Australian researchers released new findings concerning marriage and divorce this week and it has received mild coverage on the news programs in the United States. "The Early Show" on CBS decided to take a crack at discussing the report on Wednesday morning and only succeeded in sounding uninformed and out of touch.
Maggie Rodriguez, co-anchor and the star of the week on NewsBusters, had her own perception of sex before marriage. In a separate study from the Australian one (but in the same vein) Harry Smith reads that "Couples who shack up before tying the knot are more likely to get divorced than their counterpart."
With no script, just shock and surprise, Rodriguez lets out, "Really? Now that's surprising. Everybody nowadays does that."
Harry agreed, "Everybody cohabitates."
Ah, "everybody does it."
Matt Titus, author of "Why Hasn't He Called?" took upon himself to explain why men who marry under the age 25 are half more likely to divorce. It's quite simple actually: "...because men that are under 25 most of the time are not eligible candidates for marriage. They haven't had enough sexual experience with varying women, that's very important."
Titus was reducing it to simple animal sexuality, but Smith interpreted it liberally as "[They] are not mature."
Titus continued to explain that "They don't know how to compromise. Haven't mastered the art of that. Aren't ready to have one wife, one woman for the rest of their lives. They haven't mastered the art of monogamy. 25-year-old men are not forward-thinking. They don't think of the repercussions of their actions. They're just not ready."
So, the average CBS viewer can conclude that people should have sex because everybody's doing it and that it's okay that young men are bad husbands because really, they should be out running around to learn how to be a good one first.
Glad they cleared that up.
