A.S.M Riad Arif , Graduated from South Asian University, New Delhi:

Over the last few decades, the divorce rate of Bangladesh is getting higher and now it’s an alarming situation particularly at urban middle class family. A Dhaka based Top Bengali Newspaper Prothom Alo recently reports that, ‘One divorce per hour in Dhaka’. The reports shown that 50 thousands divorced applications were filed in the last six years at Dhaka City Corporation but they are not only the newly married couple.
Many of the couples are demanding divorce after passing 10 or more years of their conjugal life and it’s very harmful for their children. Many of the children have to suffer for their parent’s decision. A child of a broken family has to face psychological problem and identity crisis in their social life.
According to a recent report of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics divorce application rate has increased by 34 per cent in the fast few years. The components and the causes of divorced has also changed in recent decades.
These reasons of divorce are now multi-dimensional. Extramarital affairs, Social media addiction, value clash, identity crisis, egoistic problem effect of modernity and rising of self-identity are the newly born causes of divorce.
Because of the addiction of social media many of the people are living in a virtual world which leads to destroy the bonding with their better half. In the At the age of Internet there are many windows now and its very cheap to get connected and involved. So the couple is more suspicious about extra marital affairs of their partner. The level of trust is now below the average . Many of them are so much busy at facebook or twitter and do not get quality time to spend with their wife or husband which creates a distance.
Women are self-employed now. They are no more dependent to their husband and alert about their position at family. On the other hand husbands are still trying to behave like a master for some cases thus brings conflict in their conjugal life. Women are not agreeing to perform dual role: as a house wife and an employee and it increase their ego. Divorce can be seen in Bangladesh from two major perspectives. The first one is legal perspective and another one is socio-economic perspective.
A study found that ‘reinforcing the social, cultural and religious traditions, the society of Bangladesh promotes a division of social space and difference in behavioral norms between men and women’. Many of the husbands demand superior position at family.
In the early 90’s Bangladesh has experienced a massive socio-economic transformation. Because of privatization people are hurry to take shelter at the cities. So the traditional concept of an extended family was changed. It helps to rise of the nuclear family which includes only husband and wife and their one or two young children.
Marriage is not only bonding by law it’s a bonding of love, emotion or sharing. It should not take place only between bride and groom. It’s an opportunity to exchange social relationship between two families. So everyone should have enough respect for each other. Couple should find out the solution how they work out their marriage.