AN ITCH

Head louse
Originally uploaded by of rice and zen

Whilst at Primary School, Little Girl regularly came home with a copy of a health letter warning about yet another outbreak of head lice. It was always dressed up nicely, pointing out that these awful creatures revel on nice clean heads but, to stem the ever increasing number of outbreaks, every parent’s help was needed to check their children’s hair and take steps to eradicate the itch-creating monsters if found. Of course, as any member of the previous generation will tell you, it wasn’t like that in their day when Nitty Nora patrolled the school corridors and periodically you were made to line up outside her room to have your head inspected one by one. In the absence of inspections by the school nurse, it seems that the head louse population is flourishing and whilst there are many parents clamouring for the return of the old system, my experience from talking to teachers is that they can spot an infestation as soon as it starts, simply from the scratching that goes on in the classroom. I have to say that just blogging about it causes me to itch all over.

So what has all this got to do with divorce? Well to be honest not a great deal, save that I was reminded of the itch caused when reading the weekend’s newspapers. It seems that research in the USA, Russia and Scandinavia has suggested that the infamous 7 year itch in a marriage in fact now happens after only 5 years, in these our modern times.

It’s a little like head lice I suppose in that we are all so busy that life has speeded up to the point where not as much time is spent on checking our children’s scalps as it used to be. Likewise in a relationship, once the honeymoon period is over, many turn elsewhere to be scratched. Who knows, as life continues to step up apace, will the honeymoon period be simply a fortnight in a 4 star hotel on Gran Canaria followed by the ubiquitous fortnight itch?

The trend may even have started for, once upon a time, I was involved in divorcing a couple who both suffered from a 45 minute itch when the bride departed from the wedding reception with the best man, whilst the groom was found in a broom cupboard with one of the bridesmaids. It had the benefit of giving the guests a wedding to remember coupled with the opportunity to take home their wedding presents. This made the subsequent financial proceedings relatively easy as there was nothing left to divide between the happy couple.