POPULATION-CUBA: More Young Couples Shun Marriage

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jul 25 2000 (IPS) - Divorce continues to be the most common way in Cuba to put an end to matrimonial differences, while the younger population is increasingly turning to common-law unions for their long-term romantic relationships.

But official statistics show a decline in the number of legal marriages and of divorces compared to the rates at the beginning of the economic crisis in the early 1990s, when there was a notable increase.

Many Cubans sought an answer to their problems in marriage during the worst years of recession, but economic difficulties also led to the rapid break-up of even more couples.

“We married because it was easier for two to confront problems and bring in money, look for food, maintain the household. In the end I think that is also what wore us down and, when we divorced, there was nothing left,” Yanelis Gómez told IPS.

An employee of a government enterprise for more than 10 years, Gómez was married in August 1992.

She had met her husband, Alexis Fuentes, four months earlier, when they were assigned to work on the same project. “When I asked for a divorce at the end of last year, he didn’t even come by the house to see me,” Gómez says.

Official data indicate that last year 33,473 divorces were granted in Cuba (3.6 per 1,000 inhabitants), a rate specialists say is very high, though still lower than the totals for 1992 and 1993, the worst years of the island’s economic crisis resulting from the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, marriages totalled 57,252 in 1999, 14,848 of which involved the legalisation of couples who had already lived together – an option that has a long history in the eastern part of the island.

Matrimonial break-ups reached 63,432 (5.9 per 1,000) in 1992 and 64,938 (six per 1,000) in 1993, and then began to decline the next year, for a total of 56,712, ultimately falling to 39,798 (3.6 per 1,000) in 1998.

In 1992, records show 191,429 marriages, falling to 135,138 the following year, and dropping to 64,900 in 1998.

Though legal divorce has existed in Cuba since 1918, only in 1963 did such separations surpass one per 1,000 inhabitants, which led experts to associate the issue with the social changes arising from the socialist project implemented following the Fidel Castro- led revolution of the early 1960s.

In this sense, they stress that the Cuban family is undergoing a transformation, which is why it is essential to prepare young people for life as part of a couple.

University professor Olga Mesa says that behind the high divorce rates are not just superficial reasons or irresponsibility, and that “the archetype of the new family is beginning to appear, one that lacks hypocrisy and is authentically founded on new conceptions of life.”

A survey conducted in the late 1980s by the Centre for Youth Studies of the Union of Communist Youth of Cuba revealed that a large percentage of young people who decided to marry did so with divorce already in mind.

The young age of those getting married and subsequent immaturity of the couple in handling the inevitable contradictions and quarrels figure among the major causes of separation.

Material reasons also have their role in the phenomenon, such as lack of adequate housing, which often forces new couples to live with parents, increasing tensions that can lead to divorce – and dissuading many from formalising their long-term romantic relationships in the first place.

Researchers at the Centre for Family Studies at the Academy of Sciences indicate that “free unions” – or unmarried couples – are not a new occurrence in Cuba, though they have evolved and have different traits than in the past.

The number of people opting for a common-law marriage has increased considerably in the last decade. Last year, 94,346 children were born to single mothers in Cuba who said they were living with their child’s father.

But the number of unmarried couples is probably much higher, because as long as they do not have children they are generally categorised as single, say researchers, and the phenomenon is prevalent among young adults ages 20 to 24.

Suset González and Tania Alfonso, of the Centre for Psychological and Sociological Research of the Academy of Sciences, stress that the preference for this type of relationship is generally associated with economic difficulties and postponement of parenthood.

But among the social factors they say contribute to common-law relationships are the high levels of education and training in Cuba, as well as the widespread social participation of young women.

At the psychological level, this option is one way to avoid divorce, especially among those who have previously been married, they add.

Even so, the researchers believe the rapid increase in cohabitation does not indicate – nor is it the result of – the disappearance of the institution of marriage, which “continues to have validity among a majority of young people.”