marriage and divorce essay introduction

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Marriage and Divorce Essay Introduction, Tips, and Samples

Table of Contents

Divorce is a common topic for law and social science students to research and write about. The effects of divorce are varied and can be brought on by various factors.

This article provides a comprehensive overview of how to write a marriage and divorce essay. It provides tips, guidelines, topics, and sample introductions to make the writing process as easy as possible.

Let’s dive in!

How to Write an Essay on Marriage and Divorce

Sometimes divorce results from a mutual decision and a clean break with the family. But, more often, it is the culmination of years of tension. For this reason, the law includes numerous safeguards for parents and their offspring in the event of a divorce.

Family circumstances leading up to the divorce are also essential to consider. This is because socioeconomic status can significantly impact a couple’s ability to keep their marriage together. In conclusion, there is a wide range of potential topics for an effective essay on divorce.

Prove that you’ve thought about the bigger picture by discussing the factors contributing to divorce.

Find the root causes of the issue and explain them in a way that will convince the leader of their veracity. Use relevant statistics to support your claims and give your research more weight.

Once you’ve spotted a worrying pattern, you can try to elaborate on it and explain why this particular family issue is so pervasive.

Such concepts can be developed into full-fledged essays with the potential to leave a deep impression on the reader.

Legal Proceedings

It’s important to talk about the various legal proceedings involved in a divorce, regardless of the reason for the split. One of the worst parts of divorce is having to go to court to resolve issues like property division and child custody.

Prenuptial agreements are one example of precautions that can be taken to avoid such problems. However, you should also mention the drawbacks of these agreements.

Finally, you can talk about the societal factors contributing to divorce, such as teen pregnancy leading to early or forced marriages.

Sociological research can help pinpoint the root causes of divorce, which must be addressed to end this social problem.

If you want your essay to have more of an impact, remember to follow these general guidelines:

Points to Note for Marriage and Divorce Essay Introduction

Use interesting and engaging ways to start your divorce essay to keep the reader interested. If the reader loses interest and skims, you’ve failed.

Write an introductory paragraph that presents a high-level summary of the issue without diving into subtopics or specialist language.

Conclude with a clear thesis statement that states the question you will address and the position you will take, if applicable.

Don’t stray too far from the central argument you laid out in your thesis. To better engage your reader, keep your work narrowly focused.

Like how you should begin the paper, your divorce essay should end with a conclusion that summarizes the entire paper. Restate your thesis and add a few fitting closing remarks to your essay.

Separate article sections with titles that identify the themes should be explored in different paragraphs. This method makes the essay easier to read and more organized overall.

15 Topics and Sample Introduction on Marriage and Divorce Essay

What Happens to a Person After a Prolonged Divorce? When one spouse, typically the man, abandons the spouse and their children during a divorce, the surviving spouse may have trouble providing for them.

Young children are especially vulnerable to the adverse outcomes of divorce. Children’s reactions to their parent’s separation and eventual divorce vary depending on their age, gender, and personality.

Based on these issues, here are some topics and introductions to start your essay.

1. Psychological Counseling for Dealing with Divorce

One thing that happens after a divorce is that a person’s emotional and mental state changes. Counseling began in the country in the 1950s, when it was realized how important it was to… Why and how people get divorced.

Many marriages end because one partner cheats on the other. The person who was cheated on feels like all the work and sacrifices made to keep the marriage together was for nothing.

2. What Divorce Does to Children

When a married couple with children gets divorced, the law says that the children’s best interests must be protected. Difficulties that children face and ways to solve the new problems that arise after a divorce.

3. An Overview of the Children of Divorce’s Living Situation

Recent studies show that the number of divorces worldwide has increased a lot. This is primarily due to the shift […]

4. Exegetical Study of Divorce in the Bible

The divine plan for marriage and the right to divorce can be used to understand the passage of marriage and divorce.

5. How divorce affects the children

Scholars pay attention to how the child’s age affects their feelings about their parents’ split. Psychologists say that when parents split up, it’s a big change in how children are raised.

8. Marriage and Divorce in the Bible – Religious Studies

The most important thing is that the Bible says not to do it. Both society and the Church suffer when people get divorced. Infidelity is often a cause of divorce and stress disorder.

Divorces and stress disorders can have different causes. But the idea of cheating is still a bit shocking because people have the right to choose whether or not to do it. […]

9. Rates of Divorce in the United Arab Emirates

Even more worrisome is the fact that Emirates are involved in 30% of divorce cases in the UAE.

10. “How Divorce Affects Children” by Meera Chowdhry

For example, it is said that after the end of the Second World War, there was an increase in divorces.

11. How women are affected by divorce

Both people who believe in religion and those who don’t agree that it has helped bring peace and civilization to the world. On the other hand, divorce…

12. Why and how people get divorced in the UAE

In this case, the rate is the number of divorces compared to the total number of marriages in a year.

13. Deontology and Utilitarianism: The Ethics of Divorce

Before discussing the ethics of divorce, the paper first talks about ethics and then discusses divorce in modern society.

14. Settlement talks for a divorce

The goal of the meeting is to work out Rex’s divorce without going to court. All the people involved in the negotiations should be prepared for the negotiations. The results of divorce are poverty and instability.

Divorce isn’t the answer to problems in a marriage because it leads to poverty, instability, and a bad environment for the kids. Due to this situation, personal analysis shows that some children are usually left to the […]

15. How is coaching different from therapy when it comes to divorce?

Divorce is one situation where parents and children need help from a professional life coach to deal with the changes.

Wrapping Up

An introduction sets up the background, setting, and the immediate questions that need to be answered to determine how the essay will be structured.

We write about problems from the standpoint of the emotional, social, and practical effects that these issues have on people’s lives.

Abir Ghenaiet

Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.

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Chapter 14. Marriage and Family

Learning objectives, 14.1. what is marriage what is a family.

• Describe society’s current understanding of family
• Recognize changes in marriage and family patterns
• Differentiate between lines of decent and residence

14.2. Variations in Family Life

• Recognize variations in family life
• Understand the prevalence of single parents, cohabitation, same-sex couples, and unmarried individuals
• Discuss the social impact of changing family structures

14.3. Challenges Families Face

• Understand the social and interpersonal impact of divorce
• Describe the social and interpersonal impact of family abuse

Introduction to Marriage and Family

Christina and James met in college and have been dating for more than five years. For the past two years, they have been living together in a condo they purchased jointly. While Christina and James were confident in their decision to enter into a commitment like a 20-year mortgage, they are unsure if they want to enter into marriage . The couple had many discussions about marriage and decided that it just did not seem necessary. Wasn’t it only a piece of paper? And didn’t half of all marriages end in divorce?

Neither Christina nor James had seen much success with marriage while growing up. Christina was raised by a single mother. Her parents never married, and her father has had little contact with the family since she was a toddler. Christina and her mother lived with her maternal grandmother, who often served as a surrogate parent. James grew up in a two-parent household until age seven, when his parents divorced. He lived with his mother for a few years, and then later with his mother and her boyfriend until he left for college. James remained close with his father who remarried and had a baby with his new wife.

Recently, Christina and James have been thinking about having children and the subject of marriage has resurfaced. Christina likes the idea of her children growing up in a traditional family, while James is concerned about possible marital problems down the road and negative consequences for the children should that occur. When they shared these concerns with their parents, James’s mom was adamant that the couple should get married. Despite having been divorced and having a live-in boyfriend of 15 years, she believes that children are better off when their parents are married. Christina’s mom believes that the couple should do whatever they want but adds that it would “be nice” if they wed. Christina and James’s friends told them, married or not married, they would still be a family.

Christina and James’s scenario may be complicated, but it is representative of the lives of many young couples today, particularly those in urban areas (Useem 2007). Statistics Canada (2012) reports that the number of unmarried, common-law couples grew by 35 percent between 2001 and 2011 to make up a total of 16.7 percent of all families in Canada. Cohabitating, but unwed, couples account for 16.7 percent of all families in Canada. Some may never choose to wed (Jayson 2008). With fewer couples marrying, the traditional Canadian family structure is becoming less common. Nevertheless, although the percentage of traditional married couples has declined as a proportion of all families, at 67 percent of all families, it is still by far the predominant family structure.

Marriage and family are key structures in most societies. While the two institutions have historically been closely linked in Canadian culture, their connection is becoming more complex. The relationship between marriage and family is an interesting topic of study to sociologists.

What is marriage? Different people define it in different ways. Not even sociologists are able to agree on a single meaning. For our purposes, we will define marriage as a legally recognized social contract between two people, traditionally based on a sexual relationship and implying a permanence of the union. In creating an inclusive definition, we should also consider variations, such as whether a legal union is required (think of “common- law” marriage and its equivalents), or whether more than two people can be involved (consider polygamy). Other variations on the definition of marriage might include whether spouses are of opposite sexes or the same sex, and how one of the traditional expectations of marriage (to produce children) is understood today.

Sociologists are interested in the relationship between the institution of marriage and the institution of family because, historically, marriages are what create a family, and families are the most basic social unit upon which society is built. Both marriage and family create status roles that are sanctioned by society.

So what is a family? A husband, a wife, and two children—maybe even a pet—served as the model for the traditional Canadian family for most of the 20th century. But what about families that deviate from this model, such as a single-parent household or a homosexual couple without children? Should they be considered families as well?

The question of what constitutes a family is a prime area of debate in family sociology, as well as in politics and religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family in terms of structure with each family member filling a certain role (like father, mother, or child). Sociologists, on the other hand, tend to define family more in terms of the manner in which members relate to one another than on a strict configuration of status roles. Here, we will define family as a socially recognized group (usually joined by blood, marriage, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection and serves as an economic unit of society. Sociologists identify different types of families based on how one enters into them. A family of orientation refers to the family into which a person is born. A family of procreation describes one that is formed through marriage. These distinctions have cultural significance related to issues of lineage.

Drawing on the three sociological paradigms we have been studying in this introduction to sociology, the sociological understanding of what constitutes a family can be explained by symbolic interactionism, critical sociology, and functionalism. Symbolic interactionist theories indicate that families are groups in which participants view themselves as family members and act accordingly. In other words, families are groups in which people come together to form a strong primary group connection, maintaining emotional ties to one another over a long period of time. Such families could potentially include groups of close friends as family. Critical sociology emphasizes that the forms that define the “typical” family unit are not independent of historical changes in the economic structures and relations of power in society. The typical large, extended family of the rural, agriculture-based economy 100 years ago in Canada was much different from the single breadwinner-led “nuclear” family of the Fordist economy following World War II and different again from today’s families who have to respond to economic conditions of precarious employment, fluid modernity, and norms of gender and sexual equality.

In addition, the functionalist perspective views families as groups that perform vital roles for society—both internally (for the family itself) and externally (for society as a whole). Families provide for one another’s physical, emotional, and social well-being. Parents care for and socialize children, a function that prepares new members of society for their future roles. While interactionism helps us to understand the subjective experience of belonging to a “family” and critical sociology focuses on how families configure themselves in response to political-economic pressures and changes, functionalism illuminates the many purposes of families and their role in the maintenance of a balanced society (Parsons and Bales 1956). We will go into more detail about how these theories apply to family in later sections.

Challenges Families Face

North Americans are somewhat divided when it comes to determining what does and what does not constitute a family. In a 2010 survey conducted by Ipsos Reid, participants were asked what they believed constituted a family unit. Eighty percent of respondents agreed that a husband, wife, and children constitute a family. Sixty-six percent stated that a common-law couple with children still constitutes a family. The numbers drop for less traditional structures: a single mother and children (55 percent), a single father and children (54 percent), grandparents raising children (50 percent), common-law or married couples without children (46 percent), gay male couples with children (45 percent) (Postmedia News 2010). This survey revealed that children tend to be the key indicator in establishing “family” status: the percentage of individuals who agreed that unmarried couples constitute a family nearly doubled when children were added.

Another study also revealed that 60 percent of North Americans agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective) (Powell et al. 2010). Canadian statistics are based on the more inclusive definition of “census families.” Statistics Canada defines a census family as “composed of a married or common-law couple, with or without children, or of a lone parent living with at least one child in the same dwelling. Couples can be of the opposite sex or of the same sex” (Statistics Canada 2012). Census categories aside, sociologists would argue that the general concept of family is more diverse and less structured than in years past. Society has given more leeway to the design of a family making room for what works for its members (Jayson 2010).

Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever one’s concept of it may be) is very important to North Americans. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is “the most important” element of their life—just 1 percent said it was “not important” (Pew Research Center 2010). It is also very important to society. American President Ronald Reagan notably stated, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms” (Lee 2009). The dark side of this importance can also be seen in Reagan’s successful use of “family values” rhetoric to attack welfare mothers. His infamous “welfare queen” story about a black single mother in Chicago, who supposedly defrauded the government of $150,000 in welfare payments, was a complete fabrication that nevertheless “worked” politically because of social anxieties about the decline of the family. While the design of the family may have changed in recent years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and support are still present. Most responders to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least as close (45 percent) or closer (40 percent) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Research Center 2010).

Alongside the debate surrounding what constitutes a family is the question of what North Americans believe constitutes a marriage. Many religious and social conservatives believe that marriage can only exist between man and a woman, citing religious scripture and the basics of human reproduction as support. As Prime Minister Stephen Harper put it, “I have no difficulty with the recognition of civil unions for nontraditional relationships but I believe in law we should protect the traditional definition of marriage” ( Globe and Mail 2010). Social liberals and progressives, on the other hand, believe that marriage can exist between two consenting adults—be they a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man —and that it would be discriminatory to deny such a couple the civil, social, and economic benefits of marriage.

Marriage Patterns

With single parenting and cohabitation (when a couple shares a residence but not a marriage) becoming more acceptable in recent years, people may be less motivated to get married. In a recent survey, 39 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether marriage is becoming obsolete (Pew Research Center 2010). The institution of marriage is likely to continue, but some previous patterns of marriage will become outdated as new patterns emerge. In this context, cohabitation contributes to the phenomenon of people getting married for the first time at a later age than was typical in earlier generations (Glezer 1991). Furthermore, marriage will continue to be delayed as more people place education and career ahead of “settling down.”

One Partner or Many?

North Americans typically equate marriage with monogamy , when someone is married to only one person at a time. In many countries and cultures around the world, however, having one spouse is not the only form of marriage. In a majority of cultures (78 percent), polygamy , or being married to more than one person at a time, is accepted (Murdock 1967), with most polygamous societies existing in northern Africa and east Asia (Altman and Ginat 1996). Instances of polygamy are almost exclusively in the form of polygyny. Polygyny refers to a man being married to more than one woman at the same time. The reverse, when a woman is married to more than one man at the same time, is called polyandry . It is far less common and only occurs in about 1 percent of the world’s cultures (Altman and Ginat 1996). The reasons for the overwhelming prevalence of polygamous societies are varied but they often include issues of population growth, religious ideologies, and social status.

While the majority of societies accept polygyny, the majority of people do not practise it. Often fewer than 10 percent (and no more than 25 to 35 percent) of men in polygamous cultures have more than one wife; these husbands are often older, wealthy, high-status men (Altman and Ginat 1996). The average plural marriage involves no more than three wives. Negev Bedouin men in Israel, for example, typically have two wives, although it is acceptable to have up to four (Griver 2008). As urbanization increases in these cultures, polygamy is likely to decrease as a result of greater access to mass media, technology, and education (Altman and Ginat 1996).

In Canada, polygamy is considered by most to be socially unacceptable and it is illegal. The act of entering into marriage while still married to another person is referred to as bigamy and is prohibited by Section 290 of the Criminal Code of Canada (Minister of Justice 2014). Polygamy in Canada is often associated with those of the Mormon faith, although in 1890 the Mormon Church officially renounced polygamy. Fundamentalist Mormons, such as those in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), on the other hand, still hold tightly to the historic Mormon beliefs and practices and allow polygamy in their sect.

The prevalence of polygamy among Mormons is often overestimated due to sensational media stories such as the prosecution of polygamous sect leaders in Bountiful, B.C., theYearning for Zion ranch raid in Texas in 2008, and popular television shows such as HBO’s Big Love and TLC’s Sister Wives . It is estimated that there are about 37,500 fundamentalist Mormons involved in polygamy in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but that number has shown a steady decrease in the last 100 years (Useem 2007).

North American Muslims, however, are an emerging group with an estimated 20,000 practicing polygamy. Again, polygamy among North American Muslims is uncommon and occurs only in approximately 1 percent of the population (Useem 2007). For now polygamy among North American Muslims has gone fairly unnoticed by mainstream society, but like fundamentalist Mormons whose practices were off the public’s radar for decades, they may someday find themselves at the centre of social debate.

Residency and Lines of Descent

When considering their lineage, most Canadians look to both their father’s and mother’s sides. Both paternal and maternal ancestors are considered part of one’s family. This pattern of tracing kinship is called bilateral descent . Note that kinship , or one’s traceable ancestry, can be based on blood, marriage or adoption. Sixty percent of societies, mostly modernized nations, follow a bilateral descent pattern. Unilateral descent (the tracing of kinship through one parent only) is practised in the other 40 percent of the world’s societies, with high concentration in pastoral cultures (O’Neal 2006).

There are three types of unilateral descent:  patrilineal , which follows the father’s line only;  matrilineal , which follows the mother’s side only; and ambilineal , which follows either the father’s only or the mother’s side only, depending on the situation. In partrilineal societies, such as those in rural China and India, only males carry on the family surname. This gives males the prestige of permanent family membership while females are seen as only temporary members (Harrell 2001). North American society assumes some aspects of partrilineal decent. For instance, most children assume their father’s last name even if the mother retains her birth name.

In matrilineal societies, inheritance and family ties are traced to women. Matrilineal descent is common in Native American societies, notably the Crow and Cherokee tribes. In these societies, children are seen as belonging to the women and, therefore, one’s kinship is traced to one’s mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and so on (Mails 1996). In ambilineal societies, which are most common in Southeast Asian countries, parents may choose to associate their children with the kinship of either the mother or the father. This choice may be based on the desire to follow stronger or more prestigious kinship lines or on cultural customs such as men following their father’s side and women following their mother’s side (Lambert 2009).

