This NP article summarizes some interesting research on causes of suicide in northern aboriginal communities. There seems to be a case to be made that broken relationships at young ages are corelated with suicide. The work isn't perfect, or at least the article represents its findings in an imperfect manner; for instance, although there is a corelation between multiple early failed relationships and suicides, an excellent study would find a way of controlling for dependent personalities. (The sort of person most prone to multiple turbulent love affairs, for instance, might well be more prone to suicide, whether or not they ended up having their hearts broken repeatedly. This would redefine the relevant risk factor as being one of attitudes, beliefs and personalities rather than behaviours, which would in turn suggest a very different response.) But it is nonetheless interesting.
The wider implications are important for all of North American society. The increase in early sexual relationships, and premarital activity in general, has coincided neatly not only with booming rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and venereal disease but also with increased mental illness, suicide attempts and completed suicides (as well as violent crimes) among teenagers, thought in earlier generations to be largely exempt from such problems. Clearly many other factors are at work here, especially the disintegration of the family largely caused by the promiscuity of their elders, but it would be hard to argue that exclusive and sexually active dating has in any way improved the lives and mental health of high school age children.
The Medveds and other writers on society and childhood have pointed this out. The Medveds in particular are advocates of more or less stopping teenage dating as we understand it, not, as they say, because they want children to think love and romance are unimportant but precisely because they recognize how important and vital to human happiness they are. Partially formed people are very poorly equipped to deal with either the selection of a long term partner or the breakup of a relationship, and seem much more likely than their more mature counterparts to respond at worst with violence and self-destruction, and at best (if we can call it that) by minimizing the significance of relationships and sex. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in her many articles on marriage, sex and popular culture has also speculated that one reason for rising divorce levels is precisely the fact that by adulthood most of us have been conditioned to believe that the breakup of a relationship is minor, the cause of a week or two's unhappiness at most, and that a new sexual and romantic partner is only a trip to the bar away. This willingness to discard relationships, and the emotional calluses built up by years of this behaviour, she suggests, contribute greatly to the lack of effort which many boomers and Gen Xers put into maintaining or resuscitating their marriages and to the seeming ease with which they walk away from not only spouses but often children, parents, jobs and friendships -- the things that our culture until recently considered the most worthy of sustained commitment and sacrifice.
It is hard to say what needs to change, or rather what could plausibly be changed. Many teenagers recognize that it is foolish to commit to a career path too rigidly while still in high school; perhaps if they were encouraged to think more seriously about the possible consequences, they might conclude that it is equally foolish to commit too rigidly to a boyfriend or girlfriend at this stage, even a potential spouse. Of course, this will only improve behaviour if some link is forged between sexual activity and marriage (or even the much wimpier commitment), and given that this link has recently been broken, melted down and cast into a gay pride button, this seems in the short term, in the public sphere, to be most unlikely. But conservatives shouldn't be afraid to take the long view, and a few teenagers who behave sanely and cautiously are better than having no teenagers who behave in this way. More importantly, just as the damage from a broken marriage, neglected child, or act of violence ripples outward, causing pain to those several degrees removed from the person in question, so can a single intact family help to spread stability, virtue and sanity much further than is immediately obvious.
Posted by Clio at August 24, 2003 05:54 PM