One reason for the high divorce rate in the contemporary UK is because of the changes in the law. For example the main changes took place in 1969 where the Divorce reform act was introduced (Came into effect in 1971), this allowed couples to divorce without having to prove that their relationship has broken down e.g. by showing that they are now living apart. This made it easier for couples to divorce without feeling ashamed because the court did not require a ‘guilty’ partner to be identified. From here in 1984 the law allowed couples to petition for a divorce after one year of marriage instead of three, meaning that couples no longer had to endure an empty shell marriage over a long period of time.
One of the many factors which contribute to the changes in the divorce rate is adjustments made to the law. Amendments such as the 1969 divorce law reform act; which made the reasoning of ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage’, a sole ground for divorce; whilst gradually leading to the instalment of the 1984 minimum divorce petition being reduced from three years to just one year. The modification of the law influences the change in the divorce rate because it gives unhappily married spouses the freedom to divorce more easily. However, the pervious factor does not explain why a large proportion of people chose to take advantage of this freedom. So an arguably more important reason as to why there has been a change in the divorce rate would be due to the declining stigma which society attaches to divorce.
For example, 50 years ago divorce was considered to be shameful and dishonourable, as you had failed to find a suitable partner. However since then, though divorce is still perceived to be a personal misfortune, is no longer a disgrace. The reason for this shift in social norms and values, particularly since the 1950’s is it is not as uncommon, due to new laws being introduced and changes to existing ones. The major change has been the introduction of the Divorce Reform Act. This act was established in 1969, and allowed the termination of a marriage to become much more customary and less of a dishonour.
New Right thinkers have seen the trends as a sign of the breakdown of the family and have argued for a return to ‘traditional values’. They suggest that because of the easy availability of divorce, people are no longer as committed to the family as they were in the past. In the last 40 years there were a number of marriage laws that made divorce alot easier, particularly in 1971 The Divorce Law Reform Act which meant that the spouse no longer had to prove that their partner was guilty of a matrimonial offence. This was followed up by the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act which insured a newlywed couple could get divorced after only one year of marriage. Both these together made for a good basis for divorce.
“Examine the reasons for changes in the divorce rate since 1969” In the past 30 or 40 years, there have been some major changes in the family and household patters. Since the 1960’s, there has been a great increase in the number of divorces in the UK. The number of divorces doubled between 1961 and 1969, and doubled again by 1972. The upward trend continued, peaking in 1993 at 189,000. Since then, numbers have fallen slightly, but where still pretty high at 157,000 in 2001 – about six times higher than in 1961.
Q9. Examine the reasons for changing patterns for marriage and divorce for past 50 years or so. Marriage is the legal relationship between two people in eyes of law. The changes that occur in marriages rate were that less people got married meaning there was a decrease in marriages when as the divorce rate had become more common meaning the have increased .Those changes were caused by reasons that will be examine in this essay. The main and most important reason for the decrease in marriages and increase in divorces was the fact that changing attitudes towards them.
Mitchell and Goody note that an important change since the 1960s has been the rapid decline in the stigma attached to divorce. As stigma declines and divorce becomes more socially acceptable, couples become more willing to resort to divorce as a means of solving their marital problems. This has lead to a sharp increase in divorce rates over recent years. In turn, the fact that divorce is now more common begins to ‘normalise’ it and reduces the stigma attached it. Important and influential celebrities also went through divorce during this time and so made it seem to the public that it was even more acceptable.
The fact that she had a son later reveals the unfair gender roles of the child, compared to the idea of if she had a daughter. By choice, the Third Princess became a nun and it’s believed by the Japanese that “a girl might seem to invite bad luck [if] the mother is a nun. But with a boy it makes no difference.” (Tale of Genji, pg. 648) Through superstition, the gender of a child coming into an Aristocratic heritage makes all the difference for the future of the family. A daughter would have had different requirements growing up and it was believed that the family might have been cursed with bad luck because the mother became a Nun.
right to vote, more education opportunities for girls, change in women role in family and women are now able to have paid jobs. Another reason that has led to decrease in child birth is the introduction of contraception. Legalisation of abortion is another factor that has contributed to the decline in birth rates over the recent years. This has led to women have the power to control their own fertility. These changes have allowed women able to choose whether to have children at all or delay childbearing.
There are many reasons for changes in family size over the past 100 years. Family size has been changing in all of the world’s industrial societies. One of the main reasons of changes in family size is that divorce rates have increased dramatically. This can be seen by figures showing that in 1950, there were 40,000 divorces across England and Wales and in 2005 there 153,399 across the same area. The increase in divorce has led to more reconstituted families, singlehood and single parenthood, therefore the family size has generally decreased apart from in cases where reconstituted families have been formed.