Changing family patterns

• Changing patterns of divorce: Since the 1960s, there has been a great increase in the number of divorces in the United Kingdom, as Figure 4.4 shows. The number of divorces doubled between 1961 and 1969, and doubled again by 1972. The upward trend continued, peaking in 1993 at 165,000. Since then, numbers have fallen somewhat, but still stood at 118,000 in 2012 - about six times higher than in 1961. This rate means that about 40% of all marriages will end in divorce.
• One reason for the fall in the number of divorces since the 1990s is that fewer people are marrying in the first place and are choosing to cohabit instead.
• About 65% of petitions (applications) for divorce now come from women. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in the past.
• Explanations for the increase in divorce

  • Changes in the law
  • Declining stigma and changing attitudes
  • Secularisation
  • Rising expectations of marriage
  • Women's increased financial independence
  • Feminist explanations
  • Modernity and individualisation
• Desertion


  Where one partner leaves the other but the couple remain legally married
• Legal separation


  Where a court separates the financial and legal affairs of the couple but where they remain married and are not free to re-marry
• 'Empty shell' marriage


  Where the couple continue to live under the same roof but remain married in name only
• As divorce has become easier, these other solutions have become less popular
• Changes in the law have given people the freedom to divorce more easily, but this does not fully explain why more people should choose to take advantage of this freedom
• Stigma refers to the negative label, social disgrace and shame attached to a person, action or situation. In the past, divorce and divorcees have been stigmatised.
• An important change since the 1960s has been the gradual 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
• Secularisation refers to the decline in the influence of religion in society. Many sociologists argue that religious institutions and ideas are losing their influence and society is becoming more secular.
• Under secularisation, the traditional opposition of the church to divorce carries less weight in society and people are less likely to be influenced by religious teachings when deciding for divorce
• Many churches have also begun to soften their stance towards divorce and divorcees, perhaps because they want to maintain relevance with large sections of the public and their own members
• The higher expectations people place on marriage today are a major cause of rising divorce rates. These expectations make couples less willing to tolerate an unhappy marriage
• The ideology of romantic love - the belief that marriage should be based solely on love, and that for each individual there is a Mr or Miss Right out there - has become dominant over the last couple of centuries
• This belief that if love dies, there is no longer any justification for remaining married and every reason to divorce so as to begin the search for one's true soulmate
• In the past, individuals often had little choice in who they married, and at a time when the family was also a unit of production, marriages were often contracted largely for economic reasons or out of duty to one's family
• Under these circumstances, individuals were unlikely to have the high expectations about marriage as a romantic union of two souls that many couples have today
• Entering marriage with lower expectations, they were therefore less likely to be dissatisfied by the absence of romance
• Today, marriage is increasingly viewed not as a binding contract, but as a relationship in which individuals seek personal fulfilment, and this encourages couples to divorce if they do not find it
• Improvements in women's economic position have made them less financially dependent on their husband and therefore freer to end an unsatisfactory marriage
• The proportion of women working rose from 53% in 1971 to 72% in 2020
• Feminist argue that married women today bear a double burden as they are required to take on paid work in addition to performing domestic and childcare duties
• This has created a new source of conflict between husbands and wives, and this is leading to a higher divorce rate than in the past
• Feminist argue that marriage remains patriarchal with men benefiting from their wives' triple shift of paid work, domestic work and emotion work
• Arlie Hochschild (1997) argues that for many women, the home compares unfavourably with work. At work, women feel valued. At home, men's continuing resistance to doing housework is a source of frustration and makes marriage less stable
• Wendy Sigle-Rushton (2007) found that mothers who have a dual burden of paid work and domestic work are more likely to divorce than non-working mothers in marriages with a traditional division of labour. But where the husband of a working wife is actively involved in housework, the divorce rate is the same as for couples with a traditional division of labour
• Coltrane and Gash (2010) found no evidence that working women are more likely to divorce. They argue that this is because working has now become the accepted norm for married women
• Radical feminists such as Jessie Bernard (1976) observe that many women feel a growing dissatisfaction with patriarchal marriage. She sees the rising divorce rate, and the fact that most petitions come from women, as evidence of their growing acceptance of feminist ideas
• Sociologists such as Ulrich Beck (1992) and Anthony Giddens (1992) argue that in modern society, individuals are less bound by duty to the family with the same sense of obligation as in the past
• As a result, each individual becomes the centre of their own self-interest. This view has become known as the individualisation thesis
• Marriages thus become more fragile, because individuals become unwilling to remain in a relationship that fails to satisfy their personal needs and seek what Giddens calls the 'pure relationship' that exists solely to satisfy each partner's personal sense of fulfilment
• Modern society also encourages individualisation, as people are expected to be autonomous in their work and are encouraged to pursue their own career ambitions. This can cause conflicts between spouses and contribute to rising divorce rates
• Some sociologists also argue that modernity causes people to adopt a more consumerist, individualistic attitude, where the idea of freedom to follow one's own interests and pursuit of self-interest is likely to pull some couples apart
• The New Right see a high divorce rate as undermining marriage and the traditional family which they regard as vital to social stability
• Feminists see a high divorce rate as desirable as it shows that women are breaking free from the patriarchal nuclear family
• Postmodernists and the individualisation theorists see a high divorce rate as showing that individuals are free to choose to end a relationship when it no longer meets their needs
• There have been a number of important changes in the patterns of marriage in recent years: fewer people are marrying, more re-marriages, people are marrying later, and couples are less likely to marry in religious ceremonies