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Sociology Family
Marriage, Divorce and Family Diversity
34
Sociology
Not Applicable
05/21/2016

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Term
MARRIAGE TRENDS
Definition
• There has been a decline in marriage since the 1920s.
2009: record low of just over 200,000 could got married in England and Wales

• People getting married later.
Mean age for first marriage in 1972: 25 for men
2012: around 32

• (Berthoud, 2000): 3/4 of Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are married by age of 25
Term
REASONS FOR FALL IN NUMBER OF FIRST MARRIAGES
Definition
• changing attitudes to marriage (less pressure to marry, now widespread belief that a quality of a couple's relationship is more important than its legal status)
• secularisation (2001 Census: only 3% of young people with no religion were married)
• declining stigma attached to alternatives to marriage (e.g. Cohabitation)
• changes in the position of women (e.g. women less economically dependent on men due to greater career opportunities)
• fear of divorce
Term
NEW RIGHT CONCERNS AROUND FALL IN FIRST MARRIAGE RATES
Definition
Morgan (2000):

• marriage contributes to social stability, undermines nuclear family
• argue that rates are in decline because social policies (esp related to welfare state) have put people off marriage

Rector (2014): benefit system has encourage single parenthood

Other NR Thinkers: reason for fall in rates = secularisation (2012: only 30% of weddings were held in places of worship)
Term
CRITIQUE OF NEW RIGHT POSITION ON MARRIAGE
Definition
• changes in attitude to marriage in 1970s: feminists = patriarchal marriage has been replaced by a more compassionate and egalitarian form of marriage

• changes in significance: nowadays regarded as the primary rite of passage and requires great emotional commitment. Therefore may appear to be in decline because people are willing to wait

• changes in the cost of marriage: marriage is expensive

• NR has exaggerated (e.g. married couples are still the main type of partnership for men and women in the UK)
Term
ARRANGED MARRIAGES


Epstein (2011)
Definition
• arranged marriages tend to get stronger as time goes on
• generally more successful because they carefully check for compatibility in terms of beliefs, values and goals
• extended kin are also well placed to advise and guide
• love marriages therefore blinded by passion and lust, whereas arranged marriages are better thought/carried out
Term
FORCED MARRIAGE
Definition
Forced Marriage Unit (FMU): estimates that there are 8000 forced marriages a year in the UK

Difficult to assess real degree of the problem: victims reluctant to come forward (not wanting to bring shame upon themselves for something considered family duty etc)
Term
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Responses
Definition
• Same-sex marriage legalised in 2014

*Those in favour of the Act: before, thought that gay couples didn't have same marriage rights as heterosexual couples
- argued that it's not right that a couple that loves each other and want to marry should be denied the right

* Those against the Act: New Right, Morgan - rejects Christian values, general moral decline. Undermines moral authority of religious institutions, nuclear family and stigmatises those opposed as narrow-minded, prejudiced bigots
Term
COHABITATION TRENDS
Definition
• 2012: nearly 6 million people cohabiting in the UK (ONS Statistics)
- number of people cohabiting has doubled since 1996
Term
REASONS FOR THE INCREASE IN COHABITATION
Definition
• rates reflect the decline in stigmas attached to sex outside marriage (British Social Attitudes,2000: 62% agreed that 'premarital sex isn't wrong at all')
• young are more likely to accept cohabitation (Social Trends 34,2004: 88% of 18-24 yr olds accept it)
• increased career opps for women = less likely to marry so freer to opt for cohabitation
• secularisation
Term
CHILDBEARING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE
Definition
Over 4 in every 10 children now born outside marriage - 5x more than in 1971. In most cases, the parents are cohabiting.

Women remaining childless: predicted that 1/4 of those born in 1973 will be childless at 45

Women have children later in life
Term
NEW RIGHT CONCERNS AROUND RISE IN COHABITATION
Definition
• responsible for decline in marriage rates and the traditional nuclear family
• Morgan: cohabiting couples are less happy than married couples, more likely to be abusive/unfaithful/depressed
Term
TYPES OF MARITAL BREAKDOWN
Definition
Divorce - the legal ending of a marriage

Separation - where couples agree to live apart after the breakdown of a marriage

Empty-shell marriages - husband and wife stay together in name only
Term
DIVORCE POLICY
Definition
Before Divorce Reform Act - one partner had to prove the 'fault' of the other (matrimonial 'offences' such as adultery, desertion and cruelty)

Divorce Reform Act 1969 = added a new rule - divorce can be granted on grounds of irretrievable breakdown once the couple have completed legal formality of 2 yrs separation (5 yrs if one spouse objects)

Since 1984: couples have been able to petition for divorce after 1 year of marriage
Term
DIVORCE TRENDS
Definition
Increase in divorce-
1938: 6000 divorces in UK
1993: 165,000 divorces in UK!

1994-2012: general trend in divorce has been downwards
(Just under 120,000 in 2012)

ONS (2012): - the younger a couple are when they marry, the more likely they will divorce
- 'silver splitters' - risen by 45% since 2002
Term
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE INCREASE IN DIVORCE

1. Changes in the law
Definition
• equalising the grounds for divorce between the sexes (1923)
• widening the grounds for divorce (1969)
• making divorce cheaper (legal aid for divorce in 1949)
Term
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE INCREASE IN DIVORCE

2. Declining stigma and changing attitudes
Definition
In the past: churches used to condemn divorce and often refused to conduct marriage services involving divorcees

Now: divorce becoming more socially acceptable and see more as a misfortune than shameful
Term
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE INCREASE IN DIVORCE

3. Secularisation
Definition
Traditional opposition of the churches to divorce carries less weight in society and people are less likely to be influenced by religious teachings when making decisions
(2001 Census: 43% of young people with no religion were cohabiting)
Term
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE INCREASE IN DIVORCE

