Spain, Marriage and Puticlubs

Spain, traditionally a catholic country where divorce was virtually impossible and carried a huge social stigma. Now its catching up with the rest of Western Europe with its new laws bringing higher divorce rates.

However its still a long way away from disposible marriage system enjoyed in the USA where you can get married in Vegas dressed as Elvis and Marilyn and then get divorced before the photos have come back from the printers. This is perfectly summed up by the great Bart Simpson "marriage? im not ready for a 3 year commitment yet"

Coming from the UK which is not too far behind the US cultural acceptance of rotating door marriages i can make some interesting comparisons between the more traditional Spanish system and the the more liberal UK.

Spain - hard to get out of marriage, lots of brothels

UK - easy to get out of marriage, few brothels*

*ignoring the Eastern European explosion of the last 5 years

It seems that since escaping an unhappy marriage is harder in Spain so brothels became more acceptable than divorce. Is this the case? Email me and let me know!

Another thing i notice is that in this country of lower divorce and seperation rates is that the communities seem more secure with less crime where Spaniards are involved and less evidence of social problems which sociologists in the UK try to relate back to single parent society. However the news is full of wives getting beaten to death by their husbands.  Anyone wish to discuss this hot potato of divorce V social integrity?

My final controversial question for the day is that with Spain having a ridiculous number of brothels and the UK so few by comparison, has anyone ever compared the rape and sexual crime statistics? The reason i ask this is that in the UK i have lots of female friends who live in fear of getting raped especially in the cities. I agree that this is probably more down to a percieved threat than a real threat but when they come to Spain they feel totally safe. I know that statistics on the subject will only count reported cases but even the figures i found suggest that after adjusting for population sizes the UK still has twice as many cases of rape compared to Spain. Is there a corolation between sexual assults and access to paid sex in a society?

These are just over-a-beer observations, I havent conducted a huge socialogical study of the subject but I would be interested to hear from anyone who has a view on this and i hope it can stimulate some useful debate.