I find that divorce increases as the social stigma against it decreases. In the United States, people used to remain married and work through problems because a failed marriage reflected on a person in a negative light. Today, there is almost no negative context. When people no longer want to be married, they simply file for divorce and their relationship is over (after a bit of haggling over children and money). As such, there is no social incentive to remain married, and also no social penalty for divorce.

One can probably trace this trend, in the United States, to the late 1960s and the liberal trend that swept the nation at that time. Social philosophies tended to favor doing whatever "felt good" rather than following societal mores (rules about what one should do in society). Since a person in a difficult relationship could "feel good" by simply leaving the relationship, they chose to do so in increasing amounts rather than taking the more responsible route of working things out.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan