Love and Marriage in Canada
By Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth Schmitz
"the marriage doctors" and Authors of the Book
Golden Anniversaries: The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriage
(Available at Amazon.com) .
We fell in love in Canada today. You can, of course, read that two ways. Those of you who have followed our writings and musings about love and successful marriage know that we fell in love with each other some 42 years ago. And it is true that we fall in love all over again each day of our lives together. But today, we fell in love with Canada!
Currently, we are in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada interviewing happily and successfully married couples for our new book tentatively entitled, “Golden Anniversaries: Love and Marriage in Romantic Countries.” After spending just 72 hours in Halifax and environs we are struck with the beauty of the Canadian Maritime Provinces and friendliness of the people.
First, the beauty of Halifax. We sat in a wonderful seafood restaurant for dinner today overlooking the Halifax Harbor. The water is undeniably beautiful! Seeing the many boats and ships of all sizes pass effortlessly and relentlessly through the water of the Atlantic Ocean makes your mind drift back to the days of tall ships and the romance of the sea. The mist rolling through the harbor is, in many ways, more surreal than real. It has a mystical and magical look to it and almost felt dreamlike today as we admired it over a glass of delightful Nova Scotia Chardonnay from the Jost Vineyards. And the seagulls were graceful and splendiferous as the squawked their way from granite outcropping to granite outcropping. Oh, yeah, there was definitely romance in the air in Halifax!
Secondly, the warmth and friendliness of the people is simply awesome. Everywhere we have gone so far – our hotel, the local seafood restaurant we visited today, the airport, the rental car kiosk, the back country store on the northern part of the island, the tall ship we sailed on, the service station – we are greeted by people who are polite, relaxed, good natured, humorous, and in love with life. We have been smitten by the Canadians! They are delightful and wonderful!
And the seafood here has been amazing. Just tonight, we ate at Five Fisherman, a marvelous restaurant with great food and even better service. Our waitress was Helen and she made our whole romantic meal even more romantic. She just turned 30. And she is in love! We darn near adopted her as our own!
Today we interviewed a delightful couple in Halifax and another in Bedford. Tomorrow we head northwest to a little town near the Bay of Fundy. Thursday, back to Bedford. We finish our interviews on Friday in Halifax. Here is what we have discovered so far – marriage is alive and well in Canada!
Ironically, on our third day in Halifax, an article appeared on the front page of The Globe and Mail (called Canada’s “National Newspaper”) entitled “Canadians redefine the family.” With no offense to the editors of this newspaper, we thought their interpretations were among the most egregious misrepresentations of factual data we seen in our many years of “crunching numbers” about marriage. The article completely misrepresented and distorted the reality of the state of marriage in Canada and we are, frankly, quite perplexed about why a newspaper would so blatantly distort the data to the point of grossly misleading the country’s citizenry. There has to be an agenda and/or a political purpose. Let us explain why we believe Canada is still very much in love with marriage.
First of all, the couples with successful marriages we have interviewed on this trip mirror the results of our interviews in the USA and around the world that we have conducted over the past 25 years. And contrary to the conclusions in the newspaper article we referenced, Canadians still are engaging in traditional marriage in overwhelming numbers. Here are the facts – in 2001 a little over 70% of Canadian “families” were headed by married couples. In 2006, that figure still hovered near 69%. So-called “common law couples” represented 14% of “families” in 2001 and a little over 15% in 2006.
Now, here is where all this gets interesting. We have a saying in academia that we repeat often – “Statistics are for liars and damn liars.” The aforementioned newspaper chose to talk about the percentage growth in common law couples instead of the actual percentage of “families” headed by them implying that common law marriages were becoming more popular than traditional marriages. This is sort of like saying that there are more marriages in Montreal than there are in Halifax, so Montreal is more “marriage friendly” than Halifax. To conclude such is absurd! Montreal is a much larger city than Halifax with more than four times the population—of course they would be expected to have at least four times the number of marriages! The Globe and Mail committed this same misapplication of statistical data, and shame on them! Their logic is somewhat analogous to saying that an increase from 1 to 2 is a 200% increase while an increase of from 100 to 125 is a 25% increase; hence 2 is larger than 125!
Canadians should celebrate the fact that traditional marriage is still something that nearly 70% of “family structures” in their country mirror. To suggest otherwise is to mislead the public into believing something that is not true. Marriage is alive and well in Canada and no “playing around with the data” is going to change that.
Now you can order the Doctors' new book entitled , Golden Anniversaries: The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriage at Amazon.com. With 25 years of research experience on successful marriage and their own 41-year marriage, Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz know what makes marriage work. From their hundreds of interviews with happily married couples, representing 15,000 years of marriage, they've discovered the seven pervasive characteristics present in all successful marriages. Their book exposes the secrets for success through these poignant, real life stories.
Get started with “the marriage doctors” by taking their Marriage Quiz or asking them a question at Ask The Marriage Doctors or downloading their FREE eBook at Salad Recipes For Love and Health.
During their distinguished careers the Doctors have received some 60 local, state, and national awards; published nearly 200 articles and manuscripts; delivered over 1000 speeches, workshops and public presentations; traveled throughout the world; and appeared on radio and television and in the print media. Dr. Charles D. Schmitz is Dean and Professor of Family and Counseling Therapy at the University of Missouri in St. Louis and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz is President of Successful Marriage Reflections, LLC.
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