Lecture 4/16/03 - Divorce
Divorce in the United States and other Western nations:
3 Eras:
Restricted divorce - Prior to 1858
Difficult to obtain. Mainly granted to wealthy men who owned land, usually to ensure that an adulterous wife would not bear a child who would have a claim on the man's property. Male dominance - most divorces were granted on grounds of the wife's adultery, but very few wives were granted divorces on grounds of the husband's adultery.
Laws varied by predominant religion - Catholic countries - no divorce
Separation without divorce was commonplace, particularly among the poor
Divorce tolerance
Middle of the 19th century to 1970
New grounds for divorce - divorce was made more accessible to women.
Available in cases of reprehensible conduct - alcoholism, failure to provide for one's wife, adultery, mental cruelty
However, it is the historical period when marriage changes from an institutional to a companionship arrangement. The failure of a marriage to involve love and companionship cam to be seen as a valid reason for divorce.
As recently as the 1960s, in order to obtain a divorce, a person had to prove that her or his spouse had committed adultery, desertion, nonsupport, and mental cruelty. So often, one partner, would with tacit cooperation of his or her spouse, prove that there had been a wrong done, in order to be granted a divorce.
Unrestricted divorce
Post-1970 - divorces are usually granted without restriction to any married person who wants one.
No -fault divorce. Fault grounds were eliminated. Marriage could end due to "irreconcilable differences."
Factors associated with divorce
Society-Wide Factors
No-fault divorce legislation - State no-fault divorce laws produced an initial surge of divorce in the 1970s, but its unclear whether no-fault laws have had a lasting effect.
Cultural change of increasing emphasis on personal fulfillment made divorce a more acceptable option for people who felt unfilled by their marriages.
Increased women's employment outside the home -Women's growing employment opportunities led to a rise in the number of wives working outside the home. Employment gave wives greater economic independence, which made divorce a more attractive alternative to an unhappy marriage.
Married women who work outside the home are more likely to divorce than married women who do not.
Men's employment opportunities - As young men's economic opportunities decreased since the early 1970s, their reduced earning potential may have caused stress in marriages.
Individual factors
Unemployment or low income Divorce is more common people with lower incomes. Lack of money can cause strain and tensions in a marriage.
Age at marriage - People who marry as teenagers have a higher rate of divorce. They may not choose partners as well as those who marry later. Also, teenage marriages are often precipitated by accidental pregnancy. Premarital birth raises the likelihood of divorce.
Education - People with less education have a greater probability of ending their marriages in divorce, yet this effect occurs because people with less education tend to marry earlier
There is some evidence that the divorce rate is also higher for people who marry for the first time at an unusually late age (over 35)
Racial-ethnic group - African Americans have higher rates of separation and divorce than mother other groups. Low income and unemployment, as well as greater tolerance on non-marital arrangements may contribute.
Native Americans have the second-highest percentage of divorce, followed by Puerto Ricans. However, Cubans and Mexicans have lower rates of divorce.
Asian groups have the lowest rate of divorce.
Family background - People whose parents divorced are more likely to end their own marriages in divorce.
Cohabitation - People who cohabit prior to their marriage have a higher rate of divorce. They may have a weaker commitment to marriage than do people who marry without cohabiting first.
Personal characteristics - People who marry people who are similar to them in characteristics such as religion have a lower rate of divorce. Such couples may be more compatible in their values and interests
Cherlin reminds us that the divorce is just an endpoint to a process that has been on going. He also reminds us that we can analyze the divorce from the emotional perspective, the legal perspective, from the perspective of co-parenting and from the perspective of economics.
Diane Vaughan – The Process of getting divorced
The Emotional Divorce – Typically the process of ending the marriage begins this one person who is dissatisfied with the marriage. (The initiator). The initiator has the advantages of being the first person to know that there is a chance of separation, of preparing emotionally for it, and of using the threat in order to demand change. The “principle of least interest” – the party that is less interested in maintaining the relationship has the advantage in bargaining. (Willard Waller)
Early Warning Signs –
The initiator begins to express discontent, but without clearly and directly stating that he or she is unhappy. Instead, the initiator may try to change the other partner’s behavior or the relationship. If these efforts are unsuccessful, the initiator begins to invest more energy and emotion outside the relationship. At some point, the initiator declares his or her dissatisfaction with the relationship. Only then, does the partner realize the seriousness of the situation. Sometimes these efforts, aided by marital counseling succeed.
Separation –
Often the initiator has decided by that time that he or she doesn’t want the marriage to continue. The temporary separation announces the breakup to the couple’s world – but most likely the temporary separation leads to a permanent separation. Often, feelings of attachment persist – months – sometimes years after the separation. Weiss estimated that it took his subjects 2 to 4 year to recover from the separation.
The Legal Divorce -
Property and assets become an issue. There is no consensus in legal rulings about what exactly constitutes marital property. For example, does a wife who put her husband through law school have the right to future earnings?
Alimony – maintenance payments from an ex-husband to an ex-wife. With no-fault divorce and changing attitudes toward women and work, alimony is rarely given.
Child Custody
Legal custody (of children after a divorce). The right to make important decisions about the children and the obligation to have legal responsibility for them.
Physical custody (of children after a divorce) the right of a divorced spouse to have one’s child live with one.