Tracing one’s line of descent to one parent rather than the other can be relevant to the issue of residence. In many cultures, newly married couples move in with, or near to, family members. In a patrilocal residence system it is customary for the wife to live with (or near) her husband’s blood relatives (or family or orientation). Patrilocal systems can be traced back thousands of years. In a DNA analysis of 4,600-year-old bones found in Germany, scientists found indicators of patrilocal living arrangements (Haak et al. 2008). Patrilocal residence is thought to be disadvantageous to women because it makes them outsiders in the home and community; it also keeps them disconnected from their own blood relatives. In China, where patrilocal and patrilineal customs are common, the written symbols for maternal grandmother ( wáipá ) are separately translated to mean “outsider” and “women” (Cohen 2011).

Similarly, in matrilocal residence systems, where it is customary for the husband to live with his wife’s blood relatives (or her family of orientation), the husband can feel disconnected and can be labelled as an outsider. The Minangkabau people, a matrilocal society that is indigenous to the highlands of West Sumatra in Indonesia, believe that home is the place of women and they give men little power in issues relating to the home or family (Joseph and Najmabadi 2003). Most societies that use patrilocal and patrilineal systems are patriarchal, but very few societies that use matrilocal and matrilineal systems are matriarchal, as family life is often considered an important part of the culture for women, regardless of their power relative to men.

Stages of Family Life

As we have established, the concept of family has changed greatly in recent decades. Historically, it was often thought that most (certainly many) families evolved through a series of predictable stages. Developmental or “stage” theories used to play a prominent role in family sociology (Strong and DeVault 1992). Today, however, these models have been criticized for their linear and conventional assumptions as well as for their failure to capture the diversity of family forms. While reviewing some of these once-popular theories, it is important to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

The set of predictable steps and patterns families experience over time is referred to as the family life cycle . One of the first designs of the family life cycle was developed by Paul Glick in 1955. In Glick’s original design, he asserted that most people will grow up, establish families, rear and launch their children, experience an “empty nest” period, and come to the end of their lives. This cycle will then continue with each subsequent generation (Glick 1989). Glick’s colleague, Evelyn Duvall, elaborated on the family life cycle by developing these classic stages of family (Strong and DeVault 1992):

Table 14.1. Stage Theory. This table shows one example of how a “stage” theory might categorize the phases a family goes through.

The family life cycle was used to explain the different processes that occur in families over time. Sociologists view each stage as having its own structure with different challenges, achievements, and accomplishments that transition the family from one stage to the next. For example, the problems and challenges that a family experiences in Stage 1 as a married couple with no children are likely much different than those experienced in Stage 5 as a married couple with teenagers. The success of a family can be measured by how well they adapt to these challenges and transition into each stage. While sociologists use the family life cycle to study the dynamics of family over time, consumer and marketing researchers have used it to determine what goods and services families need as they progress through each stage (Murphy and Staples 1979).

As early “stage” theories have been criticized for generalizing family life and not accounting for differences in gender, ethnicity, culture, and lifestyle, less rigid models of the family life cycle have been developed. One example is the family life course , which recognizes the events that occur in the lives of families but views them as parting terms of a fluid course rather than in consecutive stages (Strong and DeVault 1992). This type of model accounts for changes in family development, such as the fact that today, childbearing does not always occur with marriage. It also sheds light on other shifts in the way family life is practised. Society’s modern understanding of family rejects rigid “stage” theories and is more accepting of new, fluid models. In fact contemporary family life has not escaped the phenomenon that Zygmunt Bauman calls fluid  (or liquid ) modernity , a condition of constant mobility and change in relationships (2000).

Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World

The evolution of television families.

Whether you grew up watching the Cleavers, the Waltons, the Huxtables, or the Simpsons, most of the iconic families you saw in television sitcoms included a father, a mother, and children cavorting under the same roof while comedy ensued. The 1960s was the height of the suburban American nuclear family on television with shows such as The Donna Reed Show and Father Knows Best . While some shows of this era portrayed single parents ( My Three Sons and Bonanza , for instance), the single status almost always resulted from being widowed, not divorced or unwed.

Although family dynamics in real North American homes were changing, the expectations for families portrayed on television were not. North America’s first reality show, An American Family (which aired on PBS in 1973) chronicled Bill and Pat Loud and their children as a “typical” American family. Cameras documented the typical coming and going of daily family life in true cinéma-vérité style. During the series, the oldest son, Lance, announced to the family that he was gay, and at the series’ conclusion, Bill and Pat decided to divorce. Although the Loud’s union was among the 30 percent of marriages that ended in divorce in 1973, the family was featured on the cover of the March 12 issue of Newsweek with the title “The Broken Family” (Ruoff 2002).

Less traditional family structures in sitcoms gained popularity in the 1980s with shows such as Diff’rent Strokes (a widowed man with two adopted African American sons) and One Day at a Time (a divorced woman with two teenage daughters). Still, traditional families such as those in Family Ties and The Cosby Show dominated the ratings. The late 1980s and the 1990s saw the introduction of the dysfunctional family. Shows such as Roseanne , Married with Children , and The Simpsons portrayed traditional nuclear families, but in a much less flattering light than those from the 1960s did (Museum of Broadcast Communications 2011).

Over the past 10 years, the nontraditional family has become somewhat of a tradition in television. While most situation comedies focus on single men and women without children, those that do portray families often stray from the classic structure: they include unmarried and divorced parents, adopted children, gay couples, and multigenerational households. Even those that do feature traditional family structures may show less traditional characters in supporting roles, such as the brothers in the highly rated shows Everybody Loves Raymond and Two and Half Men . Even wildly popular children’s programs as Disney’s Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody feature single parents.

In 2009, ABC premiered an intensely nontraditional family with the broadcast of Modern Family . The show follows an extended family that includes a divorced and remarried father with one stepchild, and his biological adult children—one of who is in a traditional two-parent household, and the other who is a gay man in a committed relationship raising an adopted daughter. While this dynamic may be more complicated than the typical “modern” family, its elements may resonate with many of today’s viewers. “The families on the shows aren’t as idealistic, but they remain relatable,” states television critic Maureen Ryan. “The most successful shows, comedies especially, have families that you can look at and see parts of your family in them” (Respers France 2010).

The combination of husband, wife, and children that 80 percent of Canadians believes constitutes a family is not representative of the majority of Canadian families. According to 2011 census data, only 31.9 percent of all census families consisted of a married couple with children, down from 37.4 percent in 2001. Sixty-three percent of children under age 14 live in a household with two married parents. This is a decrease from almost 70 percent in 1981 (Statistics Canada 2012). This two-parent family structure is known as a nuclear family , referring to married parents and children as the nucleus, or core, of the group. Recent years have seen a rise in variations of the nuclear family with the parents not being married. The proportion of children aged 14 and under who live with two unmarried cohabiting parents increased from 12.8 percent in 2001 to 16.3 percent in 2011 (Statistics Canada 2012).

Single Parents

Single-parent households are also on the rise. In 2011, 19.3 percent of children aged 14 and under lived with a single parent only, up slightly from 18 percent in 2001. Of that 19.3 percent, 82 percent live with their mother (Statistics Canada 2012).

Stepparents are an additional family element in two-parent homes. A stepfamily is defined as “a couple family in which at least one child is the biological or adopted child of only one married spouse or common-law partner and whose birth or adoption preceded the current relationship” (Statistics Canada 2012). Among children living in two parent households, 10 percent live with a biological or adoptive parent and a stepparent (Statistics Canada 2012).

In some family structures a parent is not present at all. In 2010, 106,000 children (1.8 percent of all children) lived with a guardian who was neither their biological nor adoptive parent. Of these children, 28 percent lived with grandparents, 44 percent lived with other relatives, and 28 percent lived with non-relatives or foster parents. If we also include families in which both parents and grandparents are present (about 4.8 percent of all census families with children under the age of 14), this family structure is referred to as the extended family , and may include aunts, uncles, and cousins living in the same home. Foster children account for about 0.5 percent of all children in private households.

In the United States, the practice of grandparents acting as parents, whether alone or in combination with the child’s parent, is becoming more common (about 9 percent) among American families (De Toledo and Brown 1995). A grandparent functioning as the primary care provider often results from parental drug abuse, incarceration, or abandonment. Events like these can render the parent incapable of caring for his or her child. However, in Canada, census evidence indicates that the percentage of children in these “skip-generation” families remained more or less unchanged between 2001 and 2011 at 0.5 percent (Statistics Canada 2012).

Changes in the traditional family structure raise questions about how such societal shifts affect children. Research, mostly from American sources, has shown that children living in homes with both parents grow up with more financial and educational advantages than children who are raised in single-parent homes (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). The Canadian data is not so clear. It is true that children growing up in single-parent families experience a lower economic standard of living than families with two parents. In 2008, female lone-parent households earned an average of $42,300 per year, male lone-parent households earned $60,400 per year, and two-parent families earned $100,200 per year (Williams 2010). However, in the lowest 20 percent of families with children aged four to five years old, single parent families made up 48.9 percent of households while intact or blended households made up 51.1 percent (based on 1998/99 data). Single parent families do not make up a larger percentage of low-income families (Human Resources Development Canada 2003). Moreover, both the income (Williams 2010) and the educational attainment (Human Resources Development Canada 2003) of single mothers in Canada has been increasing, which in turn is linked to higher levels of life satisfaction.

In research published from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, a long-term study initiated in 1994 that is following the development of a large cohort of children from birth to the age of 25, the evidence is ambiguous as to whether having single or dual parents has a significant effect on child development outcomes. For example, indicators of vocabulary ability of children aged four to five years old did not differ significantly between single- and dual-parent families. However, aggressive behaviour (reported by parents) in both girls and boys aged four to five years old was greater in single-parent families (Human Resources Development Canada 2003). In fact, significant markers of poor developmental attainment were more related to the sex of the child (more pronounced in boys), maternal depression, low maternal education, maternal immigrant status, and low family income (To et al. 2004). We will have to wait for more research to be published from the latest cycle of  the National Longitudinal Survey to see whether there is more conclusive evidence concerning the relative advantages of dual- and single-parent family settings.

Nevertheless, what the data show is that the key factors in children’s quality of life are the educational levels and economic condition of the family, not whether children’s parents are married, common-law, or single. For example, young children in low-income families are more likely to have vocabulary problems, and young children in higher-income families have more opportunities to participate in recreational activities (Human Resources Development Canada 2003). This is a matter related more to public policy decisions concerning the level of financial support and care services (like public child care) provided to families than different family structures per se. In Sweden, where the government provides generous paid parental leave after the birth of a child, free health care, temporary paid parental leave for parents with sick children, high-quality subsidized daycare, and substantial direct child-benefit payments for each child, indicators of child well-being (literacy, levels of child poverty, rates of suicide, etc.) score very high regardless of the difference between single- and dual-parent family structures (Houseknecht and Sastry 1996).

Cohabitation

Living together before or in lieu of marriage is a growing option for many couples. Cohabitation, when a man and woman live together in a sexual relationship without being married, was practised by an estimated 1.6 million people (16.7 percent of all census families) in 2011, which shows an increase of 13.9 percent since 2006 (Statistics Canada 2012). This surge in cohabitation is likely due to the decrease in social stigma pertaining to the practice. In Quebec in particular, researchers have noted that it is common for married couples under the age of 50 to describe themselves in terms used more in cohabiting relationships than marriage: mon conjoint (partner) or mon chum (intimate friend) rather than mon mari (my husband) (Le Bourdais and Juby 2002). In fact, cohabitation or common-law marriage is much more prevalent in Quebec (31.5 percent of census families) and the northern territories (from 25.1 percent in Yukon to 32.7 percent in Nunavut) than in the rest of the country (13 percent in British Columbia, for example) (Statistics Canada 2012).

Cohabitating couples may choose to live together in an effort to spend more time together or to save money on living costs. Many couples view cohabitation as a “trial run” for marriage. Today, approximately 28 percent of men and women cohabitated before their first marriage. By comparison, 18 percent of men and 23 percent of women married without ever cohabitating (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). The vast majority of cohabitating relationships eventually result in marriage; only 15 percent of men and women cohabitate only and do not marry. About one-half of cohabitators transition into marriage within three years (U.S. Census Bureau 2010).

While couples may use this time to “work out the kinks” of a relationship before they wed, the most recent research has found that cohabitation has little effect on the success of a marriage. Those who do not cohabitate before marriage have slightly better rates of remaining married for more than 10 years (Jayson 2010). Cohabitation may contribute to the increase in the number of men and women who delay marriage. The average age of first marriage has been steadily increasing. In 2008, the average age of first marriage was 29.6 for women and 31 for men, compared to 23 for women and 25 for men through most of the 1960s and 1970s (Milan 2013).

Same-Sex Couples

The number of same-sex couples has grown significantly in the past decade. The Civil Marriage Act (Bill C-38) legalized same sex marriage in Canada on July 20, 2005. Some provinces and territories had already adopted legal same-sex marriage, beginning with Ontario in June 2003. In 2011, Statistics Canada reported 64,575 same-sex couple households in Canada, up by 42 percent from 2006. Of these about three in ten were same-sex married couples compared to 16.5 percent in 2006 (Statistics Canada 2012). These increases are a result of more coupling, the change in the marriage laws, growing social acceptance of homosexuality, and a subsequent increase in willingness to report it.

In Canada, same-sex couples make up 0.8 percent of all couples. Unlike in the United States where the distribution of same-sex couples nationwide is very uneven, ranging from as low as 0.29 percent in Wyoming to 4.01 percent in the District of Columbia (U.S. Census Bureau 2011), the distribution of same-sex couples in Canada by province or territory is similar to that of opposite-sex couples. However, same-sex couples are more highly concentrated in big cities. In 2011, 45.6 percent of all same-sex sex couples lived in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, compared to 33.4 percent of opposite-sex couples (Statistics Canada 2012). In terms of demographics, Canadian same-sex couples tended to be younger than opposite-sex couples. Twenty-five percent of individuals in same-sex couples were under the age of 35 compared to 17.5 percent of individuals in opposite-sex couples. There were more male-male couples (54.5 percent) than female-female couples (Milan 2013). Additionally, 9.4 percent of same-sex couples were raising children, 80 percent of whom were female-female couples (Statistics Canada 2012).

While there is some concern from socially conservative groups, especially in the United States, regarding the well-being of children who grow up in same-sex households, research reports that same-sex parents are as effective as opposite-sex parents. In an analysis of 81 parenting studies, sociologists found no quantifiable data to support the notion that opposite-sex parenting is any better than same-sex parenting. Children of lesbian couples, however, were shown to have slightly lower rates of behavioural problems and higher rates of self-esteem (Biblarz and Stacey 2010).

Staying Single

Gay or straight, a new option for many Canadians is simply to stay single. In 2011, about one-fifth of all individuals over the age of 15 did not live in a couple or family (Statistics Canada 2012). Never-married individuals accounted for 73.1 percent of young adults in the 25 to 29 age bracket, up from 26 percent in 1981 (Milan 2013). More young men in this age bracket are single than young women—78.8 percent to 67.4 percent—reflecting the tendency for men to marry at an older age and to marry women younger than themselves (Milan 2013).

Although both single men and single women report social pressure to get married, women are subject to greater scrutiny. Single women are often portrayed as unhappy “spinsters” or “old maids” who cannot find a man to marry them. Single men, on the other hand, are typically portrayed as lifetime bachelors who cannot settle down or simply “have not found the right girl.” Single women report feeling insecure and displaced in their families when their single status is disparaged (Roberts 2007). However, single women older than 35 report feeling secure and happy with their unmarried status, as many women in this category have found success in their education and careers. In general, women feel more independent and more prepared to live a large portion of their adult lives without a spouse or domestic partner than they did in the 1960s (Roberts 2007).

The decision to marry or not to marry can be based a variety of factors including religion and cultural expectations. Asian individuals are the most likely to marry while black North Americans are the least likely to marry (Venugopal 2011). Additionally, individuals who place no value on religion are more likely to be unmarried than those who place a high value on religion. For black women, however, the importance of religion made no difference in marital status (Bakalar 2010). In general, being single is not a rejection of marriage; rather, it is a lifestyle that does not necessarily include marriage. By age 40, according to census figures, 20 percent of women and 14 of men will have never married (U.S. Census Bureau 2011).

Making Connections: Sociological Research

Deceptive divorce rates.

It is often cited that half of all marriages end in divorce. This statistic has made many people cynical when it comes to marriage, but it is misleading. A closer look at the data reveals a different story.

Using Statistics Canada data from 2008 that show a marriage rate of 4.4 (per 1,000 people) and a divorce rate of 2.11, it would appear that slightly less than one-half of all marriages failed (Employment and Social Development Canada 2014a, 2014b). Similar United States data for 2003 showed more or less exactly 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce (Hurley 2005). This reasoning is deceptive, however, because instead of tracing actual marriages to see their longevity (or lack thereof), this compares what are unrelated statistics: that is, the number of marriages in a given year does not have a direct correlation to the divorces occurring that same year. American research published in the New York Times took a different approach—determining how many people had ever been married, and of those, how many later divorced. The result? According to this analysis, American divorce rates have only gone as high as 41 percent (Hurley 2005).

Another way to calculate divorce rates is the total divorce rate , which projects how many new marriages would be expected to fail after 30 years based on the divorce rate by marriage duration observed in a given year. In Canada, the total divorce rate figure reached a high of 50.6 percent in 1987 after the Divorce Act was amended to allow divorces after just one year of separation (rather than the mandatory three years previously). Since then, the total divorce rate has remained steady at between 35 percent and 42 percent. In 2008, 40.7 percent of marriages were projected to end before their 30th anniversary (Employment and Social Development Canada 2014a).

Sociologists can also calculate divorce rates through a cohort study. For instance, we could determine the percentage of marriages that are intact after, say, five or seven years, compared to marriages that have ended in divorce after five or seven years. Sociological researchers must remain aware of research methods and how statistical results are applied. As illustrated, different methodologies and different interpretations can lead to contradictory, and even misleading, results.

Theoretical Perspectives on Marriage and Family

Sociologists study families on both the macro and micro level to determine how families function. Sociologists may use a variety of theoretical perspectives to explain events that occur within and outside of the family. In this Introduction to Sociology , we have been focusing on three perspectives: structural functionalism, critical sociology, and symbolic interactionism.

Functionalism

When considering the role of family in society, functionalists uphold the notion that families are an important social institution and that they play a key role in stabilizing society. They also note that family members take on status roles in a marriage or family. The family—and its members—perform certain functions that facilitate the prosperity and development of society.

