How the reasons for which the Romanians divorce evolved, starting from an analysis of statistics. “Grays' divorce” takes on a bigger extent

Last year, in Romania there was a divorce every half hour, according to an analysis transmitted hotnews.ro by the National Institute of Statistics. The most common divorces were in the age group 45-49 years, in the case of men, and in the case of women in the age group 35-39 years. The number of divorces with the cause of marital infidelity is higher in men, the data of statistics shows.

The number of women up to 30 years old who divorced was 2.2 times higher than the number of men belonging to the same age group.

The phenomenon of “gray divorce” (in which the partners are over 50 years) is manifested in Romania, the number of these divorces increasing year by year (with a maximum in 2021), being more than double compared to the first years after the Revolution

Starting with the age of 50, the number of men who have divorced increases significantly compared to women: 1.3 times in the age group 50-54 years, 1.5 times in the age group 55-59 years and about twice as much in the age group 60 years and over.

The average age of the spouses for divorce was 44.9 years for men and 41.4 years for women.

Comparing the average age of divorce with the average age of marriage (34.4 years for men and 31.4 years for women) it can be seen in the case of couples who have divorced that the sequence of marital life lasts, on average, 10.5 years for men, respectively 10.0 years for women.

In the counties, the highest values ​​of the average age in divorce were registered in Galați (46.7 years), Vaslui (46.5 years) and Brăila (46.2 years), and in women in Galați counties (42.9 years), Brăila (42.7 years) and the municipality of Bucharest (42.4 years).

The lowest value of the average age at the divorce was registered in Giurgiu county, for both men (43.1 years) and for women (39.6 years).

In 13 counties the number of divorces in the rural area exceeded the one in Urban, Ins shows. These are: Bistrița-Năsăud, Botoșani, Buzău Călărași, Dâmbovița, Ialomița, Iași, Ilfov, Olt, Prahova, Suceava, Teleorman and Vaslui.

About 10% of the divorces registered at national level take place in Bucharest. The fewest divorces were in the counties of Mehedinti (111 divorces) and Tulcea (162 divorces).

Compared to the other countries in the European Union, in 2023 (the last year for which data available at European level), Romania, with a divorce rate of 1.2 ‰, was below the European average (1.6 ‰).

The lowest divorce rates at European level were registered in Slovenia (1.0 ‰) and Croatia (1.1 ‰), and the highest divority rates were recorded in Latvia (2.8 ‰), Lithuania (2.5 ‰) and Finland (2.1 ‰).

According to INS data, the reasons for divorce are: adultery, jealousy and physical violence are the most widespread causes that lead to divorce, followed by excessive alcohol and drug use.

Worldwide, the most common reasons for divorce are: lack of commitment in the relationship: 75%, infidelity: 59.6%, irreconcilable differences: 57.7%, too early marriage: 45.1%, financial difficulties: 36.7%, alcohol or other substances abuse: 34.6%, domestic violence: 23.5%

200 years ago, the dominant reasons were others: family abandonment, diseases (!), Bigamia, blood mixing, monking one of the spouses, the man's thief, social differences in age or sodomy, is shown in the book of the Romanian researcher Constanta Vintilă-Ghitulescu, ” of the eighteenth century ”.

Family abandonment- wife must wait for her man for five years

At the Metropolis (the institution of the time that manages the divorces), several applications have been registered that invoke the abandonment of the conjugal domicile as a reason for separation, of which those submitted by women are double in number. Almost 4 times more complaints are against men who abandon their family to women running with lovers.

Glavele (chapters) 235 and 236 from the rectification of the law analyzes the leaving of the family according to the sex of the partner, giving importance to the male abandon.

The wife has to wait for her man for five years. If during this period, the husband did not send him money or letter, she can submit the “request for separation”. At the same time, the woman must prove with witnesses the absence of the husband but also the insistence with which he has endeavored to find him.

“Under the pretext of searching for a job or exercising it, the husband leaves home and forgets to return,” writes Constanța Vintilă.

He left with the merchant, Nicolae from Golecului Mahalaua stays in Constantinople. After six years he returns to Bucharest with tasks, but does not shoot “home”. Although he wears turban and Sălvari, the former neighbors recognize him and ask them to return to his wife. He denies his identity, saying that he is called Ismail, but he wants to tell them that his wife is the first guilty of his Turk. The neighbors' testimonies will help the Stana get the separation.