Joint legal custody (of children after a divorce) – the retaining by both parents of an equal right to make important decisions concerning their children.
Joint physical custody (of children after a divorce) – an arrangement whereby the children of divorced parents spend substantial time in the household of each parent.
The Coparental Divorce –
Regardless of state laws, the reality is still that most children remain in the care of their mothers most of the time.
It is difficult to get fathers involve in care after the divorce because most of them were not intensively involved before. The level of contact between fathers and their children after divorce is very low.
Why do so many fathers fade from their children’s lives after a divorce? For some, visits to the children may be a painful reminder of the life they left behind. For some, their ex-wives don’t encourage it. Others may be investing their emotional energy in new families formed by remarriage. In addition Furstenberg and Cherlin say that some men see parenting and marriage as a package deal; when the wife is removed, they have difficulty connecting directly to their children.
Advocates of joint legal custody had hoped it would encourage more ex-spouses to practice coparenting, in which the divorced parents coordinate their activities and cooperate with each other in raising the children.
There are parents who Co-parent, but more commonly the parents gravitate toward a more detached style of parallel parenting. They parent with little interaction with each other.
Maccoby and Mnookin studied the process by which parents must adjust heir childrearing activity from the jointly supportive style of most married couples to the individualized styles that divorced parents adopt. The division of childrearing responsibilities must be renegotiated. Maccoby and Mnookin used family systems theory to study the process. Some therapists say that the prior nuclear family structure no longer exists, and is replaced by two new structures, organized within each of the two parental household. In the case of a child who spends time in both households, the child is a member of two families. For these therapists the role of therapy is to prevent either parent from “abdicating” – to keep both parents involved and functioning together as coparents.
Other therapist view the post divorce family as made up of the custodial parent and child. They believe that access by the father should be limited and/or clearly regulated in the interest of strengthening the boundary around a new family structure that does not include him.
Maccoby and Mnookin are not completely satisfied with either view about the changes in family structure. They say that a single family has been replaced by two family structures, and that the child may be a member of both. They need to renegotiate what roles they each will play in that child’s life. Women seem to continue to carry out their roles prior and after the divorce. The way that divorced fathers interact with their children is not as predictable.
Issues –
Women – continue to do primary care taking in addition to increased work hours.
The spousal backup for her authority is largely absent.
She has to deal with the fact that children see her as “just doing her job” – whereas, any attention from the father is highly valued by the children.
Single fathers have a different set of problems. They become “pals” instead of a managerial parent.
Economic-
Many fathers seem to fade from their children’s lives in part because they will not or cannot contribute t their children’s support - based on 1997 Bureau of Census study of 7.8 million separated, divorced, or remarried mothers who in 1997 had children under the age of 21 who were living with them and whose fathers were absent from the household.
Of the 7.8 mothers, 60% were awarded child support. (40% were not awarded support - mainly because the fathers were not found). Of the 60%, 44% actually received some payment. Among those who had received anything at all in 1997, the average amount was about $341 dollars per month.
To illustrate take - 100 women who are looking for child support, 60 are awarded it. Of those 60 women, 24 actually receive anything - usually woefully inadequate.
Single mother families Sometimes women and children fall into poverty because of the breakup. (The Feminization of Poverty). Among the children whose fathers left the household, 195 had been living below the 0overty line even before the breakup. The loss of the father nearly doubled the proportion of children living in poverty.
Breadwinner-homemaker couples - The inequity is worst for older women who have been out of the labor force for many years and whose husbands initiated their divorces. Their married their husband under the terms of the breadwinner-homemaker bargain. But now the legal system treats them as though they were capable of supporting themselves and their children through a job. 31% of women whose families had above average incomes before their separations saw their standard of living drop by more than half in the first -year.
Single father families - 19% of all single-parent families with children Adding in the remarried fathers would bring the total number of custodial fathers, single and married to about 2.6 million. Single fathers tend to have higher incomes than single mothers because men's wages are typically higher than women's. However, single father tend to have lower incomes and less education than married fathers.
Only 1/4 of single-father families consist of divorced men living alone with their children. Of the rest, most are sharing their households with mothers, sisters, or new girlfriends who may be doing much of the childcare.
The Effects of Divorce on Children. -
Early crisis period
Divorce has several effects on children.
First, one parent, usually the father, leaves the household, depriving the children of a role model, and the remaining parents of a source of support and help in monitoring and supervising the children's behavior.
During the crisis period following the separation, the custodial parent is often upset and angry, consequently, maintaining the children's daily routine and providing emotional support and consistent, moderate discipline can be difficult.
In addition the custodial parent must often cope with a substantial drop in family income.
Third, the child may suffer if he or she is caught up in continuing conflict between the two parents, though the conflict and its negative effects may have preceded the separation.
Finally, the sheer number of transitions involved, (for example in a single-parent family, in a blended family - sometimes again in a single-parent family) each requiring adjustment on the children's parent, may overwhelm their ability to cope.
Long-term studies suggest that parental divorce raises the risk of undesirable outcomes in their children, such as dropping out of high school, bearing a child before marrying, or suffering from mental health problems as an adult. But some of the problems that children from divorced families show probably preceded the divorce and might have occurred even if the parent had not separated. Studies suggest that a majority of children whose parents divorce will not experience serious long-term problems
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