Sociologist George Murdock conducted a survey of 250 societies and determined that there are four universal residual functions of the family: sexual, reproductive, educational, and economic (Lee 1985). In each society, although the structure of the family varies, the family performs these four functions. According to Murdock, the family (which for him includes the state of marriage) regulates sexual relations between individuals. He does not deny the existence or impact of premarital or extramarital sex, but states that the family offers a socially legitimate sexual outlet for adults (Lee 1985). This outlet gives way to reproduction, which is a necessary part of ensuring the survival of society.

Once children are produced, the family plays a vital role in training them for adult life. As the primary agent of socialization and enculturation, the family teaches young children the ways of thinking and behaving that follow social and cultural norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes. Parents teach their children manners and civility. A well-mannered child reflects a well-mannered parent.

Parents also teach children gender roles. Gender roles are an important part of the economic function of a family. In each family, there is a division of labour that consists of instrumental and expressive roles. Men tend to assume the instrumental roles in the family, which typically involve work outside of the family that provides financial support and establishes family status. Women tend to assume the expressive roles, which typically involve work inside of the family, which provides emotional support and physical care for children (Crano and Aronoff 1978). According to functionalists, the differentiation of the roles on the basis of sex ensures that families are well balanced and coordinated. Each family member is seen as performing a specific role and function to maintain the functioning of the family as a whole.

When family members move outside of these roles, the family is thrown out of balance and must recalibrate in order to function properly. For example, if the father assumes an expressive role such as providing daytime care for the children, the mother must take on an instrumental role such as gaining paid employment outside of the home in order for the family to maintain balance and function.

Critical Sociology

Critical sociologists are quick to point out that North American families have been defined as private entities, the consequence of which historically has been to see family matters as issues concerning only those within the family. Serious issues including domestic violence and child abuse, inequality between the sexes, the right to dispose of family property equally, and so on, have been historically treated as being outside of state, legal, or police jurisdiction. The feminist slogan of the 1960s and 1970s—“the personal is the political”—indicates how feminists began to draw attention to the broad social or public implications of matters long considered private or inconsequential. As women’s roles had long been relegated to the private sphere, issues of power that affected their lives most directly were largely invisible. Speaking about the lives of middle-class women in mid-century North America, Betty Friedan described this problem as “the problem with no name”:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—“Is this all?” (1963, p. 15).

One focus of critical sociology therefore is to highlight the political-economic context of the inequalities of power in family life. The family is often not a haven but rather an arena where the effects of societal power struggles are felt. This exercise of power often entails the differentiation and performance of family status roles. Why are women expected to perform the “expressive” roles in the family while the men perform “instrumental” roles, and what are the implications of this division of labour? Critical sociologists therefore study conflicts as simple as the enforcement of rules from parent to child, or more serious issues such as domestic violence (spousal and child), sexual assault, marital rape, and incest, as products of power structures in broader society. Blood and Wolfe’s classic (1960) study of marital power found that the person with the most access to value resources held the most power. As money is one of the most valuable resources, men who worked in paid labour outside of the home held more power than women who worked inside the home. Disputes over the division of household labour tend also to be a common source of marital discord. Household labour offers no wages and, therefore, no power. Studies indicate that when men do more housework, women experience more satisfaction in their marriages, reducing the incidence of conflict (Coltrane 2000).

The political and economic context is also key to understanding changes in the structure of the family over the 20th and 21st centuries. The debate between functionalist and critical sociologists on the rise of non-nuclear family forms is a case in point. Since the 1950s, the functionalist approach to the family has emphasized the importance of the nuclear family—a married man and woman in a socially approved sexual relationship with at least one child—as the basic unit of an orderly and functional society. Although only 39 percent of families conformed to this model in 2006, in functionalist approaches, it often operates as a model of the normal family, with the implication that non-normal family forms lead to a variety of society-wide dysfunctions. On the other hand, critical perspectives emphasize that the diversity of family forms does not indicate the “decline of the family” (i.e., of the ideal of the nuclear family) so much as the diverse response of the family form to the tensions of gender inequality and historical changes in the economy and society. The nuclear family should be thought of less as a normative model for how families should be and more as an historical anomaly that reflected the specific social and economic conditions of the two decades following the World War II.

Symbolic Interactionism

Interactionists view the world in terms of symbols and the meanings assigned to them (LaRossa and Reitzes 1993). The family itself is a symbol. To some, it is a father, mother, and children; to others, it is any union that involves respect and compassion. Interactionists stress that family is not an objective, concrete reality. Like other social phenomena, it is a social construct that is subject to the ebb and flow of social norms and ever-changing meanings.

Consider the meaning of other elements of family: “parent” was a symbol of a biological and emotional connection to a child. With more parent-child relationships developing through adoption, remarriage, or change in guardianship, the word “parent” today is less likely to be associated with a biological connection than with whoever is socially recognized as having the responsibility for a child’s upbringing. Similarly, the terms “mother” and “father” are no longer rigidly associated with the meanings of caregiver and breadwinner. These meanings are more free-flowing through changing family roles.

Interactionists also recognize how the family status roles of each member are socially constructed, playing an important part in how people perceive and interpret social behaviour. Interactionists view the family as a group of role players or “actors” that come together to act out their parts in an effort to construct a family. These roles are up for interpretation. In the late 19th and early 20th century, a “good father,” for example, was one who worked hard to provided financial security for his children. Today, a “good father” is one who takes the time outside of work to promote his children’s emotional well-being, social skills, and intellectual growth—in some ways, a much more daunting task.

Symbolic interactionism therefore draws our attention to how the norms that define what a “normal” family is and how it should operate come into existence. The rules and expectations that coordinate the behaviour of family members are products of social processes and joint agreement, even if the agreements are tacit or implicit. In this perspective, norms and social conventions are not regarded as permanently fixed by functional requirements or unequal power relationships. Rather, new norms and social conventions continually emerge from ongoing social interactions to make family structures intelligible in new situations and to enable them to operate and sustain themselves.

14.3. Challenges Families Face

As the structure of family changes over time, so do the challenges families face. Events like divorce and remarriage present new difficulties for families and individuals. Other long-standing domestic issues such as abuse continue to strain the health and stability of families.

Divorce and Remarriage

Divorce, while fairly common and accepted in modern Canadian society, was once a word that would only be whispered and was accompanied by gestures of disapproval. Prior to the introduction of the Divorce Act in 1968 there was no federal divorce law in Canada. In provincial jurisdictions where there were divorce laws, spouses had to prove adultery or cruelty in court. The 1968 Divorce Act broadened the grounds for divorce to include mental and physical cruelty, desertion, and/or separation for more than three years, and imprisonment. In 1986 the Act was amended again to make “breakdown of marriage” the sole ground for divorce. Couples could divorce after one year’s separation, and there was no longer a requirement to prove “fault” by either spouse.

These legislative changes had immediate consequences on the divorce rate. In 1961, divorce was generally uncommon, affecting only 36 out of every 100,000 married persons. In 1969, the year after the introduction of the Divorce Act, the number of divorces doubled from from 55 divorces per 100,000 population to 124. The divorce rate peaked in 1987 after the 1986 amendment at 362 divorces per 100,000 population. Over the last quarter century, divorce rates have dropped steadily reaching 221 divorces per 100,000 population in 2005 (Kelly 2010). The dramatic increase in divorce rates after the 1960s has been associated with the liberalization of divorce laws (as noted above) and the shift in societal makeup including the increase of women entering the workforce (Michael 1978) and marital breakdowns in the large cohort of baby boomers (Kelly 2010). The decrease in divorce rates can be attributed to two probable factors: an increase in the age at which people get married, and an increased level of education among those who marry—both of which have been found to promote greater marital stability.

So what causes divorce? While more young people are choosing to postpone or opt out of marriage, those who enter into the union do so with the expectation that it will last. A great deal of marital problems can be related to stress, especially financial stress. According to researchers participating in the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, couples who enter marriage without a strong asset base (like a home, savings, and a retirement plan) are 70 percent more likely to be divorced after three years than are couples with at least $10,000 in assets. This is connected to factors such as age and education level that correlate with low incomes.

The addition of children to a marriage creates added financial and emotional stress. Research has established that marriages enter their most stressful phase upon the birth of the first child (Popenoe and Whitehead 2001). This is particularly true for couples who have multiples (twins, triplets, and so on). Married couples with twins or triplets are 17 percent more likely to divorce than those with children from single births (McKay 2010). Another contributor to the likelihood of divorce is a general decline in marital satisfaction over time. As people get older, they may find that their values and life goals no longer match up with those of their spouse (Popenoe and Whitehead 2004).

Divorce is thought to have a cyclical pattern. Children of divorced parents are 40 percent more likely to divorce than children of married parents. And when we consider children whose parents divorced and then remarried, the likelihood of their own divorce rises to 91 percent (Wolfinger 2005). This might result from being socialized to a mindset that a broken marriage can be replaced rather than repaired (Wolfinger 2005). That sentiment is also reflected in the finding that when both partners of a married couple have been previously divorced, their marriage is 90 percent more likely to end in divorce (Wolfinger 2005).

Samuel Johnson is quoted as saying that getting married a second time was “the triumph of hope over experience.” In fact, according to the 2001 Statistics Canada General Social Survey, 43 percent of individuals whose first marriage failed married again, while 16 percent married again after the death of their spouse. Another 1 percent of the ever-married population aged 25 and over had been married more than twice (Clark and Crompton 2006). American data show that most men and women remarry within five years of a divorce, with the median length for men (three years) being lower than for women (4.4 years). This length of time has been fairly consistent since the 1950s. The majority of those who remarry are between the ages of 25 and 44 (Kreider 2006).

Marriage the second time around (or third or fourth) can be a very different process than the first. Remarriage lacks many of the classic courtship rituals of a first marriage. In a second marriage, individuals are less likely to deal with issues like parental approval, premarital sex, or desired family size (Elliot 2010). Clark and Crompton suggest that second marriages tend to be more stable than first marriages, largely because the spouses are older and more mature. At the time of the Statistics Canada General Social Survey, 71 percent of the remarried couples surveyed were still together and had been for an average of 13 years. Couples tend to marry a second time more for intimacy-based reasons rather than external reasons and therefore enjoy a greater quality of relationship (Clark and Crompton 2006).

Children of Divorce and Remarriage

Divorce and remarriage can be stressful for partners and children alike. Divorce is often justified by the notion that children are better off in a divorced family than in a family with parents who do not get along. Others argue that parents who divorce sacrifice their children’s well-being to pursue their own happiness. Research suggests that separating out particular factors of the divorce, especially whether or not the divorce is accompanied by parental conflict, is key to determining whether divorce has a significant negative impact on children (Amato and Keith 1991). Certainly while marital conflict does not provide an ideal childrearing environment, going through a divorce can also be damaging. Children are often confused and frightened by the threat to their family security. They may feel responsible for the divorce and attempt to bring their parents back together, often by sacrificing their own well-being (Amato 2000). Only in high-conflict homes do children benefit from divorce and the subsequent decrease in conflict. The majority of divorces come out of lower-conflict homes, and children from those homes are more negatively impacted by the stress of the divorce than the stress of unhappiness in the marriage (Amato 2000). On the other hand, Amato and Keith have argued that the overall the effect of divorce on children’s well-being is relatively weak and has been declining over time (Amato and Keith 1991).

Children’s ability to deal with a divorce may depend on their age. Research has found that divorce may be most difficult for school-aged children, as they are old enough to understand the separation but not old enough to understand the reasoning behind it. Older teenagers are more likely to recognize the conflict that led to the divorce but may still feel fear, loneliness, guilt, and pressure to choose sides. Infants and preschool-age children may suffer the heaviest impact from the loss of routine that the marriage offered (Temke 2006).

Proximity to parents also makes a difference in a child’s well-being after divorce. Boys who live or have joint arrangements with their fathers show less aggression than those who are raised by their mothers only. Similarly, girls who live or have joint arrangements with their mothers tend to be more responsible and mature than those who are raised by their fathers only. Nearly 70 percent of the children of parents who are divorced have their primary residence with their mother, leaving many boys without a father figure residing in the home. Another 15 percent of the children lived with their father and 9 percent moved back and forth between both parents equally (Sinha 2014). Still, researchers suggest that a strong parent-child relationship can greatly improve a child’s adjustment to divorce (Temke 2006).

There is empirical evidence that divorce has not discouraged children in terms of how they view marriage and family. In a survey conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan, about three-quarters of high school students said it was “extremely important” to have a strong marriage and family life. And over half believed it was “very likely” that they would be in a lifelong marriage (Popenoe and Whitehead 2001). These numbers have continued to climb over the last 25 years.

Violence and Abuse

Violence and abuse are among the most disconcerting of the challenges that today’s families face. Abuse can occur between spouses, between parent and child, as well as between other family members. The frequency of violence among families is a difficult to determine because many cases of spousal abuse and child abuse go unreported. In any case, studies have shown that abuse (reported or not) has a major impact on families and society as a whole.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a significant social problem in Canada. One in four victims of violent crime in Canada was victimized by a spouse or family member in 2010 (Sinha 2012). Domestic violence is often characterized as violence between household or family members, specifically spouses. To include unmarried, cohabitating, and same-sex couples, family sociologists have created the term intimate partner violence (IPV) . Women are the primary victims of intimate partner violence. It is estimated that 1 in 4 women has experienced some form of IPV in her lifetime (compared to 1 in 7 men) (Catalano 2007). In 2011, women in Canada had more than double the risk of men of becoming a victim of police-reported family violence (Sinha 2012). IPV may include physical violence, such as punching, kicking, or other methods of inflicting physical pain; sexual violence, such as rape or other forced sexual acts; threats and intimidation that imply either physical or sexual abuse; and emotional abuse, such as harming another’s sense of self-worth through words or controlling another’s behaviour. IPV often starts as emotional abuse and then escalates to other forms or combinations of abuse (Centers for Disease Control 2012).

In 2010, of IPV acts that involved physical actions against women, 71 percent involved physical assault (57 percent were common assault including punching, slapping, and pushing, while another 10 percent were major assaults involving a weapon or causing major bodily injury); 3 percent involved sexual assault; 10 percent involved uttering threats; 5 percent indecent or threatening phone calls; and 9 percent criminal harassment or stalking (Sinha 2012). This is slightly different than IPV abuse patterns for men, which show that 79 percent of acts of IPV take the form of physical violence and less than 1 percent involve sexual assault (Sinha 2012). Interestingly, in 2011, a slightly larger proportion of physical assaults against male intimate partners resulted in injury (55 percent) compared to female intimate partners (51 percent) (Sinha 2013). IPV affects women at greater rates than men because women often take the passive role in relationships and may become emotionally dependent on their partner.  Perpetrators of IPV work to establish and maintain such dependence in order to hold power and control over their victims, making them feel stupid, crazy, or ugly—in some way worthless. Between 2000 and 2010, nearly one-quarter of women murdered by their intimate partners were murdered for reasons of jealousy (compared to 10 percent of male victims) (Sinha 2012).

IPV affects different segments of the population at different rates. The rate of self-reported IPV for aboriginal women is about 2.5 times higher than for non-aboriginal women (Sinha 2013). The severity of intimate partner violence also differed. Nearly 6 in 10 aboriginal women reported injury as a result of IPV compared to 4 in 10 non-aboriginal women. As a result, aboriginal female victims were also much more likely to report that they feared for their lives as a result of IPV (52 percent compared to 31 percent of non-aboriginal women) (Sinha 2013). On the other hand, visible minority and immigrant groups do not have significantly different levels of self-reported spousal violence than the rest of the population (Statistics Canada 2011).

Those who are separated report higher rates of abuse than those with other marital statuses, as conflict is typically higher in those relationships. Similarly, those who are cohabitating or living in a common-law relationship are more likely than those who are married to experience IPV (Statistics Canada 2011). American researchers have found that the rate of IPV doubles for women in low-income disadvantaged areas when compared to IPV experienced by women who reside in more affluent areas (Benson and Fox 2004). In Canada, the statistics do not bear this relationship out. Household income and education levels appear to have little effect on experiencing spousal violence. Regardless of income level, the proportion of reported spousal violence was between 1 and 2 percent. However, rates of IPV were nearly double in rural Canada than in the major metropolitan areas (542 incidents per 100,000 population compared to 294). Overall, women ages 25 to 34 are at the greatest risk of physical or sexual assault by an intimate partner (Statistics Canada 2011).

Accurate statistics on IPV are difficult to determine, as less than one-quarter of victims report incidents to the police (Statistics Canada 2011). It is not until victims choose to report crimes that patterns of abuse are exposed. Two-thirds of victims in Statistics Canada self-reported victimization studies stated that abuse had occurred more than once prior to their first police report. Nearly 3 in 10 stated that they had been abused more than 10 times prior to reporting (Statistics Canada 2011).

According to the Statistics Canada General Social Survey (2009) , victims cite varied reason why they are reluctant to report abuse, as shown in Table 14.3.

IPV has significant long-term effects on individual victims and on society. Studies have shown that IPV damage extends beyond the direct physical or emotional wounds. Extended IPV has been linked to unemployment among victims, as many have difficulty finding or holding employment. Additionally, nearly all women who report serious domestic problems exhibit symptoms of major depression (Goodwin, Chandler, and Meisel 2003). Female victims of IPV are also more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, suffer from eating disorders, and attempt suicide (Silverman et al. 2001).

IPV is indeed something that impacts more than just intimate partners. In a survey, 34 percent of respondents said they have witnessed IPV, and 59 percent said that they know a victim personally (Roper Starch Worldwide 1995). Many people want to help IPV victims but are hesitant to intervene because they feel that it is a personal matter or they fear retaliation from the abuser—reasons similar to those of victims who do not report IPV.

Child Abuse and Corporal Punishment

Children are among the most helpless victims of abuse. In 2010, more than 18,000 children and youth under the age of 17 were victims of police-reported family violence in Canada, accounting for nearly a quarter of all violent offences against children and youth (Sinha 2012). Child abuse may come in several forms, the most common being neglect, followed by physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological maltreatment, and medical neglect (Child Help 2011). Whereas the overall rate of violent crime involving children and youth is lower than the rate for the population as a whole, the rate of sexual assault is five times higher (Sinha 2012). Level 1 sexual assault (not involving a weapon or aggravated assault) comprised 75 percent of these offences, while child-specific sexual crimes including sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, luring a child via a computer, and corrupting children comprised another 22 percent. Girls were 37 percent more likely than boys to be the victim of family violence (and almost twice as likely by the time they reached ages 12 to 17). In large part this is because girls are almost four times as likely to be a victim of sexual assault by a family member than boys are.

