trends Flashcards
what is a divorce?
legal ending of a marriage
what is the recent trend for divorce?
increasing
reasons for divorce - changing legislation
Divorce Reform Act 1969 (1971)
- enabled divorce to become easier for unhappy couples to access. This was a revolutionary piece of legislation as it enabled a ‘no fault’ divorce to be requested. This meant that an individual did not need grounds, such as adultery or abandonment, in order to get divorced. They could state ‘irretrievable differences’.
- As a result of this legislation the overall divorce rate and total number of divorces has steadily increased since 1969.
- Came into action in 1971- divorce rates doubled as divorce was no easier, quicker, cheaper.
confluent love
marriage, lone parenthood
- Confluent love is a theory created by Giddens, which argues that individuals are now looking to create meaningful relationships that are based on love and respect.
- As long as relationship is beneficial for the individuals the relationship will continue. As soon as it is not beneficial then an individual will seek an alternative which possesses meaningful for the foundations of the next relationship.
impact of feminism
- Interviews conducted by Liberal feminist Sue Sharpe show how girls’ attitudes to education and priorities in work and marriage changed.
- In ‘Just Like A Girl‘, 1976, they were ‘love, marriage, husbands and career, more or less in that order. However by 1996 they’d switched to ‘job, career and being able to support themselves’ making girls: more confident, assertive, ambitious and committed to gender equality
- Sharpe found the girls saw education as being the main route to a career, financial independence and the subsequent security that came with it.
+ girl guide study
impact of feminism
genderquake
- WIlkinson used the term Genderquake to describe the huge shift and shake up in attitudes towards femininity and the role of women in the last few decades. Woman are now free to make choices about their careers, marriage and having children.
- makes it more acceptable for women to not be married
secularisation
- Wilson (1966) described secularisation as “the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose their social significance.”
- Legal marriages are seen more like a contract than a sacred union, so they are easier to terminate.
- Less than half the population now define themselves as Christian
- ‘No faith’ is the second most common answer in the 2021 Census
divorce is seen as more acceptable
social policy
- Equal Pay act 1970 - women are less dependent on a male breadwinner
- Sex Discrimination act 1975 - people cannot be discriminated for their marital status, so makes it more acceptable to not be married
what is a marriage?
a legal binding of two people
what is the trend for marriage?
decreasing, and getting married later
reasons for trend in marriage - postmodern society
beck + allan and crowe
Beck - Fewer people getting married because of an increase in ‘risk consciousness’ – people see that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce and so they are less willing to take the risk and get married.
Allan and Crowe - we no longer follow a fixed pattern of growing up, leaving home, marrying young and having children.
reasons for trend in marriage - Cohabitation as a long-term alternative to marriage
‘The emergence of cohabitation as an acceptable context for childbearing has changed the family - formation landscape,’ - Gibson-Davis.
reasons for trend in marriage - access to family planning
- Women can control their fertility
- Contraceptive pill- introduced in 1961 to married women. Originally for women who had already had children and did not want more
- 1974 - able to prescribe to single women
- Estimated that 70% of all women in Britain have used the pill at some stage in their lives.
reasons for trend in marriage - secularisation
Gibson - secularisation has led to a weakening of marriage values. We are less influenced by traditional institutions such as marriage that the church would have upheld in the past.
what is the trend in same-sex marriages?
increase
