younger Catholic laymen, and a new generation of priests, were uncomfortably aware that by the end of the 1950s the Vatican’s authoritarian rigidity in public and private matters alike was both anachronistic and imprudent. Back in 1900, most marriages in Italy had lasted around twenty years, before being dissolved by the death of a spouse. By the end of the third quarter of the century marriages lasted in excess of thirty-five years, and demand for the right to divorce was steadily growing.
Divorce wasn't as common because people died earlier?