Twenty-five percent of all violent crime against children and youth was perpetrated by a family member (parent, sibling, extended family member, or spouse), while another 54 percent involved an accused known to the victim (casual acquaintances, close friends, or dating partners) (Sinha 2012). Fifty-nine percent of family violence against children was committed by parents, 19 percent by siblings, and 22 percent by other family members (Statistics Canada 2011). Understandably, these figures vary with the age of the child. As Sinha (2012) notes, “among youth aged 12 to 17 who had been victimized, about one in five (18%) were violently victimized by someone within their own family network. This compares to 47% of child victims aged 3 to 11 years, and 70% of infant and toddler victims under the age of 3 years” (p. 58).

In terms of child abuse reported to provincial and territorial child welfare authorities, infants (children less than 1 year old) were the most victimized population with an incident rate of 52 investigations per 1,000 children (compared to 43 per 1,000 for 1 to 3 year olds, the next highest category) (Public Health Agency of Canada 2010). Infants younger than 1 year are also the most vulnerable to family homicide, 98 percent of which were committed by parents (27 per million between 2000 and 2010, compared to 9 per million for 1 to 3 year olds, the next highest category) (Sinha 2012). This age group is particularly vulnerable to neglect because they are entirely dependent on parents for care. Some parents do not purposely neglect their children; factors such as cultural values, standard of care in a community, and poverty can lead to hazardous level of neglect. If information or assistance from public or private services are available and a parent fails to use those services, child welfare services may intervene (Public Health Agency of Canada 2010).

Infants are also often victims of physical abuse, particularly in the form of violent shaking. This type of physical abuse is referred to as shaken-baby syndrome , which describes a group of medical symptoms such as brain swelling and retinal hemorrhage resulting from forcefully shaking or causing impact to an infant’s head. A baby’s cry is the number one trigger for shaking. Parents may find themselves unable to soothe a baby’s concerns and may take their frustration out on the child by shaking him or her violently. Other stress factors such as a poor economy, unemployment, and general dissatisfaction with parental life may contribute to this type of abuse. Shaken-baby syndrome was attributed as the cause of nearly one-third (31 percent) of family-related homicides of infants less than 1 year between 2000 and 2010 (Sinha 2012).

Making Connections: Social Policy and Debate

Corporal punishment.

News reports in June 2013 broke the sensational story of dozens of children being apprehended by Child and Family Services from a small Old Order Mennonite community in southern Manitoba. Several members of the community were charged by police with assault when they received reports that children had been disciplined using a leather strap, whip, and cattle prod (Hitchen 2013). At one point, all the children except for one 17 year old had be apprehended by authorities (CBC News 2013). The 1892 law that permits the use of corporal punishment for children in Canada was upheld by a Supreme Court ruling in 2004 within certain restrictions, but corporal punishment remains a controversial issue in Canada (CBC News 2004).

Physical  abuse of children may come in the form of beating, kicking, throwing, choking, hitting with objects, burning, or other methods. Injury inflicted by such behaviour is considered abuse even if the parent or caregiver did not intend to harm the child. Other types of physical contact that are characterized as discipline (spanking, for example) are not considered abuse as long as no injury results. The Supreme Court ruling stated that teachers and parents can use reasonable corrective force against children between the ages of 2 and 12 years old as long as the force is “minor” and of “a transitory and trifling nature” (CBC News 2004). The court ruled that it was unacceptable to strike a child with an object, like a strap or whip, and striking a child in the head was also unacceptable.

This issue is rather controversial among modern-day Canadians. While some parents feel that physical discipline, or corporal punishment, is an effective way to respond to bad behaviour, others feel that it is a form of abuse. According to a 2005 study of mothers with preschoolers in Manitoba and Ontario, 70 percent of respondents reported using corporal punishment. One-third of them used it at least once a week. A poll conducted by the Globe and Mail in 2007 found that 78 percent of Canadian parents with children under 18 believed that parents do not discipline their children enough and another 42 percent believed spanking benefited child development (Pearce 2012).

However, studies have shown that spanking is not an effective form of punishment and may lead to aggression by the victim, particularly in those who are spanked at a young age (Berlin 2009). A meta-analysis of research conducted over two decades published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that spanking was no better than other parenting methods at eliciting compliance in children and was in fact linked not only to increased levels of childhood aggression but also to long-term effects such as depression, emotional and behavioural problems, and drug and alcohol use in adulthood (Durrant and Ensom 2012). This research led the editor-in-chief of the journal to call for the repeal of the spanking law from the Criminal Code. “It is time for Canada to remove this anachronistic excuse for poor parenting from the statute book” (Fletcher 2012, p. 1339).

ambilineal a type of unilateral descent that follows either the father’s or the mother’s side exclusively

bigamy the act of entering into marriage while still married to another person

bilateral descent the tracing of kinship through both parents’ ancestral lines

cohabitation when a couple shares a residence but is not married

extended family a household that includes at least one parent and child as well as other relatives like grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins

family socially recognized groups of individuals who may be joined by blood, marriage, or adoption and who form an emotional connection and an economic unit of society

family life course a sociological model of family that sees the progression of events as fluid rather than as occurring in strict stages

family life cycle a set of predictable steps and patterns families experience over time

family of orientation the family into which one is born

family of procreation a family that is formed through marriage

fluid modernity a condition of constant mobility and change in relationships within contemporary society

intimate partner violence (IPV) violence that occurs between individuals who maintain a romantic or sexual relationship; includes unmarried, cohabiting, and same-sex couples as well as heterosexual married couples

kinship a person’s traceable ancestry (by blood, marriage, and/or adoption)

liquid modernity see fluid modernity

marriage a legally recognized contract between two or more people in a sexual relationship who have an expectation of permanence about their relationship

matrilineal descent a type of unilateral descent that follows the mother’s side only

matrilocal residence a system in which it is customary for a husband to live with his wife’s family

monogamy when someone is married to only one person at a time

nuclear family two parents (traditionally a married husband and wife) and children living in the same household

patrilineal descent a type of unilateral descent that follows the father’s line only

patrilocal residence a system in which it is customary for the a wife to live with (or near) her husband’s family

polyandry a form of marriage in which one woman is married to more than one man at one time

polygamy the state of being committed or married to more than one person at a time

polygyny a form of marriage in which one man is married to more than one woman at one time

shaken-baby syndrome a group of medical symptoms such as brain swelling and retinal hemorrhage resulting from forcefully shaking or impacting an infant’s head

total divorce rate projects how many new marriages would be expected to fail after 30 years based on the divorce rate by marriage duration observed in a given year

unilateral descent the tracing of kinship through one parent only.

Section Summary

14.1. What Is Marriage? What Is a Family? Sociologists view marriage and families as societal institutions that help create the basic unit of social structure. Both marriage and a family may be defined differently—and practised differently—in cultures across the world. Families and marriages, like other institutions, adapt to social change.

14.2. Variations in Family Life Canadians’ concepts of marriage and family are changing. Increases in cohabitation, same-sex partners, and singlehood are altering of our ideas of marriage. Similarly, single parents, same-sex parents, cohabitating parents, and unwed parents are changing our notion of what it means to be a family. While many children still live in opposite-sex, two-parent, married households, these are no longer viewed as the only type of nuclear family.

14.3. Challenges Families Face Families face a variety of challenges, including divorce, domestic violence, and child abuse. While divorce rates have decreased in the last 25 years, many family members, especially children, still experience the negative effects of divorce. Children are also negatively impacted by violence and abuse within the home, with 18,000 children victimized by family violence each year.

Section Quiz

14.1. What Is Marriage? What Is a Family? 1. Sociologists tend to define family in terms of

• How a given society sanctions the relationships of people who are connected through blood, marriage, or adoption
• The connection of bloodlines
• The status roles that exist in a family structure
• How closely members adhere to social norms

2. Research suggests that people generally feel that their current family is _______ than the family they grew up with.

• At least as close
• None of the above

3. A woman being married to two men would be an example of:

• cohabitation

4. A child who associates his line of descent with his father’s side only is part of a _____ society.

• Matrilineal
• Patrilineal

5. Which of the following is a criticism of the family life cycle model?

• It is too broad and accounts for too many aspects of family.
• It is too narrowly focused on a sequence of stages.
• It does not serve a practical purpose for studying family behaviour.
• It is not based on comprehensive research.

14.2. Variations in Family Life 6. The majority of Canadian children live in ______.

• Two-parent households
• One-parent households
• No-parent households
• Multigenerational households

7. According to the study cited from Statistics Canada, children who live with ______ grow up with more advantages than children who live with ______.

• One unwed parent; one divorced parent
• One divorced parent; two married parents
• One grandparent; two married parents
• One divorced parent; one unwed parent

8. Couples who cohabitate before marriage are ______ couples who did not cohabitate before marriage to be married at least 10 years.

• Far more likely than
• Far less likely than
• Slightly less likely than
• Equally as likely as

9. Same-sex couple households account for _____ percent of Canadian households.

10. The median age of first marriage has ______ in the last 50 years.

• Increased for men but not women
• Decreased for men but not women
• Increased for both men and women
• Decreased for both men and women

14.3. Challenges Families Face 11. Current divorce rates are _______.

• At an all-time high
• At an all-time low
• Steadily increasing
• Steadily declining

12. Children of divorced parents are _______ to divorce in their own marriage than children of parents who stayed married.

• More likely
• Less likely
• Equally likely

13. In general, children in ______ households benefit from divorce.

• Multigenerational
• High-conflict
• Low-conflict

14. Which of the following is true of intimate partner violence (IPV)?

• IPV victims are more frequently men than women.
• One in 10 women is a victim of IPV.
• Aboriginal women are nearly 2.5 times more likely to be a victim of IPV than non-aboriginal women.
• Rape is the most common form of IPV.

15. Which type of child abuse is most prevalent in Canada?

• Physical abuse
• Shaken-baby syndrome
• Internet stalking

Short Answer

14.1. What Is Marriage? What Is a Family?

• According to research, what are Canadians’ general thoughts on family? How do they view nontraditional family structures? How do you think these views might change in 20 years?
• Explain the difference between bilateral and unilateral descent. Using your own association with kinship, explain which type of descent applies to you.

14.2. Variations in Family Life

• Explain the different variations of the nuclear family and the trends that occur in each.
• Why are some couples choosing to cohabit before marriage? What effect does cohabitation have on marriage?
• Explain how financial status impacts marital stability. What other factors are associated with a couple’s financial status?
• Explain why more than half of intimate partner violence goes unreported? Why are those who are abused unlikely to report the abuse?

Further Research

14.1. What Is Marriage? What Is a Family? For more information on family development and lines of descent, visit the Library and Archives Canada “Genealogy and Family History” website to find out how to research family genealogies in Canada. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/022/index-e.html

For more statistics on marriage and family, see the Statistics Canada report based on the 2011 census:   Portrait of Families and Living Arrangements in Canada: Families, households and marital status, 2011 Census of Population . http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011001-eng.pdf

To find more information on child abuse, visit the Canadian Child Welfare Research portal at http://cwrp.ca/child-abuse-neglect

14.. Introduction to Marriage and Family Jayson, Sharon. 2008. “Census Reports More Unmarried Couples Living Together.” USA Today , July 28. Retrieved February 12, 20212 ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-07-28-cohabitation-census_N.htm ).

Statistics Canada. 2012. Portrait of Families and Living Arrangements in Canada: Families, households and marital status, 2011 Census of Population . Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-312-X2011001. Retrieved July 2, 2014, from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011001-eng.pdf

Useem, Andrea. 2007. “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Co-Wife.” Slate , July 24. Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2007/07/what_to_expect_when_youre_expecting_a_cowife.html ).

14.1. What Is Marriage? What Is a Family? Altman, Irwin and Joseph Ginat. 1996. Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bauman, Zymunt. 2000. Liquid Modernity . Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Retrieved Sept 2014 from  http://english.360elib.com/datu/J/EM353297.pdf

Cohen, Philip. 2011. “Chinese: Maternal Grandmothers, Outside Women.” FamilyInequality.com , Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/chinese-maternal-grandmothers-outside-women/ ).

Glezer, Helen. 1991. “Cohabitation.” Family Matters 30:24–27.

Glick, Paul. 1989. “The Family Life Cycle and Social Change.” Family Relations 38(2):123–129.

Globe and Mail . 2010. “The quotable Stephen Harper: Not exactly Churchill, but not bad either.” The Toronto Globe and Mail. October 8. Retrieved July 2, 2014, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-quotable-stephen-harper-not-exactly-churchill-but-not-bad-either/article1214563/

Griver, Simon. 2008. “One Wife Isn’t Enough … So They Take Two or Three.” The Jewish Chronicle Online , April 24. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/one-wife-isn’t-enough-so-they-take-two-or-three ).

Haak, Wolfgang et al. 2008. “Ancient DNA Reveals Male Diffusion through the Neolithic Mediterranean Route.” Proceedings of the National Association of Sciences , November 17. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.pnas.org/content/105/47/18226 ).

Harrell, Stevan. 2001. “Mountain Patterns: The Survival of Nuosu Culture in China.” Journal of American Folklore 114:451.

Jayson, Sharon. 2010. “What Does a ‘Family’ Look Like Nowadays?” USA Today , November 25. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/sex-relationships/marriage/2010-11-18-pew18_ST_N.htm ).

Joseph, Suad and Afsaneh Najmabadi. 2003. “Kinship and State: Southeast Asia, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific.” Pp. 351–355 in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law, and Politics . Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Lambert, Bernd. 2009. “Ambilineal Descent Groups in the Northern Gilbert Islands.” American Anthropologist 68(3):641–664.

Lee, Richard. 2009. The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America . Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Mails, Thomas E. 1996. The Cherokee People: The Story of the Cherokees from Earliest Origins to Contemporary Times . New York: Marlowe & Co.

Minister of Justice. 2014. Criminal Code R.S., c. C-34, s. 1. Minister of Justice. July 11. Retrieved September 23, 2014, from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/C-46.pdf

Murdock, George P. 1967. Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Murphy, Patrick and William Staples. 1979. “A Modernized Family Life Cycle.” Journal of Consumer Research 6(1):12–22.

Museum of Broadcast Communications. 2010. “Family on Television.” Retrieved January 16, 2012.

O’Neal, Dennis. 2006. “Nature of Kinship.” Palomar College. Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://anthro.palomar.edu/kinship/kinship_2.htm ).

Parsons, Talcott and Robert Bales. 1955. Family Socialization and Interaction Process . London: Routledge.

Pew Research Center. 2010. “The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families.” November 18. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1802/decline-marriage-rise-new-families ).

Postmedia News. 2010. “Poll: How Canadians see the family.” Canada.com. October 5. Retrieved July 2, 2014, from http://www.canada.com/life/Poll+Canadians+family/3604119/story.html

Powell, Brian, Catherine Bolzendahl, Claudia Geist, and Lala Carr Steelman. 2010. Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Respers France, Lisa. 2010. “The Evolution of the TV Family.” CNN , September 1. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/01/families.on.tv/index.html ).

Ruoff, Jeffrey. 2002. An American Family: A Televised Life . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Strong, B. and C. DeVault. 1992. The Marriage and Family Experience . 5th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.

14.2. Variations in Family Life Bakalar, Nicholas. 2010. “Education, Faith, and a Likelihood to Wed.” New York Times , March 22. Retrieved February 14, 2012 ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/health/23stat.html ).

Biblarz, Tim. J. and Judith Stacey. 2010. “How Does the Gender of Parents Matter?” Journal of Marriage and Family 72:3–22.

Blood, Robert Jr. and Donald Wolfe. 1960. Husbands and Wives: The Dynamics of Married Living . Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

Coltrane, Scott. 2000. “Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62:1209–1233.

Crano, William and Joel Aronoff. 1978. “A Cross-Cultural Study of Expressive and Instrumental Role Complementarity in the Family.” American Sociological Review 43:463–471.

De Toledo, Sylvie and Deborah Edler Brown. 1995. Grandparents as Parents: A Survival Guide for Raising a Second Family . New York: Guilford Press.

Employment and Social Development Canada. 2014a. “Indicators of Well-Being in Canada: Family Life – Divorce.” Employment and Social Development Canada. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/[email protected]?iid=76

Employment and Social Development Canada. 2014b. “Indicators of Well-Being in Canada: Family Life – Marriage.” Employment and Social Development Canada. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/[email protected]?iid=78

Friedan, Betty. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. (NY: W.W. Norton & Company)

Houseknecht, Sharon and Jaya Sastry. 1996. “Family ‘Decline’ and Child Well-Being.” Journal of Marriage and the Family. 58: 726-739.

Human Resources Development Canada. 2003. A New Generation of Canadian Families Raising Young Children: A New Look at Data from National Surveys. Human Resources Development Canada: Applied Research Branch. September. Retrieved July 4, 2014, from http://www.gov.mb.ca/healthychild/ecd/raising_young_children.pdf

Hurley, Dan. 2005. “Divorce Rate: It’s Not as High as You Think.” New York Times , April 19 . Retrieved February 14, 2012 ( http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html ).

Jayson, Sharon. 2010. “Report: Cohabiting Has Little Effect on Marriage Success.” USA Today, October 14. Retrieved February 14, 2012 ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-03-02-cohabiting02_N.htm ).

LaRossa, Ralph and Donald Reitzes. 1993. “Symbolic Interactionism and Family Studies.” Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach . New York: Plenum Press.

Le Bourdais, Celine and Heather Juby. 2002. “The Impact of Cohabitation on the Family Life Course in Contemporary North America: Insights from across the Border.” Pp. 107-118 in Booth, Alan and Ann Crouter (ed.s). Just Living Together: Implications of Cohabitation for Children, Family and Social Policy. (NY: Psychology Press).

Lee, Gary. 1982. Family Structure and Interaction: A Comparative Analysis . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Milan, Anne. 2013. Marital Status: Overview, 2011. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 91-209-X. July. Retrieved July 4, 2014, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-209-x/2013001/article/11788-eng.pdf

Roberts, Sam. 2007. “51% of Women Are Now Living Without a Spouse.” New York Times , January 16. Retrieved from February 14, 2012 ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/us/16census.html?pagewanted=all0 ).

To, Teresa, Astrid Guttmann, Paul Dick, Jay Rosenfield, Patricia Parkin, Marjan Tassoudji, Tatiana Vydykhan, Hongmei Cao, Jennifer K. Harris. 2004. “Risk Markers for Poor Developmental Attainment in Young Children: Results from a Longitudinal National Survey.” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. 158(7):643-649.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. “Current Population Survey (CPS).” Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://www.census.gov/population/www/cps/cpsdef.html ).

U.S. Census Bureau. 2011. “America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being. Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/famsoc1.asp ).

Venugopal, Arun. 2011. “New York Leads in Never-Married Women.” WNYC , December 10. Retrieved February 14, 2012 ( http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2011/sep/22/new-york-never-married-women/ ).

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14.3. Challenges Families Face Amato, Paul. 2000. “What Children Learn From Divorce.” Journal of Family Issues 21(8):1061–1086.

Amato, Paul and Bruce Keith. 1991. “Parental Divorce and the Well-Being of Children: A Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin. 110: 26-46.

Benson, Michael and Greer Fox. 2004. When Violence Hits Home: How Economics and Neighborhood Play a Role . Washington, DC: National Institutes of Justice.

Berlin, Lisa. 2009. “Correlates and Consequences of Spanking and Verbal Punishment for Low-Income White, African American, and Mexican American Toddlers.” Child Development 80(5):1403–1420.

Catalano, S. 2007. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States . Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved April 30, 2012 ( http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipvus.pdf ).

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CBC News. 2013. “Dozens of children seized from Manitoba Mennonite community: RCMP lay multiple assault charges against 3 men and a woman.” CBC News. June 19. Retrieved July 6, 2014, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/dozens-of-children-seized-from-manitoba-mennonite-community-1.1323892

Centers for Disease Control. 2012. “Understanding Intimate Partner Violence.” Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ipv_factsheet-a.pdf ).

Clark, Warren and Susan Crompton. 2006. “Till death do us part? The risk of first and second marriage dissolution.” Canadian Social Trends. Statistics Canada — Catalogue No. 11-008. Summer. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2006001/pdf/9198-eng.pdf

Durrant, Joan and Ron Ensom. 2012. “Physical Punishment of Children: Lessons from 20 Years of Research.” Canadian Medical Association Journal. 184(12): 1373–1377. Retrieved July 6, 2014, from http://www.cheo.on.ca/uploads/Durrant%20EnsomCMAJ2012.pdf

Elliot, Diana. 2010. “Embracing the Institution of Marriage: The Characteristics of Remarried Americans.” U.S. Census Bureau.

Fletcher, John. 2012. “Positive parenting, not physical punishment.” Canadian Medical Association Journal. 184(12): 1339.

Goodwin, S.N., S. Chandler, and J. Meisel. 2003. “Violence Against Women: The Role of Welfare Reform.” Final Report to the National Institute of Justice.

Hitchen, Ian. 2013. “Community’s children apprehended by province: Four Old Order Mennonite members accused of assaulting youths.” Winnipeg Free Press. June 6. Retrieved July 6, 2014, from http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/communitys-children-apprehended-by-province-212106141.html

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Pearce, Tralee. 2012. “Spanking your kid: Does it help or hurt?” The Toronto Globe and Mail. Sept. 6. Retrieved July 6, 2014, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/spanking-your-kid-does-it-help-or-hurt/article543483/

Popenoe, David and Barbara D. Whitehead. 2001. “Top Ten Myths of Divorce University of Virginia/National Marriage Project/The State of Our Unions.” Retrieved January 16, 2012.

Popenoe, David and Barbara D. Whitehead. 2004. “Ten Important Research Findings on Marriage and Choosing a Marriage Partner.” University of Virginia/National Marriage Project/The State of Our Unions. Retrieved January 16, 2012.

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Silverman, J.G., A. Raj, L. A. Mucci, and J. E. Hathaway. 2001. “Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Abuse, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy and Suicide.” Journal of the American Medical Association 286:572–579.

Sinha, Maire. 2012. “Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2010 .” Statistics Canada Juristat Article. Catalogue no. 85-002-X. May 22. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11643-eng.pdf

Sinha, Maire (ed.). 2013. “Measuring violence against women: Statistical trends.” Statistics Canada . Catalogue no. 85-224-X. February 25. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2013001/article/11766-eng.pdf 

Sinha, Maire. 2014. “Parenting and Child Support after Separation or Divorce.” Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 89‑652‑X–No. 001. February. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2014001-eng.pdf

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Temke, Mary W. 2006. “The Effects of Divorce on Children.” Durham: University of New Hampshire. Retrieved January 16, 2012.

Wolfinger, Nicholas. 2005. Understanding the Divorce Cycle . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Solutions to Section Quiz

1. A  |  2. C  |  3. C  |  4. D  |  5. B  |  6. A  |  7. D  |  8. C  |  9. A  |  10. C  |  11. D  |  12. A  |  13. C  |  14. C  |  15. B

Image Attribution

Figure 14.9.  This CT scan is an example of Subdural haemorrhage caused by trauma by Glitzy queen00 ( http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:Trauma_subdural_arrow.jpg ) is in the public domain ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain )

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The Effects of Marriage and Divorce on Families and Children

Presented Before the Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate

Chairman Brownback, Senator Lautenberg, and Members of the Subcommittee:

My name is Gordon Berlin. I am the executive vice president of MDRC, a unique nonpartisan social policy research and demonstration organization dedicated to learning what works to improve the well-being of disadvantaged families. We strive to achieve this mission by conducting real world field tests of new policy and program ideas using the most rigorous methods possible to assess their effectiveness. I am honored to be invited to address your committee about what we know and do not know about the effects of marriage and divorce on families and children and about what policies and programs might work to promote and strengthen healthy marriages, especially among the poor. My goal is to briefly summarize the evidence in three areas: (1) what we know about the effects of marriage, divorce, and single parenthood on children; (2) what we know about the effectiveness of policies and programs that seek to stem persistently high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing; and (3) what we know about the likely effects of these policies on low-income families and children. The central focus of my remarks will be to explicate the role that marital education, family counseling, and related services might play in promoting and strengthening healthy marriages and to discuss what we know about the potential of strategies that seek to ameliorate the key stressors (for example, job loss, lack of income, domestic violence, and childbearing) that make it difficult to form marriages in the first place or act as a catalyst that eventually breaks up existing marriages. To summarize my conclusions:

• First, children who grow up in an intact, two-parent family with both biological parents present do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family. Single parenthood is not the only, nor even the most important, cause of the higher rates of school dropout, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, or other negative outcomes we see; but it does contribute independently to these problems. Neither does single parenthood guarantee that children will not succeed; many, if not most, children who grow up in a single-parent household do succeed.
• Second, an emerging body of evidence suggests that marital education, family counseling, and related services can improve middle-class couples' communication and problem-solving skills, resulting initially in greater marital satisfaction and, in some cases, reduced divorce, although these effects appear to fade over time.
• Third, we do not know whether these same marital education services would be effective in reducing marital stress and eventual divorce among low-income populations or in promoting marriage among the unmarried. Low-income populations confront a wide range of stressors that middle-class families do not. The evidence is limited, and mixed, on whether strategies designed to overcome these stressors, for example, by providing job search assistance or by supplementing low earnings, rather than relying solely on teaching marital communication and problem-solving skills would also increase the likelihood that low-income couples would marry or that married couples would stay together.
• Fourth, to find out whether and what types of policies and programs might successfully strengthen marriage as an institution among low-income populations as well as among a wide variety of ethnically and culturally diverse populations, our national focus should be on the design, implementation, and rigorous evaluation of these initiatives.

Marriage, Divorce, and Single Parenthood

Encouraging and supporting healthy marriages is a cornerstone of the Bush Administration's proposed policies for addressing the poverty-related woes of single-parent households and, importantly, for improving the well-being of low-income children. The rationale is reasonably straightforward: About a third of all children born in the United States each year are born out of wedlock. Similarly, about half of all first marriages end in divorce, and when children are involved, many of the resulting single-parent households are poor. For example, less than 10 percent of married couples with children are poor as compared with about 35 to 40 percent of single-mother families. The combination of an alarmingly high proportion of all new births occurring out of wedlock and discouragingly high divorce rates among families with children ensures that the majority of America's children will spend a significant amount of their childhood in single-parent households. Moreover, research shows that even after one controls for a range of family background differences, children who grow up living in an intact household with both biological parents present seem to do better, on average, on a wide range of social indicators than do children who grow up in a single-parent household (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994). For example, they are less likely to drop out of school, become a teen parent, be arrested, and be unemployed. While single parenthood is not the main nor the sole cause of children's increased likelihood of engaging in one of these detrimental behaviors, it is one contributing factor. Put another way, equalizing income and opportunity do improve the life outcomes of children growing up in single-parent households, but children raised in two-parent families still have an advantage. If the failure of parents to marry and persistently high rates of divorce are behind the high percentage of children who grow up in a single-parent family, can and should policy attempt to reverse these trends? Since Daniel Patrick Moynihan first lamented what he identified as the decline of the black family in his 1965 report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, marriage has been a controversial subject for social policy and scholarship. The initial reaction to Moynihan was harsh; scholars argued vehemently that family structure and, thus, father absence was not a determinant of child well-being. But then in the 1980s, psychologists (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980; Hetherington, 1982) began producing evidence that divorce among middle-class families was harmful to children. Renewed interest among sociologists and demographers (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1994) in the link between poverty and single parenthood soon emerged, and as noted above, that work increasingly began building toward the conclusion that family structure did matter (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994). Of course, the debate was not just about family structure and income differences; it was also about race and gender. When Moynihan wrote in 1965, 24 percent of all births among African-Americans occurred outside of marriage. Today, the black out-of-wedlock birthrate is almost 70 percent, and the white rate has reached nearly 24 percent. If single parenthood is a problem, that problem cuts across race and ethnicity. But the story has nuance. Yes, growing up with two parents is better for children, but only when both mother and father are the biological or “intact” (as opposed to remarried) parents. In fact, there is some evidence that second marriages can actually be harmful to adolescents. Moreover, marriage can help children only if the marriage is a healthy one. While the definition of a “healthy marriage” is itself subject to debate, it is typically characterized as high in positive interaction, satisfaction, and stability and low in conflict. Unhealthy marriages characterized by substantial parental conflict pose a clear risk for child well-being, both because of the direct negative effects that result when children witness conflict between parents, and because of conflict's indirect effects on parenting skills. Marital hostility is associated with increased aggression and disruptive behaviors on the part of children which, in turn, seem to lead to peer rejection, academic failure, and other antisocial behaviors (Cummings and Davies, 1994; Webster-Stratton, 2003). While our collective hand-wringing about the number of American births that occur out-of-wedlock is justified, what is often missed is that the birthrate among unmarried women accounts for only part of the story. In fact, birthrates among unmarried teens and African-Americans have been falling — by a fourth among unmarried African-American women since 1960, for example (Offner, 2001). How, then, does one explain the fact that more and more of the nation's children are being born out of wedlock? Because the nonmarital birth ratio is a function of (1) the out-of-wedlock birthrate (births per 1,000 unmarried women), (2) the marriage rate, and (3) the birthrate among married women (births per 1,000 married women) - the share of all children born out of wedlock has risen over the last thirty years, in large measure, because women were increasingly delaying marriage, creating an ever larger pool of unmarried women of childbearing age, and because married women were having fewer children. Indeed, families acted to maintain their standard of living in the face of stagnant and falling wages, earnings, and incomes during the 1970s and 1980s by having fewer children and sending both parents into the workforce, a strategy that undoubtedly has increased the stress on low-income two-parent families (Levy, 1988), and that contributed to the rise in out-of-wedlock births as a proportion of all births. Concern about these trends in out-of-wedlock births and divorce, coupled with the gnawing reality that child poverty is inextricably bound up with family structure, has encouraged conservatives and some liberals to focus on marriage as a solution. Proponents of this approach argued that many social policies — welfare and tax policy, for example — were actually anti-marriage, even if research only weakly demonstrated that the disincentives to marry embedded in these policies actually affected behavior. Moreover, they maintained that social policy should not be neutral — it should encourage and support healthy marriages — and they stressed the link between child poverty and single parenthood and the positive child effects associated with two-parent families. The focus on marriage was met with skepticism by others. Critics argued that marriage was not an appropriate province for government intervention and that income and opportunity structures were much more important factors than family structure. They questioned why the focus was on low-income families when the normative changes underlying the growth in single-parent households permeated throughout society, as witnessed by the prevalence of divorce across all economic classes. 

“Fragile Families” Are Pro-Marriage

More recent evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study tipped the balance for many in favor of the pro-marriage arguments. Designed by two prominent academics, Sara McLanahan and Irv Garfinkel, the study is a longitudinal survey of 5,000 low-income married and nonmarried parents conducted in 75 hospitals in twenty cities at the time of their child's birth. Among mothers who were not married when their child was born, 83 percent reported that they were romantically involved with the father, and half of the parents were living together. Nearly all of the romantically involved couples expressed interest in developing long-term stable relationships, and there was universal interest in marriage, with most indicating that there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that they would marry in the future. Looking at employment history and other factors, researchers estimated that about a third of the couples had high potential to marry; another third had some problems, like lack of a job, that could be remedied; while the final third were not good candidates due to a history of violence, incarceration, and the like (McLanahan, Garfinkel, and Mincy, 2001). There was certainly reason to be cautious about presuming a link between what people said and what they might actually do, and longer follow-up data did indeed throw some cold water on initial optimism. However, when the Fragile Families data were thrown into the mix with the trend data and with the data that suggested that family structure was a determinant of poverty, the reaction was catalytic. The notion was reinforced that more marriage and less child poverty would result if public policies could just be brought in line with the expressed interests of low-income couples. 

Marital Education Can Work

But what, if anything, could government actually do to promote marriage among low-income families? For some policy analysts, the discovery of marriage education programs seemed to provide the missing link. To the surprise of many, not only did these programs exist, but there was a body of evidence, including more than a dozen randomized trials, indicating that marriage education programs could be effective. Marriage education refers to services that help couples who are married or planning to marry to strengthen their communication and problem-solving skills and thus their relationships. Models range from those that adopt a skills-based instructional approach to those that use a therapeutic “hands on” approach that addresses the specific marital problems facing individual couples. Some of the cutting-edge work now underway provides a flavor of the approaches being developed. Dr. Phil Cowan and Dr. Carolyn Cowan, both professors of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, have been involved in the development and rigorous testing of family instruction models for more than twenty years. Dr. Benjamin Karney, a psychologist at the University of Florida, has been conducting a longitudinal study of newly married couples. Dr. Richard Heyman, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has 15 years’ experience conducting prevention and treatment research on couple and family interaction. Dr. John Gottman, who leads the Relationship Research Institute where he focuses on marriage, family, and child development, has developed and carefully evaluated some of the most innovative new approaches to marital education and group instruction. Dr. Pamela Jordan developed the Becoming Parents Program, a couple-focused educational research program being tested in a large randomized trial. Dr. Howard J. Markman and Dr. Scott Stanley, both of the University of Denver, developed and refined the Preparation and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP). Among the skills-training programs, PREP is the most widely used with couples who are about to marry. It teaches skills such as active listening and self-regulation of emotions for conflict management and positive communication. PREP also includes substantial content on topics such as commitment, forgiveness, and expectations clarification. PREP appears to have a significant effect on marital satisfaction initially, but the effect appears to fade over time (Gottman, 1979), and there is some indication that it improves communication among high-risk couples but not low-risk couples (Halford, Sanders, and Behrens, 2001). Therapeutic interventions are more open-ended and involve group discussions, usually guided by trained professionals to help partners identify and work through the marriage problems they are facing. The most carefully evaluated of the structured group discussion models targeted couples around the time of their child's birth, an event that triggers substantial and sustained decline in marital satisfaction. Couples meet in a group with a trained therapist over a six-month period that begins before the child is born and continues for another three months after the birth. Initially, marital satisfaction soared and divorce rates plummeted relative to a similar group of families that did not participate in the program. But the divorce effects waned by the five-year follow-up point, even while marital satisfaction remained high for those couples who stayed together (Schultz and Cowan, 2001). More recent work by Cowan and Cowan and by John Gottman appears to produce more promising results. Both the Cowans’ model of education via structured group discussions and a marital-education and skills-development model pioneered by John Gottman led to positive effects on children. The Cowans found positive effects in the school performance of children whose parents participated in their couples instruction and group discussion program. Gottman describes improved cooperative interaction between the parents and their infant child and sustained increased involvement by fathers. While the results from the marriage education programs are encouraging, they are not definitive. Most of the studies are small, several have serious flaws, and only a few have long-term follow-up data (and those that do seem to show decay in effectiveness over time). Moreover, only a handful of the studies collected information on child well-being. Most importantly, all of the programs studied served mostly white, middle-class families, not the low-income and diverse populations that would be included in a wider government initiative. 

Context and Low-income Families

Not surprisingly, low-income couples have fewer resources to cope with life's vagaries. They are more likely to experience job loss, have an unexpected health or family crisis, be evicted from or burned out of their home, be the victim of a violent crime, and so forth. As a result, they face greater difficulty than middle-class individuals in forming and sustaining marriages. With the exception of African-Americans, low-income couples are not less likely to marry; but they are more likely to divorce when they do marry. Yet evidence from the Fragile Families survey of 5,000 low-income couples who have just given birth to a child and ethnographic interviews conducted with low-income women in Philadelphia by Kathy Edin of Northwestern University provide convincing evidence that low-income people share the same normative commitment to marriage that middle-class families demonstrate. As Kathy Edin told the Senate Finance Committee last week, “[T]he poor already believe in marriage, profoundly so. The poor want to marry, but they insist on marrying well. This…is the only way to avoid an almost certain divorce.” If poor families share the same commitment to marriage as better-off couples, what is it about their low-income status that inhibits the formation of stable marriages? One possible explanation is the mismatch between a large number of stressful events they face and few resources with which to respond to those stressors. The imbalance places greater demands on the individuals in a dyad, leaving less time together and less time to dedicate to relationship building than might be the case for a middle-class couple. In addition, the problems low-income couples have to manage — problems such as substance abuse, job loss, eviction, chronic infidelity, a child with a chronic condition like asthma or developmental delays, and criminal activities — may be more severe than those confronted by better-off couples. (Edin, 2004; Karney, Story, and Bradbury, 2003; Heyman, 2000). Because the problems low-income couples confront are likely to be more acute and chronic than those faced by middle-class couples, it is an open question whether the problem-solving and communication skills taught by marital education programs will be as effective among low-income couples as they appear to have been for middle-class couples (where the evidence base is still evolving). Clearly, the skill sets taught in those programs and the strategies applied by therapists and counselors to solve the problems couples present will need to be adapted. Moreover, it is possible that these kinds of stressors overwhelm the abilities of individuals to use the skills they are taught. It is difficult to be understanding of a partner's failings when the rent is due and there is not enough money to pay it. Such concerns have elicited two kinds of responses: first, efforts to adapt marital education programs to better meet the needs of low-income families; and second, proposals to combine marital education with strategies that would directly tackle the poverty-related stressors on family life — for example, with help in finding a job, income supplements to make up for low wages, child care assistance, and medical coverage. 

