heart attack, or sudden cardiac death, a spectrum of conditions known as acute coronary syndrome.

When analysed in detail, using information from population registers, poor educational attainment and living on a pension were linked to an increased risk of the syndrome.

But the two strongest predictive factors for the syndrome were age and living alone.

Women above the age of 60 and living by themselves, and men over the age of 50, in the same position, were twice as likely to have the syndrome as everyone else.

Lone women over 60 comprised just over 5 per cent, and lone men over 50 just under 8 per cent, of the whole population.

Yet lone women in this age group accounted for a third of all deaths from the syndrome within 30 days of diagnosis, while lone men in this age group accounted for two thirds of deaths.

The lowest risks included cohabiting with a partner, a high level of education, and being in work. Women divorcees also enjoyed a lower risk of the syndrome.

The authors say that certain risk factors tend to be more common in the lifestyles of those who live by themselves, which may help to explain the differences.

These include smoking, obesity, high cholesterol and fewer visits to the family doctor. People living on their own may be less able to draw on social support networks as well, say the authors.