4. Rising expectations of marriage
Definition
Nowadays: ideology of romantic love - every marriage should be solely based on love and if love dies there is no longer justification to remain married (Crow,2001)
Term
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE INCREASE IN DIVORCE

5. Changes in the position of women
Definition
• women more likely to be in paid work
WOMEN LESS FINANCIALLY DEPENDENT ON MEN

(Proportion of women working = 70% in 2005)
• laws helping gender equality in work such as equal pay act
• girls' greater success in education
• availability of welfare benefits
Term
MEANING OF HIGH DIVORCE RATES
Definition
New Right: undermines nuclear family
(Divorce creates underclass of welfare dependent female lone-parents and leaves boys w/out male role model)

Feminists: women breaking free from patriarchal nuclear family oppression

Postmodernists: giving individuals freedom to choose, cause of greater family diversity

Functionalists: doesn't mean that marriage as social institution is under threat, just result of people's higher expectations of marriage today

Interactionists: Morgan (1996): we cannot generalise meaning of divorce because every individuals interpretation is different
Term
LONE-PARENT FAMILY TRENDS
Definition
1961: only 2% UK households were one-parent

ONS 2012: 2 million (approx 1/4 of all families in the UK)
Term
NEW RIGHT AND LONE-PARENT FAMILIES
Definition
Lone-parent families = 'broken/fractured' family type
- caused by adults who put their own selfish needs before those of those children, also benefit system

• particularly critical of female lone-parents: lack of firm father figure
Term
CRITIQUE OF THE NEW RIGHT STANCE ON LONE-PARENT FAMILIES
Definition
• Mooney et al (2009): parental conflict of more important than parental separation as an influence in producing negative outcomes in children
• Ford and Millar (1998): 'perverse incentive' argument flawed- many experience poverty, debt and material hardship despite receiving state benefits
• feminists: lone-parent families unfairly discriminated against because of familial ideology
• NR ignores possibility that single parenthood may be preferable to the DV that is inflicted by some husbands on their wives and children
Term
RECONSTITUTED FAMILIES STATISTICS
Definition
86% of stepfamilies, at least one child is from the woman's previous relationship
(11% for man)

Ferri and Smith (1998): stepfamilies are at greater risk of poverty
Term
REASONS FOR THE PATTERNS IN RECONSTITUTED FAMILIES
Definition
• factors such as divorce and separation are responsible for the creation of stepfamilies

• more children in stepfamilies are from the woman's side because when marriages/cohabitation a break up, children more likely to stay with mother

• stepparents at greater risk of poverty because there are often more children (stepfather may also have to support children from previous relationship)
Term
SINGLEHOOD TRENDS
Definition
2013: 13% of the UK population lived alone (nearly 4x higher than it was 40 years ago)

2011: 16% of whites living alone compared with 7% British Indians
Term
SOCIOLOGY OF THE PERSONAL LIFE GENERAL VIEWS
Definition
• links interactionism with post-modernism
• "bottom-up"
• "verstehen" - German for understanding -> meanings
Term
2 CRITICISMS THE PERSONAL LIFE SOCIOLOGISTS MAKE:
Definition
• the 3 structural perspectives make certain assumption:
- that the traditional nuclear family is the most dominant type (actually just 26% of all families at any one time)
THEREFORE IGNORE FAMILY DIVERSITY (e.g. Reconstituted)

• disputes the determinism associated with structural theories, arguing that the approaches tend to make us 'passive puppets'
Term
KEY THEORIST FOR PERSONAL LIFE: SMART (2007)
Definition
• blood is NOT thicker than water
• prefers term 'personal life' instead of family - more neutral and flexible, avoids ideas of a so-called 'ideal' family model

- post-divorce relationships
- same-sex
- families created by New Reproductive Technologies (e.g. Donor conceived)
- friends
- deceased relatives/loved ones
- pets
- LATs
- social networking websites
- fictive kin
- lone-parent households
Term
KEY THEORIST FOR PERSONAL LIFE: HAREVEN (2000)
Definition
Life-course might affect the structure and dynamics of family life in a number of ways
(E.g. Child might experience a settled nuclear family from childhood to adolescence but a lone-parent family after because his parents might separate and divorce)
Term
KEY THEORISTS FOR PERSONAL LIFE: PAHL AND SPENCER (2001)
Definition
The concept of 'family' is no longer useful to describe personal relationships in the 21st century

-> 'personal communities' - made up of a combo of those relatives and fictive kin such as friends
Term
CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN BRITISH FAMILY LIFE

Pakistani and Bangladeshi
Definition
• nuclear families
• little divorce and intermarriage w/other religions or culture
• women marry at a younger than white women
• more likely to encourage segregation between males and females
• respect religious and cultural traditions (e.g. Respect for elderly)
• sense of duty and obligation to assist extended kin economically and socially
Term
CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN BRITISH FAMILY LIFE

East African Asians
Definition
• multi-generational families (extended)
• little divorce and intermarriage w/other religions or cultures
• respect religious and cultural traditions (e.g. Respect the elderly)
• sense of duty and obligation to assist extended kin socially and economically
Term
CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN BRITISH FAMILY LIFE

African Caribbean
Definition
• 39% of British-born are in a formal marriage
• higher proportion of lone-parent families than white community
(Inc. trend of mothers choosing to live independently from father)
• more mothers remain single (66%) than whites
• women more likely to be employed than men. Men potential financial burden and unreliable source of income
• single mothers often supported by an extended kinship network when raising children. Extends to fictive kin also
• more likely to intermarry w/members of another ethnic group, especially white people
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