Adapting Marital Education to the Needs of Low-Income Families

Underpinning the interest in public support for marital education programs is a conviction that low-income individuals do not have good information about the benefits of marriage. In part, this dearth results from their experience of having grown up in single-parent households where they were simply not exposed to role models that might inform their own relationships. In part, it is a consequence of their lack of access to the same kinds of supports and information, counseling, and therapy that are often available to middle-class couples contemplating marriage or divorce. Buoyed by the success of the model marriage education programs with middle-class families, and following the lead of former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, who was determined to end his state's embarrassing status as the nation's divorce capital, practitioners of marital education programs have begun applying and adapting these models to the needs of low-income couples. The objective is to equip low-income couples with relationship skills to improve couple interaction by reducing negative exchanges (anger, criticism, contempt, and blaming) and strengthening positive behaviors (expressions of support, humor, empathy, and affection). The logic is obvious: When couples enjoy positive interaction and are successful in handling conflict, their confidence and commitment would be reinforced, thereby fostering satisfaction and stability. But the designers of these programs recognize that they must adapt marital education as middle-class families know it to better meet the different needs of low-income households. This might involve changes in the types of agencies that deliver services, the training leaders would get, the content and examples used in the training, the duration and intensity of services, and the balance between strengthening internal communication and the forging of links to community programs that can provide support related to the contexts in which poor families live. 

Does Reducing Financial Stress Promote Marital Stability?

While there is a strong relationship between poverty and marital breakup, would programs that ameliorate poverty by providing supports to the working poor actually improve marital relationships? There have been few tests of this question; the most relevant recent reform that has been carefully evaluated for two-parent families is the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). Implemented in 1994, MFIP used the welfare system to make work pay by supplementing the earnings of recipients who took jobs until their income reached 140 percent of the poverty line, and it required nonworkers to participate in a range of employment, training, and support services. For two-parent families, MFIP also eliminated the arcane work-history requirements and the “100-hour rule,” a policy that limited the number of hours a primary earner could work and still receive welfare but which had the perverse, unintended effect of encouraging couples to divorce so they could remain eligible for welfare. MDRC's evaluation of MFIP examined program effects on employment, income, marriage, and other family outcomes up to three years after entry. Because MFIP treated two-parent family recipients (who were receiving welfare at the onset of the study) and new applicants differently, outcomes for these groups were examined separately. We found that two-parent recipient families in MFIP were as likely as those in a comparable group of welfare recipients who were not eligible for MFIP to have at least one parent work; but the MFIP sample was less likely to have both parents work, leading to an overall reduction in their combined earnings of approximately $500 per quarter. Yet because the program supplemented the earnings of participating families, the two-parent recipient families who participated in MFIP still had slightly higher family incomes (up $190 per quarter more, on average, when taking into account their decreased likelihood of separating or divorcing — and, thus, retaining access to both partners' earnings). In contrast, MFIP had fewer effects on parental employment, earnings, and income for welfare applicants, a finding that is not entirely surprising given their short welfare spells. One of the striking findings of the three-year evaluation was that, among the 290 two-parent recipient families who were part of a follow-up survey sample, families in the MFIP group were 19.1 percentage points more likely than families in the group who received traditional welfare payments under the Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program to report being married and living with their spouse. Most of this increase in marital stability was a result of fewer reported separations in MFIP families as compared to AFDC families, although some of it was a result of small reductions in divorce. Because there is some question about how families on welfare might report their marital status, MDRC also obtained and analyzed data from publicly available divorce records. We did this for some 188 two-parent recipient families who were married at study entry. (The other 100 or so families in the original survey sample were cohabiting, and we did not look for marriage records for them). The data confirmed that these couples were 7 percentage points less likely than their AFDC counterparts to divorce. This gave us confidence that MFIP did indeed reduce marital instability. (Again, divorce records would not tell us about the separations we found in the survey, so the effect should be smaller than the 19 percentage point effect we found there). These findings have two important implications. First, make-work-pay strategies might reduce financial stress and increase the likelihood that two-parent families stay together. Second, given the small number of people followed in the MFIP survey sample, MFIP's marriage effects on all two-parent families should be investigated and the results should be replicated in other locations before the findings are used to make policy. As a first step in that process, MDRC went back to the state of Minnesota to obtain divorce and marriage records for the full sample of 2,200 two-parent MFIP families (including both recipients and applicants) for a follow-up period of more than six years. This fuller record would give us the opportunity to understand whether the positive effects on divorce (but not the much larger effects on separation) we found for the 290 two-parent families in the survey sample applied to the larger group of two-parent MFIP families. In addition, we wanted to learn about MFIP's possible effect on subgroups of two-parent families that we could not previously examine. Six years later, the full-sample story on divorce is decidedly mixed. Overall, for the full sample of two-parent families, there is no discernable pattern of effects on divorce over time. When we look at the two-parent recipient families only, those eligible for the MFIP program appear to be less likely to get divorced, but the finding is not statistically significant until the last year of follow-up, leaving open the possibility that the pattern we see could still be due to chance. Moreover, the pattern among applicants is also uncertain — barely statistically significant in one year, but favoring more rather than less divorce. The different direction in the findings for the recipient and applicant groups explains the absence of an overall effect on divorce. And in both cases, the effects we did see were small — about a 3 to 4 percentage point difference in divorce between the MFIP group and the AFDC group. Finally, recall that public marriage and divorce records can capture only a family's legally documented marital status. They cannot distinguish informal statuses like separations, the form of marital dissolution that drove the dramatic 36-month recipient findings mentioned above. We are currently planning further analyses to better understand MFIP's effects on divorce for these and other subgroups. We have no reliable way of exploring the separation findings. MFIP's initial results were tantalizing in large part because MFIP was not specifically targeted to affect marriage, divorce, or separations, and yet it appeared to produce large effects on the likelihood that some two-parent families would stay together, suggesting that strategies that tackle the vagaries of poverty could promote marital stability by reducing some of the economic stress on poor families. But the full-sample findings cast some doubt on that promise (with regard to divorce but not separations), reinforcing the need to replicate programs like MFIP for two-parent families in different settings before reaching conclusions about the contribution such strategies might make toward strengthening marriage. The findings particularly leave open the question of the possible range of effects that programs could achieve if policies providing marital education were combined with policies designed to affect employment and income. 

What We Don't Know

While the evidence base on marital education is extensive, there is much left to learn. For example:

• Will participation in marital education programs by low-income couples lead to an increase in marriage and in marital harmony and, in turn, have lasting effects on couples' satisfaction, on parenting skills and practices, and on children?
• Will the skills taught in marital education programs be a match for the poverty-related stresses experienced by low-income families, or are additional supports such as employment and income also needed to reduce divorce and increase the number of healthy marriages?
• Will marriage education programs be effective regardless of race, ethnic identity, and cultural norms, and how should these programs be adapted to better meet different groups' divergent needs?
• Who will participate in marital education programs? Will they attract predominantly couples who already have a deep commitment to each other or couples whose problems are acute? Will a broad cross-section of low-income couples participate or only a narrow slice of the population?
• Will these programs facilitate the dissolution of unhealthy marriages as proponents contend, or will they prolong marriages that might be better off dissolving or not forming in the first place?
• Can a relatively short education course — say, 10 to 20 hours spread over a few months — have a long-lasting effect on marital and couple discord, or are more long-term strategies and even one-on-one back-up couple-counseling services necessary? What is the right duration and intensity of an initiative? Can courses be short term and intense, or must they be longer and more sustained to yield longer-lasting effects? What is the right content? What are the implications for affordability and scale? 

An Opportunity to Learn

On substantive, policy, and financial grounds, there are good arguments to be made for public involvement in the marriage field. If marital education programs could be mounted at scale, if participation rates among those eligible were high, and if the programs were effective in encouraging and sustaining healthy two-parent families, the effects on children could be important. The key word is if ! The strong correlation between growing up in a two-parent family and improved child outcomes does not ensure that intervening to encourage more marriage and less divorce will have the intended results. Indeed, social policymaking based on correlation has an uncanny way of ending with unintended consequences. The only reliable way to understand whether marital education and other supports designed to strengthen marriage produces such results is to conduct a social experiment with the right mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to answer the “what difference,” “how,” and “why” questions. The Administration of Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched two new projects to do just that. Managed by Mathematica Policy Research, the Building Strong Families evaluation is targeted to low-income unwed couples beginning around the time of their child's birth. The Supporting Healthy Marriage initiative, which is being overseen by MDRC, is aimed at low-income married couples. Both projects will involve large-scale, multisite, rigorous random assignment tests of marriage-skills programs for low-income couples. The goal is to measure the effectiveness of programs that provide instruction and support to improve relationship skills. Some programs might also include services to help low-income couples address barriers to healthy marriages, such as poor parenting skills or problems with employment, health, or substance abuse. Programs operated under these demonstration umbrellas will screen for domestic violence and help participants gain access to appropriate services. Done well, the results from these path-breaking projects should inform the marriage field, and they should add value to our existing understanding of the potential and the pitfalls of government intervention in this critically important arena. 

Cummings, E. M., and P. Davies. 1994. Children and Marital Conflict. New York: Guilford. Edin, K. 2004. Testimony Before the United States Senate Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy. The Benefits of Healthy Marriage Hearing, May 5. Edin, K., and M. Kefalas. 2004. Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gennetian, L. and V. Knox. 2004. Getting and Staying Married: The Effects of a Minnesota Welfare Reform Program on Marital Stability. New York: MDRC. Gottman, J. M. 1979. Marital Interaction: Experimental Investigations. Oxford, England: Elsevier. Furstenberg, F. and A Cherlin. 1994. Divided Families: What Happens to Children when Parents Part. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Halford, W. K., M. R. Sanders, and B. C. Behrens. 2001. “Can Skills Training Prevent Relationship Problems in At-Risk Couples? Four-Year Effects of a Behavioral Relationship Education Program.” Journal of Family Psychology 15, 4: 750-768. Hetherington, E. M., M. Cox, and R. Cox. 1982. “Effects of Divorce on Parents and Children.” In M. Lamb (ed.), Nontraditional Families. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Heyman, R. E. 2001. “Observation of Couple Conflicts: Clinical Assessment Applications, Stubborn Truths, and Shaky Foundations.” Psychological Assessment 13: 5-35. Karney, B. R., L. Story, and T. Bradbury. 2003. “Marriages in Context: Interactions Between Chronic and Acute Stress Among Newlyweds.” Presentation at the International Meeting on the Developmental Course of Couples Coping with Stress, October 12-14, 2002, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA. Levy, F. 1988. Dollars and Dreams: The Changing American Income Distribution. New York: Norton. McLanahan, S., I. Garfinkel., and R. B. Mincy. 2001. “Fragile Families, Welfare Reform, and Marriage.” Policy Brief No. 10. Washington DC: Brookings Institution. McLanahan, S., and G. D. Sandefur. 1994. Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts? What Helps? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moynihan, D. P. 1965. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Policy Planning and Research. Offner, P. 2001. “Reducing Non-Marital Births.” Policy Brief No. 5. Washington, DC: Welfare Reform and Beyond. Schultz, M., and C. P. Cowan. 2001. Promoting Healthy Beginnings During the Transition to Parenthood. Minneapolis: Society for Research in Child Development. Wallerstein, J., and J. Kelly. 1980. Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce. New York: Basic Books. Webster-Stratton, C. 2003. The Incredible Years. Toronto: Umbrella Press.

Document Details

A family-strengthening program for low-income families.

Final Impacts from the Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation

Perspectives of Low-Income African-American and Latino Couples on Relationship Education

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Essay Samples on Divorce

Divorce is a complex and deeply personal process that involves the legal dissolution of a marriage. It marks the end of a once-promising union and triggers a range of emotions, from sadness and anger to relief and newfound independence. Understanding the intricacies of divorce and its effects is crucial when writing college essays about divorce.

How to Write College Essays About Divorce

When exploring the subject of divorce, it is important to delve into the factors that contribute to its occurrence and look at college essays about divorce examples. These can include communication issues, incompatibility, domestic abuse, financial strain, or even external factors such as societal expectations or cultural norms. Discussing these causes helps paint a comprehensive picture of the complexities surrounding divorce.

To provide a well-rounded perspective for an example of college essay about divorce, consider including statistics or research findings related to divorce rates, average durations of marriages, or common age groups affected by divorce. This data can help support your arguments and provide a factual foundation for your essay.

Additionally, it is crucial to examine the legal aspects of divorce. Different jurisdictions have specific laws and regulations governing the process, including property division, alimony, child custody, and visitation rights. Incorporating information about these legal frameworks can add depth to your essay and showcase a comprehensive understanding of divorce proceedings.

While divorce can be emotionally challenging, it also offers opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery. Discuss the psychological and emotional impacts divorce can have on individuals, as well as strategies for coping and rebuilding one’s life after the end of a marriage.

Lastly, explore the societal implications of divorce. Analyze how divorce impacts the perception of marriage, family structures, and gender roles. Consider the evolving attitudes towards divorce in different cultures and how society supports or stigmatizes individuals going through this process in the divorce essay example.

Cause and Effect of Broken Family: Exploring the Impact on Individuals and Society

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Best topics on Divorce

1. Cause and Effect of Broken Family: Exploring the Impact on Individuals and Society

2. Growing Up with Divorced Parents: Discussing the Topic of Divorce With Your Children

3. Growing Up With Divorced Parents: The Impact of Divorce on the Children

4. The Effects Of Divorce On Children

5. The Effects Of Divorce On Children In America

6. The Effects Of Divorce On Children And Young Adolescents

7. The Causes Of Divorce That Lead To The Annulment

8. The Causes Of Divorce And The Ruined Marriages

9. The Causes Of Divorce: The Reason Marriage Fails

10. The Causes And Effects Of Divorce

11. Main Reasons For Divorce In The United States And How It Impacts Family

12. My Personal Opinion On Why Divorce Shouldn’t Be Legalized

13. Common Social Problems Encountered In Family Life And How They Affect The Marriage

14. Divorce Rates In Kenya And Means To Reduce Them

15. Divorce Process And Finances In Hennepin County

• Personal Experience
• Career Goals
• Perseverance
• Actions Speak Louder Than Words

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Persuasive & Argumentative Essays about Divorce: Free Tips

A divorce is a life-changing experience that affects spouses and their children (if there are any). Since divorce rates are relatively high in modern society, more and more people face this problem nowadays.

When you are assigned to compose an argumentative essay about divorce, you should be as careful as possible. Remember that the split-up of marriage can be a painful experience for everyone involved.

The article will give you useful advice on how to write an outstanding paper on the topic. Learn the essential features of the following types:

• persuasive essay about divorce,
• for and against essay,
• causes and effects of divorce essay,

Check tips from Custom-writing.org below and write the best paper!

• 💍 How to Write It
• 📂 Essays by Type
• ✒ Causes and Effects

✍️ Divorce Essay Topics

💍 how to write a divorce essay.

The general structure of essays on divorce is quite common:

• introduction;
• conclusion.

Yet, there are some variations of what info to include in the body, depending on the essay type. The following structure is applicable for divorce argumentative essay. To learn about the features of other types, keep on reading our article.

Argumentative divorce essays are composed according to the standard structure:

1. Thesis Statement about Divorce

A divorce essay introduction isn’t anything extraordinary as you have to introduce your topic and position.

• You should always give broad information about the issue and state the main problems you will discuss in your writing.
• Make a general statement about the consequences of divorce or the common divorce effects on people.
• Then write your thesis statement on divorce. Clearly explain to the audience the topic you’re going to discuss and your position on that topic. In case you find this task difficult, try using a thesis generator for argumentative essay . This will save you some time.

That’s it! Now your divorce essay introduction is ready.

What’s next?

2. Main Body

This section presents all of your ideas and arguments related to the topic of divorce.

• Here you can write about the adverse effects of divorce on children or the most common reasons people divorce.
• Use compelling arguments and support your ideas with examples.

There are tons of surveys and statistics about divorce on the internet, so it won’t be too challenging to gather the information you need.

3. Conclusion

In the last paragraph, you have to sum up your paper and leave a final expression.

• Summarize every idea presented in your divorce essay.
• Restate your thesis statement on divorce, relying on your reasoning.
• Then list your concluding thoughts on this topic.

Make your sentences clear and easy to follow. Use synonyms to improve your writing style. Such an approach will help you convince the readers and express your thoughts better.

📂 Divorce Essays by Type

The content and reasoning of each paper on divorce depend primarily on the type of essay . See the following sections to understand how to write each of them.

Here are a few types you can consider:

Argumentative Essay about Divorce

When it comes to divorce, there are many disputable topics—for example, the reasons people separate or its impact on children. It’s easy to find support and statistics for both issues. And you’ll need them as facts are a crucial part of a divorce argumentative essay.

As a starting point:

Research your idea and choose a side to support. Make sure that among all argumentative essay topics about divorce, you selected the most interesting for yourself. In your thesis statement, concisely express your position, so the reader can quickly get it.

Then, start writing the entire essay. Regardless of what type of paper you are writing—anti or pro divorce argumentative essay—your writing should meet these requirements:

• Base your points on logic;
• Present both sides of the arguments, but support only one;
• Take into consideration counterclaims;
• Support all the arguments by valid evidence;
• Use a calm, informative tone.

Don’t forget to incorporate quotes and figures to convince your readers.

Persuasive Essay about Divorce

What is the goal of writing persuasive essays ? It’s to convince your reader that your position on a particular problem is true.

