Furthermore, this would lead to a lot of people expecting more from relationships after getting divorced, as they wouldn't want to fall victim to what cause their last marriage to end again. This is part of the high expectations people now expect from relationships. Young people may have experienced divorce or bad relationships in their life, so they do not want to fall into it themselves, making them wary of marriage. Sue Sharpe's study in the early 1970s showed that young girl's main concerns were 'love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs' in that order. When she then returned in the 90s she found that the list had flipped, with jobs and careers being in first place.
Over the last 50 years or so, the patterns of marriage and divorce have changed significantly, and are still changing in today’s society. Due to many factors including: less stigma, changes in women’s positions, secularization and cohabitation. Nowadays, there is less pressure to marry and a lot more freedom for individuals to choose the type of relationship they want. It’s considered more important about the quality of a couples relationship, rather than the legal status. Secularisation is also involved in why there are changing patterns of marriage due to churches being in favour of marriage, but as their influence declines, people feel freer to choose not to marry – according to the 2001 Cenus, 3% of young people with no religion were married, compared to up to 17% of those with a religion.
Couples can share a life of dreams, excitement and happiness. Many believe that marriage put women in higher risk factors for abuse and violence. Marriage has become only a statement now because of the widespread social change. Many have stated that being marriage is not important any longer and choose to live together instead. But this is not the same as sharing an intimate and fulfilling life.
New right thinkers however; believe that these laws undermine the traditional male dominance in families, but many believe these new policies for women and children strengthen the family rather than weaken it. Sociologists such as new right thinkers argue that the Labour party has constructed a ‘nanny state’ which over-intervenes in personal living arrangements. The Labour party have constructed many laws beneficial for women in families as they have realised most families now rely of two
With a mother who chooses to spend much of her time outside the confines of a family home for whatever reason you can expect to see many changes. Another reason mothers have become less dependent on their husbands is because the divorce rate has more than doubled in the last 60 years. It is still agreed that a happy marriage is something to strive for and it is all around better for the family, though the divorce rate is almost at its peek. The woman’s job in the 50’s was to make the family happy and to steer it away from divorce at all possible, and since the woman’s role has changed so has the rate of divorce. Adultery, abuse, and unhappiness are not any less common now than it was 60 years ago, but it is now less tolerated.
Secondly, feminism is another reason that some people believe that nuclear families are no longer the norm. Within the 1940’s women were seen simple as housewives and mother, and education within their life wasn’t even thought about. Essentially they were expected to conform to the nuclear family model. Now women are just as likely to be in paid employment like men and therefore this gives them much more status and independence, which makes the nuclear family less likely. Yet others would argue that even the media still supports nuclear families and is socializing the next generation into thinking that it is right for example ‘The Simpsons’, so despite the increase in divorce and feminism the nuclear family will remain popular in British society.
One reason for this is the reliable contraception that has become available. This means partners can control their family size and also control the age they wish to have children. Another reason why birth rate has decreased is due to women’s change of position in society. Women have now become more equal within society and now have more equal education opportunities than men. This means women now have the choice whether to have a family or have a career.
However due to views in society forever changing, an increasing number of couples in modern day Britain mostly cohabitate instead of marry. There are a few reasons due to this, people think marriage is too expensive and due to secularisation, people think it’s less compulsory to get married because they don’t believe in God. This is because God said marriage is a sacred commitment between two people and himself. Reasons for these changes in patterns of marriage could possibly be reflecting the fact that society as a whole is changing, consequently meaning that the norms and values on which society functions with are also changing. For example, it is no longer frowned up for a woman to have a child when she’s unmarried.
After this law there was an increase in lone parent families, cohabiting and even same sex couples, this was because it started to be more socially acceptable and married couples didn’t have to be forced into a relationship if they weren’t happy. However, The New Right did not like the idea of having lone parent families, they said that lone parents (mostly mothers) cannot discipline their children properly and are a burden on the welfare state as they need to claim benefits due to the fact that they are not working so they can’t support their children. Conservatives see marriage as the essential basis for creating a stable environment for bringing up children, so I don’t think that they are very happy with the fact that family diversity is such a big deal in our society nowadays as they have a very traditional view. Similarly to The New Right’s view, Chester in 1985 claimed that people aspire to be in a nuclear family because that is the way that most people in the UK have been brought up, he also claimed that most people live in a household headed by a married couple and will most likely be the head of a nuclear family in the future. He believes that the nuclear family is the ideal type of family where the husband is the breadwinner and the wife is the housewife
Love marriages are great; Love marriages offer more freedom and independence in the context of choosing who you are with and what you do. Well, that’s what my perception was before I started to write the essay, but then thanks to the research done AND THE AUTHORS INTRODUCTION .I think arranged marriages are good practices because they are more stable than love marriages in terms of love and happiness. A marriage is termed as arranged when it is arranged by people other than those getting married, like they say in India “ first comes marriage and then comes love” with various religions and caste system prevailing in India. It has helped arranged marriages to come a long way, though the couples seldom have love affairs. Marriages in India are more of a family affair, and as youngsters see the way their parent lives, they are more likely to understand that the output given is more stable and successful due to much lower divorce.