Sociological Perspectives on the Meaning of Divorce

• The New right considers divorce detrimental to children so claims parents should stay together
• Rodgers and Pryor argues children that experience divorce are more likely to be in poverty, poor housing and have behavioural problems
• The New Right also argues that if children lack contact with one parent it is harder for them to cope and step-families can cause problems
• The New Right says one-parent families are a threat to society as boys in particular grow up without disciplinary figures
• Fletcher (Functionalist) argues marriage is valued and therefore people have higher expectations of marriage so divorce can be functional as it allows for individuals to leave unhappy marriages
• Feminists argue that the greater ability of women to escape from marriage as an exploitative and potentially violent relationships
• Bernard (Feminist) argues women feel a growing dissatisfaction with patriarchal marriage so the increase of divorce is evidence women are becoming more conscious of patriarchal oppression
• Postmodernists see divorce as a result of family fragmentation and is a general fragmentation of social life
• Giddens suggests divorce can be liberating for the individual and a source of disruption and tension
• Morgan (Interactionist) argues you can't generalise divorce as it is all different
• Mitchell & Goody (Interactionist) say the fathers consider the divorce the best day of their life but mother's call it the worst day of their life
• Personal Life Perspective says there is a financial problems because of divorce that can effect children, svant says divorce is normalised