Bigamia- leaving for work is a good opportunity to contract a new marriage without declaring it on the first

In this way, the small craftsmen or the Balkan traders from the Ottoman Empire proceeds. They conclude, in Wallachia, another marriage, hiding their civil status or denying the existence of another relationship. As the priests do not always show themselves vigilant, Bigamia appears. In fact, it becomes known only because of unfortunate events in which people are mixed and which reveal their true status.

The archives have retained dozens of cases of bigamy, without taking into account the cohabitation, because such connections, although unlawful and sinful, did not rejuvenate the holy mystery of the wedding.

The Greek pie, after settling in Bucharest, marries Maria, but without warning that she has a wife and children in “his country”.

A man makes a different marriage more easily than a woman, because he moves more (15 cases of men bigami, only one big woman). Most often, to avoid all the unfortunate and expensive stages of a divorce process, the husband leaves the conjugal domicile and sits in another village and another county, as far as the house, where he is not known and where he marries the second time, writes Constanta Vintilă.

Illness- but not any disease and not every patient can demand separation

The various diseases are also a good reason for divorce, but not any disease and not every patient can demand separation. After Pravilă, the separation for leprosy is granted, regardless of which of the spouses are sick and no matter what time of life the disease intervened. As for epilepsy, for example, things get complicated. If the disease intervened after marriage, the separation can be done neither for the husband nor for the wife. The two diseases are the only ones for which the separation can be invoked; Impotence is added.

The disease appears as the main reason for divorce in 35 requests, in 17 cases are the men who are shaking at the Metropolis and in 14 other griefs women invoke the disease of the husband (of whom seven concern the masculine power) and 4 other muds, where women, knowing their situation, unravels their spouses.

The diseases invoked are terrible: leprosy, hollow, teaspoon (typhoid fever), blindness, epilepsy, syphilis, madness. These diseases usually appear after marriage, because if the man had existed before he would have refused to marry a sick woman.

Other various reasons: the nuns of one of the spouses, the man's thief, the forced marriage

Various other reasons may be invoked to request the separation: blood mixing, one of the spouses, the man's thief, forced marriage, social differences, age mismatch, sodomy.

The mixing of blood is seen by the Church as the most detestable connection: “The mixed blood is a sin and a worse and more terrible mistake than the precurvia,” says the glava 211.1 Pravila considers that the incestuous relationships between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, between grandparents and grandchildren.

These relationships are punished with death, on the other hand, the other kinship links and spiritual alliances are left to the judge.

The mixing of blood becomes only rarely the subject for a mourning, being discovered, rather, due to other problems that people have or simply by chance, through a complaint from a member of the respective community.

Gheorghe and Maria from Ştefanda village, Vlaşca county, are step -brothers. They run together to Giurgiu where they marry. And where for five years I stay. Any return to the country would bring them punishment, as their connection violates the norms of the Church. Living in a foreign world, away from home and without helping the family as they were probably expected, because after five years are back. In order to escape the punishment, on November 3, 1791, they present themselves in front of the metropolitan, they humiliate and repent, claiming that they did not know that they had committed such a serious sin.

The thief constitutes a reason for divorce only in four cases, but it appears with the conjugal abandonment in three cases and in three other cases it is associated with the bad life. The law grants separation when it can prove that the man steals, plunders churches and graves or is a large road.

Neaga from the Moldovan village demanded the separation of her husband, after four years of marriage. Gheorghe is a notorious thief who has hidden his ship very well. Seven months after the wedding he resumed his old activity and began by breaking the church of the merchants from Buzau from where he stole books and Odăjdii. Caught, closed, released, Gheorghe breaks another church in Ploiesti.

This time, the punishment is aggravated, because the judges decide to transform it in an example for the rest of the community: after their nose and ears were cut and after it was walked through the fair, the thief is sent to the ocn. The wife asks for separation precisely to protect himself, fearing that the royal urgency will not deviate over it. Life with such a man is always uncertain. The wife is afraid for her own life and for that of the children, the cited work shows.

The stability, of which a home needs, becomes impossible to control, the common wealth and the dowry can be confiscated as a result of the male behavior. The thief, who came to prison, is no longer a support for his family, but a burden. Dear why the woman refuses to continue such a relationship and tries to get rid of a divorce.