SMS romance is grounds for divorce: court
A South Korean court has ruled that sending romantic text messages to someone other than your spouse can be grounds for divorce.
In a ground-breaking case the Seoul family court granted a divorce to a 62-year-old woman who complained that her husband had sent text messages such as "I love you" and "I miss you so bad" to another woman.
The court ordered the husband to hand over half of the family property as well as nearly $50,000.
A spokesman for the court said while the text messages indicated the husband was cheating, the court still required supporting evidence to grant a divorce.
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Marriage outlasts living together
Marriages last longer than de facto relationships the US Centers for Disease Control reported on Tuesday.
About 78 per cent of marriages lasted five years or more, compared with less than 30 per cent of what the CDC called cohabiting unions, or couples living together outside marriage.
One reason cohabitations were shorter-lived than marriages is that 51 per cent of couples who lived together made the transition to marriage within three years, CDC said in a statement.
Over 40 per cent of men and women aged 15-44 were married in 2002 when the interviews were conducted, compared with 9 per cent who were living together. The report was based on a nationally representative sample of 12,571 men and women.
Other findings:
The odds of staying together 10 years or longer in a first marriage are better for couples of the same racial origin, the report found.
Nearly 80 per cent of couples who have their first child at least eight months after their first marriage are likely to celebrate their 10th anniversary; those who don't have children are more than twice as likely not to last 10 years.
About 75 per cent of marriages between men and women 26 years old or older last at least 10 years, compared with only about half of teen marriages.
This article was extracted from here.
Senate rejects Australian gay marriage bill
THE Senate has comprehensively defeated a bid to legalise gay marriage, although a third of the senators did not turn up for the vote.
Before the gay pride Mardi Gras in Sydney this weekend, the bill was rejected by 45 votes to five, with only the Greens voting to liberalise the marriage laws.
But some of the senators who were absent from the chamber are uncomfortable with their party's official policies opposing a move to let gay couples marry.
Among the notable absentees were WA Labor senator Louise Pratt, and South Australian Liberal Simon Birmingham, who was at a meeting in the opposition leader's office.
All the senior ministers including Climate Change Minister Penny Wong were at a cabinet meeting.
Because it was what the major parties term a ''Mickey'' - as in Mouse - where they vote together, senators who had a conscientious objection were not required to seek leave to miss the vote.
Senator Hanson-Young seized on the absentee rate to declare the major parties split.
''There may have been a group of senators voting to keep discrimination against same-sex couples being able to marry the one they love, but well over one-third of all senators were absent for the final vote, presumably the only form of protest open to them,'' she said.
The Greens have pledged to reintroduce the bill after the election.
MISHA SCHUBERT
Article extracted from The Age.