Therefore, writing this paper means that you should identify an individual problem related to the topic. In the introduction of your persuasive essay about divorce, you should choose your side and deliver it to the reader.

Crucial note:

Similarly to an argumentative essay, you have to provide credible facts to support your position. Yet here, you use them to back up your opinion and persuade your reader.

While composing your persuasive essay about the legalization of divorce, remember its distinctive features:

• Based on emotions;
• Presents only one side of the argument;
• Ignores counterclaims;
• The tone is dynamic, emotionally-charged, and aggressive to some extent.

Cause and Effect Essay on Divorce

Whether it concerns old parents or a young couple, divorce typically has the same causes and effects. You can often see them clearly, even in books or movies.

The essay outline for the causes and effects of divorce essay is quite common:

• Introduction.

In your divorce essay introduction, provide a general background and compose a clear thesis statement. For example, your thesis might look like this:

A divorce, caused by the spouses’ expectations mismatch, results in a lack of communication between children and one of the parents.

In this part of your essay, investigate the cause and effect of divorce, you stated before.

For the given thesis, the main points would be the following:

The primary cause of divorce is the mismatch in the spouses’ expectations from the marriage.

The divorce often results in a lack of children’s interactions with one of the parents.

• Conclusion.

Synthesize all of your arguments and give your audience a space for a further investigation of your issue.

Narrative Essay about Divorce

If your assignment is to write a family essay, you can choose from a wide range of topics. For this purpose, a marriage essay or a divorce essay would be perfect.

In a short paper about your family, it isn’t easy to cover many topics. So choose only one.

Look through some narrative essay topics and select the one you like:

• The story of my divorce: how did I decide to break up with my spouse?
• My life completely changed after my parents divorced.
• How my life looked like before the divorce with my wife/husband and how it looks now.
• The way divorce destroys healthy communication between children and parents in my family.

For and Against Divorce Essay

As you know, both the negative and positive effects of divorce are disputable, making them appealing to discuss. There are many recent studies and relevant statistical data on the topic to help you write such an essay.

This topic would also be great for a speech on divorce.

Wondering what are the for and against divorce arguments? Take a look at the following:

✒ Divorce: Causes and Effects

We have a pleasant bonus for you! Below, you can find useful arguments and insightful ideas that you can use in your papers on divorce. Apply our concepts in any type of essay, adjusting them to your topic.

Divorce essays can cover the following issues:

Generally Known Facts on Divorces

When covering this issue in your persuasive essay on divorce, you will have to cover the problem altogether. Include the common marriage problems that psychologists all over the world study. Use their statistical data on divorces when crafting your argument.

Divorce is quite a broad topic, and you may want to narrow it down. With so much information available, you could write a research paper on divorce without any difficulty.

Statistical Data on Divorces

Good divorce essays should include enough statistical data. It will add more scientific value and reveal your research abilities. Besides, facts and figures present many exciting topics to comment on.

For example:

You can do significant research concerning divorce causes and consequences. Draw a contrast between divorce in several countries, or examine the age and education of people who officially separate more often.

Reasons for Divorces

What does an essay on divorce mean without discussion of its reasons?

Find out different sociologists’ viewpoints on the reasons for divorces. Then underline the cause you consider to be the most truthful one.

You can also provide your own theory on the grounds for divorces in your persuasive essay on divorce. The key point is to prove the accuracy of your statement.

Divorce Prevention Ideas

If there is a problem, there must be some solution. So, think of the possible ways to make a marriage work.

Investigate divorce causes from a scientific point of view. Examine the primary studies that reveal why people actually break up. Also, discuss the precautions that can help married couples avoid significant conflicts.

Effects of Divorce on Children

Parents sometimes forget that their divorce isn’t only about them but also about their children. It causes psychological problems for kids, which you can classify in your paper. Don’t forget to add some statistical data on divorce to support your arguments.

Every child reacts differently to their parents’ breakup. It’s a rare case when divorce consequences are positive, making the effects on kids an urgent topic to discuss.

Positive Effects of Divorce

Sometimes divorce isn’t a catastrophe but rather the only way to heal wounds and begin a new life. Often, people don’t recognize that they need to change their lives for the better. This situation is primarily related to abusive marriages or those with regular cheating.

In these cases, the positive effects of divorce may seem easy to understand. However, psychologists have to make great efforts to persuade people to end their relationships. Write a paper making this same argument.

• Negative outcomes of divorce on children.
• Connection between divorce and antisocial behavior of children.
• Family crises and the issue it causes: divorce, remarriage, stepparents, adoption.
• Effect of divorce on teenagers’ academic performance.  
• Causes and consequences of divorce .
• What can be done to decrease divorce rates in America?  
• Does parental divorce affect the rates of juvenile delinquency ?
• The most widespread reasons for divorce.
• Analyze marital success factors and Gottman’s predictors of divorce.
• Impact of divorce on child’s mental health.
• Change of divorce law throughout history.
• Positive and negative changes in children’s behavior after divorce.
• Divorce : a disaster or a benefit?
• Is cheating one of the main reasons of divorce?
• Gender stratification impact on divorce trends.
• Effect of divorce on family relationship.
• Do divorced parents change their child-rearing styles?
• List of factors typically associated with higher divorce rates.
• The support required for all the members of divorced and single-parent families .
• Analyze the reasons for high divorce rates .
• Does divorce only impact adolescent in a bad way?
• Effect of poverty on divorce rates.
• Specifics of divorce in the UAE.
• Does divorce lead to depression?
• Family therapy and its role in decreasing divorce rates.
• The impact of divorce on children-parents relationship.
• Evaluation of child custody in divorce proceedings.
• How to manage the stress of divorce.
• Effect of divorce on children’s self-esteem.
• How to minimize the devastating consequences of divorce.
• Addiction as the reason for divorce.
• Effective communication in marriage and its role in preventing divorce.
• Divorce as the only way out of an abusive relationship.
• Financial issues of divorce and how to overcome them.
• Parental support is the best way to help children to go through divorce.
• How do adolescents adjust to parental divorce?
• Do boys and girls react to the parental divorce the same way?
• Social media can destroy relationship and lead to divorce.
• Can Christian counseling help couples to resolve their issues and avoid divorce?
• Poverty among divorced women.
• Young marriage has more chances to break-up.
• Respect is the best way to get marriage satisfaction and avoid divorce.
• Is interfaith marriage doomed to divorce?
• Why a successful marriage may end in divorce?
• Marriage contract will help to facilitate the legal side of divorce process.
• Reduction of the number of divorces.
• Personal development after divorce.
• How family relationships influence future marriage and divorce chances of children.
• Child support in case of marriage divorce.
• Will lack of family and work balance definitely result in divorce?

If you are stuck on writing, you can always ask us for help! Whether you need a persuasive essay on divorce or any other paper, we are here and ready to assist.

Thanks for reading the article! Share it with friends who may need our tips or assistance.

Further reading:

• Top Ideas for Argumentative or Persuasive Essay Topics
• Best Argumentative Research Paper Topics
• 197 Inspirational & Motivational Argumentative Essay Topics
• Gun Control Essay: How-to Guide + Argumentative Topics
• Proposal Essay Topics and Ideas – Easy and Interesting
• Free Exemplification Essay Examples

🔗 References

• Essay Introductions
• Transitional Words and Phrases
• Argumentative Paper Format
• The Writing Process
• Divorce Argument Essay: Bartleby
• Cause and Effect Essay: The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Roane State Community College and UNC at Chapel Hill Writing Center
• Counterargument: Gordon Harvey, the Writing Center at Harvard University
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Essays About Divorce: Top 5 Examples and 7 Prompts

Essays about divorce can be challenging to write; read on to see our top essay examples and writing prompts to help you get started.

Divorce is the legal termination of a marriage. It can be a messy affair, especially if it includes children. Dividing the couple’s assets also often causes chaos when divorce proceedings are in session. 

Divorce also touches and considers religion and tradition. Therefore, laws are formed depending on the country’s history, culture, and belief system.

To help you choose what you want to talk about regarding this topic, here are examples you can read to get an idea of what kind of essay you want to write.

1. Divorce Should Be Legalized in the Philippines by Ernestine Montgomery

2. to divorce or not to divorce by mark ghantous, 3. what if you mess up by manis friedman, 4. divorce: a life-changing experience by writer louie, 5. divorce’s effects on early adult relationships by percy massey, 1. the major reasons for divorce, 2. why i support divorce, 3. my divorce experience, 4. how to avoid divorce, 5. divorce and its effects on my family, 6. the consequences of divorce, 7. divorce laws around the world.

“What we need is a divorce law that defines clearly and unequivocally the grounds and terms for terminating a marriage… Divorce is a choice and we all should have the freedom to make choices… in cases where a union is more harmful than beneficial, a divorce can be benevolent and less hurtful way of severing ties with your partner.”

As the title suggests, Montgomery and his other colleagues discuss why the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, needs to allow divorce. Then, to strengthen his argument, he mentions that Spain, the root of Christianity, and Italy, where the Vatican City is, administer divorce. 

He also mentions bills, relevant figures, and statistics to make his case in favor of divorce more compelling. Montgomery adds that people who want a divorce don’t necessarily mean they want to marry again, citing other motives such as abuse and marital failure.

“Divorce, being the final step in a detrimental marriage, brings upon the gruesome decision as to whether a married couple wishes to end that once made commitment they had for each other. As opposed to the present, divorce was rare in ancient times…”

Ghantous starts his essay with what divorce means, as not only an end of a commitment but also the termination of legal duties and other obligations of the couple to each other. He then talks about divorce in ancient times, when men had superior control over women and their children. He also mentions Caroline Norton, who fought with English family law that was clearly against women.

“So even though G‑d has rules,… laws,… divine commandments, when you sin, He tells you: ‘You messed up? Try again.’ That’s exactly how you should be married — by treating your spouse the way G‑d treats you. With that much mercy and compassion, that much kindness and consideration.”

Friedman’s essay discusses how the Torah sees marriage and divorce and explains it by recounting a scene with his daughters where they couldn’t follow a recipe. He includes good treatment and forgiveness necessary in spouses. But he also explains that God understands and doesn’t want people in a failed marriage to continue hurting. You might also be interested in these essays about commitment .

“Depending on the reasons that led up to the divorce the effects can vary… I was fourteen years old and the one child that suffered the most emotional damage… My parents did not discuss their reasons for the divorce with me, they didn’t have to, and I knew the reasons.”

The author starts the essay by citing the famous marital promise: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer,” before going in-depth regarding the divorce rate among Americans. He further expounds on how common divorce is, including its legalities. Although divorce has established legal grounds, it doesn’t consider the emotional trauma it will cause, especially for children.

Louie recounts how his life changed when his dad moved out, listing why his parents divorced. He ends the essay by saying society is at fault for commercializing divorce as if it’s the only option.

“With divorce becoming more prevalent, many researchers have taken it upon themselves to explore many aspects of this topic such as evolving attitudes, what causes divorce, and how it effects the outcome of children’s lives.”

Massey examines the causes of divorce and how it impacts children’s well-being by citing many relevant research studies. Some of the things he mentions are the connection between the child’s mental health, behavioral issues, and future relationships. Another is the trauma a child can endure during the divorce proceedings.

He also mentions that some children who had a broken family put marriage on a pedestal. As a result, they do their best to create a better future family and treat their children better.

Top 7 Prompts on Essays About Divorce

After adding to your knowledge about the subject, you’re better prepared to write essays about divorce.

There are many causes of the dissolution of marriage, and many essays have already discussed these reasons. However, you can explain these reasons differently. For example, you can focus on domestic abuse, constant fighting, infidelity, financial issues, etc.

If you want to make your piece stand out, you can include your personal experience, but only if you’re comfortable sharing your story with others. 

If you believe divorce offers a better life for all parties involved, list these benefits and explain them. Then, you can focus on a specific pro of legalizing divorce, such as getting out of an abusive relationship. 

If you want to write an essay to argue against the negative effects of divorce, here’s an excellent guide on how to write an argumentative essay .

This prompt is not only for anyone who has no or sole guardian. If you want to write about the experiences of a child raised by other people or who lives with a single parent, you can interview a friend or anyone willing to talk about their struggles and triumphs even if they didn’t have a set of parents.

Aside from reasons for divorce, you can talk about what makes these reasons more probable. Then, analyze what steps couples can take to avoid it. Such as taking couples’ therapy, weekly family get-together, etc. To make your essay more valuable, weigh in on what makes these tips effective.

Divorce is diverse and has varying effects. There are many elements to its results, and no two sets of factors are precisely the same for two families. 

If you have an intimate experience of how your immediate and extended family dynamic had been affected by divorce, narrate those affairs. Include what it made you and the others around you feel. You might also be interested in these essays about conflict .

This is a broad prompt, but you can narrow it down by focusing on an experience you or a close friend had. You can also interview someone closely related to a divorce case, such as a lawyer, reporter, or researcher. 

If you don’t have any experience with divorce, do not know anyone who had to go through it, or is more interested in its legal aspects, compiles different divorce laws for each country. You can even add a brief history for each law to make the readers understand how they came about.

Are you looking for other topics to write on? Check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Divorce — Divorce, Its Causes, Effects, and Solutions

Divorce, Its Causes, Effects, and Solutions

• Categories: Divorce Divorce Rate

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Words: 1209 |

Published: Dec 3, 2020

Words: 1209 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

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A 'Marriage', A Divorce, A Dying Dog And Essays Done Right

Pity the poor essay collection. Unlike its close, more creative neighbor — the short story collection — or its snooty relation, The Novel, the humble essay collection is the wallflower of the literary world. And, when an essay collection is composed — as Ann Patchett's new volume partly is — of pieces previously printed in fashion and pet lovers' magazines, it really might seem like a grab bag of minor material — as, admittedly, a few of the pieces here are.

But if you want to learn something practical about writing, specifically how someone like Ann Patchett became the feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground wonder of a novelist that she is, many of these essays can tell you — both by their very existence and their varied subject matter. As Patchett says in the first sentence of the introduction to This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage : "The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living." Before novels like Bel Canto and State Of Wonder began paying her bills, Patchett not only worked as a waitress at TGI Fridays, but she wrote for the likes of Seventeen and Bridal Guide . Just like Dickens at the blacking factory and Wallace Stevens at the insurance office, Patchett punched her timecard for a while outside the confines of the ivy tower and the high art hothouse. That experience, she says, "made me a workhorse," and forced her to cultivate a curiosity about things — like cross-country Winnebago camping trips and the rigors of the Los Angeles police academy — way outside her comfort zone.

There are also a lot of autobiographical essays here — so many, in fact, that readers who loved Truth & Beauty , Patchett's memoir about her close friendship with the late writer Lucy Grealy, will be happy to know that this collection takes Patchett's life story a few steps forward. The spectacular title essay, " This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage," recounts the soul-shredding mess of Patchett's early first marriage and divorce and her resolution just to date for the rest of her life. When a newly divorced doctor named Karl is pushed in her path, she agrees to go out with him. Here's a pivotal moment:

Patchett, to state the obvious, is a good storyteller, and that minor bombshell about the 11-year courtship leading up to her eventual second marriage is dramatically placed to rivet a reader's attention. Beyond entertainment value, however, that title essay is a spirited contribution to the larger story of romantic relationships that aren't, well, "romantic" in the swooning ways we're used to reading about or seeing in movies. Patchett's down-to-earthness also sets the tone for her essays on the easily sentimentalized subject of caregiving: She writes here about tending to her beloved dog, an elderly nun friend and her 90-something-year-old grandmother. That particular essay, called "Love Sustained," is a must-read for anyone in the draining role of caregiver. Patchett wryly says that "I had planned to live far away from my family and miss them terribly. I had every intention of feeling simply awful that I wasn't with my grandmother in her years of decline." But fate thwarts Patchett's escape plans. She winds up intimately nursing her grandmother — scrubbing her in the shower, clipping her toenails and, as Patchett says, watching helpless as "every ability and pleasure my grandmother had would be taken from her, one by one by one."

Early in this collection, Patchett snarls about people who come up to her and opine that "everyone ha[s] at least one great novel in them."

"Does everyone have one great floral arrangement in them?" Patchett sassily answers back. "One [great] algebraic proof?" I suspect that, given how underrated the essay form is, lots of people also probably think it's easy to toss one of those off, too; but in this terrific, wide-ranging collection, Patchett demonstrates how a pro does it.

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air .

Egor Kozlov

Job market website.

PhD Candidate, Department of Economics

Contact Information

Department of Economics Northwestern University 2211 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208

Phone: 312-804-7500

[email protected]

My personal webpage

Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2021 (expected) MA, Economics, New Economic School (NES), Moscow, 2015 BA, Economics, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow, 2013

Primary Fields of Specialization

Labor Economics, Macroeconomics, Family Economics

Secondary Fields of Specialization

Econometrics, Industrial Organization

Curriculum Vitae

Download Vita (PDF)

Job Market Paper

“The Economics of Shotgun Marriage” Download Job Market Paper (PDF)

Many couples marry either just before or soon after they have their first child. I show that married couples who have the first child before or in the year of marriage (kids-first) divorce around twice more often than those having their first kids in the year following their marriage or later (marriage-first). Various well-known determinants of divorce do not explain this difference. I show that this finding is consistent with a simple setup where people choose whether to marry based on their potential relationship quality. Unplanned pregnancies can affect their decisions as women face a risk of raising the child alone. I build and estimate a lifecycle model replicating the difference in divorce rates and use it for policy analysis. First, promoting marriage results in higher divorce rates and lower welfare, and marriage rates themselves respond little to monetary incentives. Second, forcing fathers to pay child support has a mild impact on couples’ marriage and divorce decisions, although it incentivizes more women to be single mothers. Third, policies that improve people’s ability to control their fertility result in better marriages, less divorce, and higher welfare.

Other Research Papers

“ (Changing) Marriage and Cohabitation Patterns in the US: Do Divorce Laws Matter? ”, joint with Fabio Blasutto, draft here

What is the role of unilateral divorce for the rise of unmarried cohabitation? Exploiting the staggered introduction of unilateral divorce across the US states, we show that after the reform singles become more likely to cohabit than to marry, and newly formed cohabitations last longer. To understand the mechanisms underlying these facts, we build a life-cycle model with partnership choice, endogenous divorce/breakup, female labor force participation, and saving decisions. Structural estimation that matches the empirical findings suggests that unilateral divorce decreases marriage gains stemming from cooperation and risk-sharing. This makes cohabitation preferred to couples that would have likely faced a divorce, which is more expensive than breaking up. As cohabiting couples formed after the reform are better matched, the average length of cohabitations increases by 27%. Consistent with data, the rise of cohabitation is larger in states that impose an equal division of property as men, fearing to lose most of their assets upon divorce, convince women to cohabit in exchange for more household resources. A counterfactual experiment reveals that the time spent cohabiting would have been halved if the divorce laws had never changed.

