DIVORCE

Key trends
• The overall trend of divorce is that it is decreasing
Ronald Fletcher (1966)
• Changing expectations of love and marriage
People expect and demand more from marriage
Therefore, they are less likely to put up with an unhappy
marriage and are more likely to end with divorce
A large proportion of divorcees remarry
People are not rejecting the institution of marriage but
are simply expecting more from the relationship
Anthony Giddens (1992)
• Confluent Love
Focuses on intimacy, closeness and emotion which forms the
basis of relationships
Rather than the feelings of duty and obligation reflected in
the traditional marriage vows ‘for better or worse, for richer or
poorer, ‘till death do us part’
Decision to marry is increasingly based on confluent love
Stephanie Coontz (2006)
• Overloading Marriage
Individuals are becoming increasingly emotionally dependent
on their partners
This can lead to marital breakup by overloading the
relationship
Urlich Beck and Elisaebeth Beck (2001)
• Individualisation
The norms which define appropriate behavior are becoming
less powerful
High value is placed on self-expression, individual fulfillment
and independence
Marriage can be a strain to this liberation
High divorce rates can be seen as a result of
individualization
Cockett and Tripp (1994)
• Changing social issues
In the 20th century couples are less likely to stay together in
order to avoid the stigma and shame associated with divorce
Rising divorce rate has led to the ‘normalization’ of divorce
Divorce is more acceptable as a means of dealing with a
failed marriage
Kathleen Kurz (1995)
• Economic position of women
Women have often been ‘trapped’ in unhappy marriages
They cannot support themselves and their children without
their husbands’ income
Their opportunities to divorce are severely restricted unless
they can become economically dependent
Graham Allan and Graham Crow (2001)
• Evaluation
• Dennis and Erdos (New Right)
Lone-parent female-headed families has a negative effect on
boys
They have poorer health and lower educational attainment
They grow up without the knowledge of male responsibilities
and as a result are irresponsible, immature, anti-social young
men
• Charles Murray (New Right)
Lone-parent female-headed families are married to the state
(dependent on benefits)
Graham Allan and Graham Crow (2001)
• Evaluation
Women’s chances of economic independence have
improved significantly over the past 50 years
Increasing numbers of women have entered the labour force
Divorce settlements have taken more account of women’s
financial needs
Welfare benefits for women with dependent children have
improved
Women are able to live independently from their former
husband
Most women find themselves financially worst off after
divorce
Diana Gittens (1993)
• Women and marriage
Rising divorce rates are symptomatic of all that is wrong with
traditional patriarchal marriage
It is women rather than men that are increasingly dissatisfied
with marriage
• Statistics:
2/3 of divorce petitions were brought by husbands (1940s)
70% of petitions brought by wives (2000)
This may indicate that women are more dissatisfied with
marriage than men
Diana Gittens (1993)
• Evaluation
Allan and Crow would argue that the statistics show a
greater need to settle financial and housing arrangements,
particularly for women with dependent children
MARRIAGE
Key Trends
• The overall trend is that marriage rates have decreased
• In 2005 the general marriage rate fell by 60% to 146,120
Marriage: Reasons for decrease
• Divorce Reform Act (1969)
• Secularisation
• Fear of commitment and divorce
• Rise of Feminism
• More liberal society
• Female independence
• Economic position of women
• Less social stigma attached to family diversity e.g. lone-
parent, cohabitation, civil partnerships, etc
Re-marriage
• A second or repeated marriage
• There has been an overall increase in re-marriage
• In 1961 14% of all marriages (57,000) were re-marriages
• In 2009, re-marriage accounted for 16% of all marriages
• The largest increase in re-marriages was between 1971
and 1972 - the Divorce Reform Act was implemented in
1971
• It can be said that the increase in divorces increased the
number of re-marriages
• Ronald Fletcher (1966) - people are not rejecting the
institution of marriage but are expecting more from it
Age at marriage
• People are getting married at a later age
• In 1971 the average age for first time marriage was 25 for
men and 23 for women
• In 2009 the average age for first marriage was 36.3 for
men and 36.5
• Women tend to marry older men
• Sue Sharpe – girls prioritise their career over a family
• Beck and Beck Gurnsheim - individualisation
• Feminism
• More liberal society
• Less social stigma attached to marrying later
Civil partnerships
• There has been an overall increase in civil partnerships
• Civil Partnership Act (2004 – came into force in 2005)
• Civil partnerships peaked in 2006
• From 2006 civil partnerships decrease and then remained
steady
COHABITATION
The state or condition of living together as
husband and wife without being married
Key Trends
• In 1976-1998 the number of non-married women under 50
cohabiting more than trebled from 9% to over 27%
• The number of cohabiting couple families increased
significantly between 2001 and 2011, from 2.1 million to
2.9 million
• Haskey (2001) -
• McRae (1999) – love is the most common reason for
people cohabiting
Cohabitation: Reasons for increase
• Bradford Wilcox (2011) – economic downturn leads to
delaying of marriage due to economic constraints and
instability of relationships
• Beaujouan and Bhrochláin (2011) – attitudes towards
cohabitation have also changed. The 2006 British Social
Attitudes Survey found that 2/3 of respondents thought
there was ‘little difference socially between being married
and living together as a couple’
• Jeffrey Weeks (2000) – families of choice and
acceptance of family diversity
• Secularisation
• Postmodernity
SINGLEHOOD
The state of being unmarried
Key Trends
• The overall trend in singlehood is that it has increased
• Of women between 1946-1950 only 7% of women
remained unmarried by the age of 32
• Of women born between1961-1975 28% remained
unmarried under the age of 32
• These figures reflect the fact that an increasing proportion
of men and women are delaying getting married or not
marrying at all
• Singlehood is most common among affluent young people
Singlehood: Reasons for increase
• Beck and Beck Gurnsheim (2001) – individualisation
• Sue Sharpe – girls prioritise their career over a family
• Creative singlehood – positive view of singlehood
• Cohabitation
• Less social stigma attached to singlehood
• Economic position of women