After yesterday’s discussion of divorce, moving, and vampire novels (yeah, I know…I guess you’d just have to read it below to see that tie-in), Robbie Sagers sent me an interesting article on divorce and economics.
The Associated Press reports a trend of divorcing couples staying in the same home because they can’t afford for either to move out (cue George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s version of “Two Story House” here).
The article seems to present this as a depressing development since the couples can’t achieve “closure” and move on. I wonder though if there’s not something providential at work here as well. After all, the divorce culture and the consumption culture tend to spur one another along (as I’ve argued here).
Maybe some couples will choose to stay, stand by their words, and work things out because they don’t feel the economic autonomy to do otherwise.
Maybe not.
Still, this is an interesting trend to watch. “Love, love will keep us together,” Captain and Tenille once told us. Sometimes Mammon does too.
