Divorce rate shoots up at alarming rate

Divorce was once thought to be an ailment of capitalist societies in the Western world. But recently we came across an eye-opening statistics of talak or divorce rate reported by a leading Bangla daily. Though the rest of the country lags far behind, urban centres like Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet seem to have defeated some of the western countries in number of divorces. As many as 39 divorces are taking place in the capital every day or one divorce in every 37 minutes in the five months from June. It is indeed beyond our imagination. Chattogram follows with 18 divorces a day. But it is Sylhet where submission of divorce appeal has gone up 10 times higher in the first 10 months of this year.

Particularly, in June we saw a surge of divorce notices. Between June and October, 5,970 divorces were completed. In a city of 18 million, divorce had been already high before the pandemic. In 2019, the number of divorces was 920 in each month during the five months under review as against 1,194 ---an increase of 29.78 per cent. The grim scenario also depicts how the corona pandemic has messed up the conjugal lives of many crossing the level of tolerance.

As it becomes crystal clear, couples already suffering strained relations found this pandemic either more oppressive or used it as an excuse for getting rid of their husbands or wives. This increasing trend of breakup marriage ties certainly corresponds to a higher incidence of domestic violence reported both in countries like Bangladesh and in cosmopolitan and advanced countries of the western world. For some people spending time with dominant partners who are also oppressive makes things worse and simply impossible for them to stay glued together. Furthermore, one of the reasons is financial constraint triggered by the lockdown. As high as 70 per cent divorce petitions were filed by women. This further highlights male domination and at the same time a positive trend that women receive support from their parents' families and the antithesis of the stigma attached to women divorcees.

However, it is acknowledged by everyone that the ultimate victims of a broken family are children. Children become deprived of love and care of their parents. Therefore, the parents must open the door of reconciliation. They also need to be more tolerant. Couples must sincerely and mutually work to make their marriages joyful. Lastly, a culturally developed mindset is needed to get rid of from this malaise.