Getting used to getting separated: The Trudeaus’ split isn’t the outlier it once was
It wasn’t too long ago that relationship difficulties could sink a political career — or cost you your head.
But news that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is separating from his wife of 18 years, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, isn’t exactly sending shockwaves across Ottawa or Washington. And there are two likely explanations for that.
On one hand, conjugal course corrections are becoming a more regular feature of the societies that vote politicians like Trudeau into office.
The divorce rate in the United States rose from below 10 of every 1000 new marriages in 1960 to roughly 15 in 2019, according to the The Institute for Family Studies. While the divorce rate in Canada actually shrank slightly over the last three decades, according to data from Statistics Canada, it remains a relatively new phenomenon: Ottawa only legalized the practice in 1968.
The Western world’s growing familiarity with divorce may explain why the type of “scandal” that sank Nelson Rockefeller’s 1964 presidential bid — marrying
