Changing Family Patterns (Divorce)

Question 1

Divorce (Changes)

Answer 1

Doubled between 1961-69 1969-72
2012: 6 times higher than 1961
65% of petitions come fro women.

Question 2

Divorce: Reasons

Answer 2

1. Law
   - Equalising the grounds (1923): followed by sharp rise in petitions from women.
   - Widening the grounds (1971): made divorce easier and divorce rate doubled.
   - Cheaper (1949)
2. Declining stigma
   - Mitchell and Goody note that an important change since the 60s has been the rapid decline in stigma attached to divorce.
3. Secularisation
4. Rising expectations of marriage
   - Fletcher: higher expectations make couples less willing to tolerate an unhappy marriage. (romantic love)
5. Women’s increased financial independence:
   - Women working (1971: 53% 2013: 67%)
   - Laws (Equal Pay, Sex Discrimination)
   - Girls succeed in education
   - Availability of welfare benefits
   - Allan and Crow: Marriage is less embedded in the economic system.
6. Feminist Explanation
   - Hochschild: Home compares unfavourably with work to women.
   - Work: women feel valued
   - Home: men’s resistance to housework is source of frustration and makes marriage less stable
7. Modernity and Individualisation
   - Beck and Giddens: traditional norms lose hold over individuals

Question 3

Meaning of high divorce

Answer 3

• New Right: undesirable as it undermines traditional nuclear family with is vital to social stability
• Feminist: desirable because women are breaking free from the oppression of patriarchal nuclear family
• Functionalist: Not a threat to marriage as a social institution. (high rate of re-marriage)
• Postmodernist and individualisation thesis: individuals have freedom to end a relationship.
• Interactionist