“Fighting the Biology: Reproductive Technologies and Female Labor Supply” , work in progress

Graduate:  Econometrics, Microeconomics

Undergraduate: Labor Economics, Public Economics, Economics of Gender, Introduction to Economics

Prof. Matthias Doepke (Committee Chair) Prof. Martí Mestieri Prof. Alessandra Voena

Copyright © 2024 Egor Kozlov

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Background | Publications | Courses | Vitae | Contact

I received my Ph.D. (2005) and M.A. (2001) in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst . Previously, I earned a B.A. in Sociology from the State Academy of Management in Moscow, Russia. I am an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department of Boston College since 2005. I am also affiliated with the Sloan Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility . My research interests include race, gender, and class, family sociology, aging and the life course, and quantitative methods.

Sarkisian, Natalia , and Naomi Gerstel. 2012. Nuclear Family Values, Extended Family Lives: The Importance of Gender, Race, and Class . New York: Routledge.

Selected Journal Articles

McNamara, Tay, Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Natalia Sarkisian , Elyssa Besen, and Miwako Kidahashi. Forthcoming. "Age Bias in the Workplace: Cultural Stereotypes and In-Group Favoritism." The International Journal of Aging and Human Development . Sarkisian, Natalia , and Naomi Gerstel. 2016. "Does Singlehood Isolate or Integrate? Examining the Link between Marital Status and Ties to Kin, Friends, and Neighbors." Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , 33, 3, 361-384. ***Article selected to be highlighted in "Relationship Matters" podcast (#49)*** Sweet, Stephen, Natalia Sarkisian , Christina Matz-Costa, and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes. 2015. "Are Women Less Career Centric Than Men? Structure, Culture, and Identity Investments." Community, Work, and Family , 19, 4. Karamnov, Sergey, Natalia Sarkisian , Rebecca Grammer, Wendy L. Gross, and Richard D. Urman. 2015. " Analysis of Adverse Events Associated with Adult Moderate Procedural Sedation Outside the Operating Room. " Journal of Patient Safety . Calvo, Rocio, and Natalia Sarkisian . 2015. " Racial/Ethnic Differences in Postmigration Education among Adult Immigrants in the USA ." Ethnic and Racial Studies , 38, 7, 1029-1049. Calvo, Esteban, Christine A. Mair, and Natalia Sarkisian . 2015. " Individual Troubles, Shared Troubles: The Multiplicative Effect of Individual and Country-level Unemployment on Life Satisfaction in 95 Nations (1981-2009) ." Social Forces , 93, 4 (June), 1625-1653. Johnson, Jessica, Natalia Sarkisian , and John Williamson. 2015. " Using a Micro-Level Model to Generate a Macro-Level Model of Productive Successful Aging ." The Gerontologist , 55, 1 (February), 107-119. Calvo, Esteban, Natalia Sarkisian , and Christopher R. Tamborini. 2013. " Causal Effects of Retirement Timing on Subjective Well-being: The Role of Cultural Norms and Institutional Policies ." Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences , 68, 1 (January), 73-84. *** Winner of the 2013 James G. Zimmer New Investigator Research Award of the APHA Aging and Public Health Section *** Garroutte, Eva Marie, Natalia Sarkisian , and Sergey Karamnov. 2012. " Affective Interactions in Medical Visits: Ethnic Differences among American Indian Older Adults ." Journal of Aging and Health , 24, 7 (October), 1223-1251. Oh, Seil, and Natalia Sarkisian . 2012. " Spiritual Individualism or Engaged Spirituality? Social Implications of Holistic Spirituality among Mind-Body-Spirit Practitioners ." Sociology of Religion , 73, 3 (Autumn), 299-322. Collins, Amy L., Natalia Sarkisian , and Ellen Winner. 2009. " Flow and Happiness in Later Life: An Investigation into the Role of Daily and Weekly Flow Experiences ." Journal of Happiness Studies , 10, 6 (December), 703-709. Garroutte, Eva, Natalia Sarkisian , Dedra Buchwald, Jack Goldberg, and Jan Beals. 2008. " Perceptions of Medical Interaction between Healthcare Providers and American Indian Older Adults ." Social Science and Medicine , 67, 4 (August), 546-556. Shen, Ce, Natalia Sarkisian , and Thanh Tran. 2008. " Child Mortality, Economic Development, and Social Inequality in Less Developed Countries: A Cross-National Analysis ." China Journal of Social Work, 1 , 2 (July), 172-188. Sarkisian, Natalia , and Naomi Gerstel. 2008. " Till Marriage Do Us Part: Adult Children's Relationships with Parents ." Journal of Marriage and Family, 70 , 2 (May), 360-376. Sarkisian, Natalia . 2007. " Street Men, Family Men: Race and Men's Extended Family Involvement ." Social Forces, 86 , 2 (December), 763-794. *** Winner of the 2008 Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award from the Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities of the American Sociological Association *** Sarkisian, Natalia , Mariana Gerena, and Naomi Gerstel. 2007. " Extended Family Integration among Euro and Mexican Americans: Ethnicity, Gender, and Class ." Journal of Marriage and Family, 69 , 1 (February), 40-54. *** Winner of the 2008 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award from the Race, Gender, Class Section of the American Sociological Association *** Sarkisian, Natalia . 2006. " 'Doing Family Ambivalence': Nuclear and Extended Families in Single Mothers' Lives ." Journal of Marriage and Family, 68 , 4 (November), 804-811. Gerstel, Naomi, and Natalia Sarkisian . 2006. " Marriage: The Good, the Bad, and the Greedy ." Contexts, 5 , 4 (November), 16-21. Sarkisian, Natalia , Mariana Gerena, and Naomi Gerstel. 2006. " Extended Family Ties among Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Whites: Superintegration or Disintegration? " Family Relations, 55 , 3 (July), 331-344. Garroutte, Eva, Natalia Sarkisian , Lester Arguellos, Jack Goldberg, and Dedra Buchwald. 2006. " Cultural Identity and Perceptions of Health Status among American Indian Older Adults and Their Healthcare Providers ." Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21 , 2 (February), 111-116. Sarkisian, Natalia , and Naomi Gerstel. 2004. " Kin Support Among Blacks and Whites: Race and Family Organization ." American Sociological Review, 69 , 4 (December), 812-837. Sarkisian, Natalia , and Naomi Gerstel. 2004. " Explaining the Gender Gap in Help to Parents: The Importance of Employment ." Journal of Marriage and Family, 66 , 2 (May), 431-451. *** Winner of the 2005 Rosabeth Moss Kanter International Award for Research Excellence in Families and Work ***

Selected Book Chapters

Courses taught at bc.

SOCY7704: Regression Models for Categorical Data The major topics of the course include OLS regression diagnostics, binary, ordered, and multinomial logistic regression, models for the analysis of count data (e.g., Poisson and negative binomial regression), treatment of missing data, and the analysis of clustered and stratified samples. All analyses in the course are conducted using Stata, but no previous Stata experience is necessary. SOCY7705: Advanced Statistics This course introduces students to both hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The analyses in the course are conducted using HLM and LISREL software. SOCY7706: Longitudinal Data Analysis This course will focus on panel data management and analysis, with topics including change models, fixed and random effects models, GEE models, and mixed models. All analyses in the course are conducted using Stata, but no previous Stata experience is necessary. SOCY7708: Hierarchical Linear Modeling The major topics of this applied course will include two-level models for continuous, categorical, and count outcomes, three-level models, growth curve models, models for dyadic data, and cross-nested models. The analyses in this course are conducted using HLM software. SOCY7709: Quantitative Data Management This course will provide a comprehensive introduction to quantitative data management using Stata; the focus will be on working with complex datasets (both cross-sectional and longitudinal) and preparing them for analysis. This course is intended for students who need to manage data for academic or non-academic projects. SOCY7781: Dissertation Seminar This is a continuing research workshop which covers all stages of the research process, from conceptualization and theory development through data analysis and writing. The workshop is intended primarily for sociology graduate students working on dissertation proposals and dissertations. Others will be welcomed on a case-by-case basis. The group meets bi-weekly, with individual meetings with the professor as necessary. All students who are writing dissertations are strongly recommended to enroll in this workshop, at least for one semester. SOCY3361: Family and Work This course explores the relationship between family and work from a sociological perspective. The course is designed to provide the information and critical skills necessary to address the modern conundrum of work and family life. We shatter common myths about our past and our present and examine how social forces shape the paid and unpaid work that families do. We focus on contemporary families but also attempt to situate them in a broader historical context. Throughout the course, we stay tuned to the issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality. We also explore the relationship of work and family to social policies and social change, investigating ways in which policies create and address inequities and thinking critically about mechanisms for change.

Contact Information

Mailing Address: Natalia Sarkisian Department of Sociology Boston College 140 Commonwealth Ave Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Phone : (617) 552-0495 Email : [email protected]

Updated : September 1, 2016

The Causes of Divorce Essay

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Introduction

Inequality in spending or earning money.

Divorces are socially significant actions that often have negative implications for both former families involved and society as a whole. The causes behind this social phenomenon can vary significantly, but for the sake of a deeper understanding, there is a necessity to explore some of them in-depth. One of the main causes of divorces is betrayal; another is unequal spending and earning. Exploring these causes could provide an insight into how to avoid them.

Betrayal or infidelity is one of the most common causes for a husband and wife to split. Infidelity for each particular person can mean a multitude of things. Some people, arguably most, define betrayal in marriage as having sex with another person. This is deeply connected with the nature and tradition of the intimate relationship between men and women. Letting another person into one’s personal space to the point of having intercourse is already an issue of deep-felt trust and having utter conviction in the other party’s genuine feelings. If a marriage partner reveals that they have had that same kind of intimacy and affection with someone else, it will definitely insult the other partner. No wonder, then, that after such an incident, the victim of infidelity would want to sever the relationship as trust is violated. At first glance, it seems understandable and logical.

There is also another explanation for such a reaction. Religious people consider the marital vow of loving and honoring each other for as long as they both live sacred; sacred as something that is witnessed, blessed, and sealed by the higher power. Such an alliance is forbidden to break by divine law. If a person decides to violate this vow, it means not only that they betrayed their partner but also that they went against God. Such an action for a deeply religious person is much more than a violation of trust. Therefore, there are not many choices left other than to drift apart.

There can also be other understandings of betrayal. Some people have more conservative views on marital fidelity and may consider even holding hands with a person of the opposite sex for a second too long to be a friendly handshake. It may not lead directly to divorce but may give grounds for monitoring each action of an allegedly cheating wife or husband. This is often considered a norm in middle-eastern countries where women are not allowed to even look at a person of the opposite sex in the eyes for too long. This is a deeply religious and cultural tradition that may not be acceptable to others. Interestingly, in some Islamic practices, men are allowed to have up to four wives, and this is not considered to be infidelity.

Additionally, people often vary in degrees of tolerance towards infidelity. Some consider it a violation of trust but not to the point of needing to end the relationship, especially if it didn’t last that long. Many people would consider writing a one-off or short-term event as a mistake, provided the circumstances did not imply serious consideration of deliberate and heartless assault on their partner’s feelings. Some people even forgive betrayal more than once or do so systematically for a number of psychological reasons. Some are very tolerant in their views on marital relationships and may even let the other party have sex with other people while not feeling betrayed at all. People in this category, with somewhat progressive or, as some may say, open-minded views are quite rare according to the author’s personal observations.

After staying in the relationship after a betrayal, most people cannot maintain the same level of emotional affection for longer than a few years. People may stay together because they have grown comfortable with each other and they are afraid of being alone again. Others demonstrate the opposite reaction and start slowly drifting towards other people in search of those sharp and intense feelings that they long for but cannot experience with the person they loved a few years back. Whatever the reasons for betrayal, be it lack of love or sexual attraction, a divorce requires the verbal or non-verbal consent of the two spousal parties.

Money can also become a reason to end a marriage and go separate ways. In this case, people have not necessarily entered a relationship seeking material benefit. At least, the financial well-being of a partner was not a defining characteristic. If love was the prime reason for getting married, then money could be just an excuse and a valid reason for not verbalizing the absence of feelings. People often tend to avoid upsetting their loved ones or the people they care about by not telling them the hard truth. However, divorce can often be accompanied by a long period of mutual accusations and even legal actions against one another in an attempt to retain a larger part of the matrimonial property. After seeing this happen, it can be hard to believe that these people ever loved each other.

There are also cases when people who were committed to building a career and have remained single into their thirties or even forties. Such people can be inexperienced in building a long-lasting relationship and are accustomed to a standard of living. Entering marriage late for such people may mean a rapid shift from a relatively calm and steady lifestyle into a costly endeavor as the needs of two people differ from just having to consider themselves. Frequently, divorce happens when people marry hastily, not having lived together long enough to grow accustomed to each other’s lifestyles. Another reason for money-based divorces could be one-sided love. An aged man or a woman with a considerable fortune could fall in love with a younger person who has deceitful intentions of waiting for their elder partner to die and pretend to be caring and loving enough to be mentioned in their will. An end to such relationships is often brought about by ‘failed’ acting or the elder partner following the advice from a close friend.

There are also situations when people end relationships because they do not consider themselves equal partners. For some people, marriage is not only about love and affection but also financial equality. Men often feel uneasy to earn less than their wives. Although this may not be discussed between the two, marriages sometimes become a topic of external discussion and gossip can make a proud man feel miserable in his relationship to the point he cannot see any positive side. The situation is often aggravated by the fact that men do not like to bring up such deep topics for discussion, and prefer to let things build up. This unhealthy pride, with gossip as a stimulating factor, could sever a marriage that otherwise could be happy.

Another side of this issue could entail a wife being dissatisfied with her husband earning low wages or a husband discontented with his wife’s excessive spending. These are clichés that are often seen on TV and read in books; the roles can be opposite too. Nonetheless, the disparity in earnings and spending between partners can become an issue that threatens a relationship. Marriage can be viewed as a union where each side is equal in everything. It would be safe to assume that each partner should contribute to keeping the flame within the family hearth either ‘by labor or by coin’ but in equal amount nonetheless. When contributions cannot be measured and compared in dollar equivalent, there may arise a question of equality that quickly becomes a fight over money and contribution.

There is a myriad of reasons for divorce. They may be well-established and evidenced with facts of infidelity or bank statements. However, a divorce still remains an act between two people who united for some reason in the past, who now wish to go their separate ways. For one party, it may seem a relief, for the other it is misfortune. Having analyzed two possible causes of divorce, it occurred to me that the underlying reason for divorce is a change in one of the partners or both of them. If marriage is a union of two people who found something that unites them, makes them similar, then it is some drastic difference that draws them apart. Thus, marriage depends on the ability to settle differences through conversation or frequent contemplation on the things that unite two people.

• Definition of the People According to Their Groups
• How Does Kamasutra Teach to Become a Better Woman?
• Three Main Causes of Divorce
• Probabilistic Reasoning in Infidelity
• Divorce and its Economic Impact to the Society
• Comparing and Contrasting Expectations in a Relationship Engagement
• "Trauma and Recovery" by Lewis Herman
• Definition of Love and Types of Love
• Interpersonal Relations Importance
• Storytelling: Term Definition
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Family / Divorce

Divorce Essay Examples

Reasons and effects of divorce.

The topic i have chosen to write this essay on is The Truth about Divorce. Most people think that people get divorced because they don't 'love' each other anymore but its alot more than that, it can be money issues, abuse, lack of communication, addiction...

Life Story Example Paper

I am Jane Karla C. Day, the youngest of six brothers and sisters, I just share my life story example.  When I was in the ninth grade, my parents separated. That is a moment I will never forget in my life and that's why I...

Broken Families: Research on the Effects of Divorce

Why did the broken family rate increase at 20 to 30 percent in the United States? This question led me to choose the topic of broken family essay to find the answer. The article that I am going to be talking about is “Broken Families...

The Phenomenon of Divorce from Different Perspectives

Divorce as a demographic phenomenon is as old as human life itself. When the organization of societal norms began to be codified legally, codification of marriage and divorce occurred as well. Throughout time, such a phenomenon has been conditioned by the degree of emancipation of...

Divorce Destroys Family Life

Divorce is a complex and emotionally charged event that can have far-reaching consequences, especially within the realm of family life. While divorce is often seen as a solution to marital conflicts, it is essential to examine the potential negative effects it can have on the...

Reasons for Getting Divorce - Essay

Divorce means the separation of the married couple from each other. It is a standard and a legal process of divorce, where the spouse can register for permanent separation from another if he or she is uncomfortable. In divorce essay this topic will be briefly...

Divorce and Financial Hardship: the Financial Impact of Separation

According to Kazmi, Pervez, & Ijaz, in achieving successful marital relationships, the major role is contributed by the economic resources. In addition, Rothwell & Han also stated that it really plays an important part in the functioning of the family. In divorce and financial problem...

The Effect of Divorce on Children

Divorce is one of the biggest issues in modern society and effects the lives of countless children around the world. The true tragedy is not the divorce itself, but what succeeds it. Children of divorced parents find themselves in an unfortunate and unavoidable circumstances. These...

The Impact of Environmental Aspects on Divorce

In the United States, there is one divorce approximately every 36 seconds. That is nearly 2,400 divorces per day, 16,800 divorces per week and 876,000 divorces a year (Irvin, 2012). Divorce is experienced much more than is realized. It is experienced, seen, and studied; however,...

Does Divorce Always Hurt Children

Divorce is always harmful to the children in some way, even if it is both desired by the children and parents. Divorce is sometimes necessary, mostly in toxic households, while many argue that divorce is not an option. Divorce is always harmful to children because...

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About Divorce

A divorce is a legal action between married people to terminate their marriage relationship.

There are several types of divorce: divorce by mutual consent, with or without a judge, agreed divorce, at-fault divorce and divorce for definitive alteration of the matrimonial bond.

Adultery, marrying too young, lack of Intimacy, extramarital sex, financial problems, infidelity, domestic violence, midlife crisis, addictions, workaholism, and other factors.

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