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.
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. A combination of society’s exposure to the divorce cases of famous couples in the media and in everyday lives has lead to divorce becoming normalised, when in the past it would have been seen as shameful. This factor influences the change in the divorce rate because as its social disapproval lessens and divorce becomes more socially acceptable, couples become more willing to resort to divorce as a means of solving marital problems. A reason for wide society’s change of attitude towards divorce could be due to a decline in the influence of religion; which had once instilled a greater sense morality, shared norms and shared values into British society. The 2001 census shows that 43% of young people with no religion were cohabiting.
Mitchell and goody (1997) claim that important changes since the 1960's has rapidly declined stigma attached to divorce. This implys people attitudes towards is no longer the same and that people have more choice in their marriage. It also shows divorce would increase as in terms that your decision is valued by society and you may even get support.
This emphasized the idea of a matrimonial offence, and avoided the need for a guilty party. It also defined divorce as the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. In 1971, William J. Goode said that ‘the family carries a heavier emotional burden so the unit is relatively fragile.’ I think that Goode was trying to say that the increase in divorce, and the change in family size, is due to that fact that the family accepts more different things than they did previously, therefore with the pressure on it, the family is more likely to breakdown and decreasing the size of the
The main and most important reason for the decrease in marriages and increase in divorces was the fact that changing attitudes towards them. People now believe that is alright to get divorce is they are not happy in their marriage and with that the stigma towards divorces (Goody)had decreased as now divorces are day to day basis like the way we see in magazines articles about celebrities getting divorce and no one is against it anymore, when as before older members of the family would make the young couple stay together doesn’t matter what as that’s how they have been told. That the same for marriage as more and more people wants to cohabitate with their partner rather than get married as women now have more opportunities to work and set own rules about their life’s that before wasn’t possible. This leads to second important reason for the changes is which is the changes in laws. since women are earning money now they can afford to make divorce petition and the divorces had become cheaper.
Assess the view that changes in divorce rates are the result only of changes in attitudes towards marriage and divorce One reason for the increase in divorce rates was the declining stigma and changing attitudes of divorce. Stigma refers to the negative label, social disapproval or shame attached to a person, action or relationship. In the past, divorce and divorcees have been stigmatised. Over time the stigma attached to divorce declined. Mitchell and Goody note that an important change since the 1960s has been the rapid decline in the stigma attached to divorce.
Divorce is the legal termination of a marriage and for various reasons; divorce has become much more common in society. These reasons include secularisation, the changes in the expectations of adulthood, changes in the economic state of women and the changes in laws that concern divorce, specifically the Divorce Reform Act. I am going to examine these reasons. Firstly, one reason for changes in the divorce rate since 1969 is the change in how divorce is perceived by society. For example, 50 years ago divorce was considered to be shameful and dishonourable, as you had failed to find a suitable partner.
For example, in 1946, only 37% of petitions came from woman – barely half todays figure. The most common reason for a woman to be granted a divorce is the unreasonable behaviour of her husband. Some couples are more likely than others to divorce, those couples whose marriages are at greatest risk include those who marry young, have children before they marry or cohabit before marriage, and those where one or both partners have been married before. Divorce was very difficult to obtain in 19th-century Britain, especially for woman. Gradually, changes in the law had made divorce easier.
There have also been other views and explanations of this for example some functionalist views of one below: One such Functionalist Ronald Fletcher (1996) suggested that in this day and age marriage is seen as less necessary and divorce more accepted in wider society, back as far as the 19th century it was much harder to achieve and was even frowned upon. Also he argued that higher expectations of people place on marriage today are a major cause of rising divorce rates. Higher expectations make couples nowadays less willing to tolerate an unhappy marriage. Also those such as Arlie Hochschild (1997) argues that for many women, the home compares unfavourably with work. At work women feel
In contrast, societies with too little integration saw an increase in egoistic suicide, as people did not feel like part of something, or put themselves before anyone else. Durkheim suggested that this is why suicide was more common in protestant countries as they have few shared rituals compared to catholic ones so feel less