Changing Family Life » Why Marriage and Divorce Patterns Are Changing

Changing patterns in marriage and divorce

Marriage and divorce are not the same everywhere, and they do not stay the same over time. In many societies people now marry later in life than their grandparents did, and fewer people marry at all. Divorce is also more common than it was a hundred years ago. These are patterns (things that happen again and again) and trends (patterns that change over time).

Sociologists do not just describe these changes. They try to explain them. This lesson looks at six explanations from the spec. The next lesson uses the same ideas to look at cohabitation.

Key terms:

• Divorce: the legal ending of a marriage while both partners are still alive.
• Secularisation: the process by which religion loses its influence over people's lives and over society.
• Female empowerment: women gaining more independence, rights, money and power to make their own choices.
• Societal attitudes: the shared opinions that most people in a society hold about how people should behave.

Legislation

Laws set the rules for who can marry and how a marriage can end.

• Making divorce easier: when a law lets people end a marriage without proving that one partner did something wrong, divorce becomes cheaper, quicker and more common. In England and Wales, for example, the law has moved a long way in this direction, ending with no-fault divorce in 2022.
• Raising the minimum age of marriage: in some societies the law has raised the legal age to marry. This is one reason why people marry later.
• Making divorce harder: in a few societies laws still make divorce difficult, so divorce rates stay low.

Societal attitudes and values

Laws only matter if people are willing to use them. In the past in many societies, divorced people were looked down on and sometimes shut out of community life. This is called stigma. Today, in many societies, divorce is seen as a private choice and a sensible way out of an unhappy marriage.

Values have also shifted. Personal happiness and individual choice are given more weight than duty and staying together "for the sake of the children". People are more likely to ask "Is this marriage making me happy?" and to leave if the answer is no. Fewer people feel they must marry at all.

Cultural expectations

Every culture has expectations about when and whom to marry. In some cultures there is strong pressure to marry young and stay married. In others, the expectation now is to finish studying, find a job and become financially secure first. When the cultural expectation changes, the pattern changes with it.

The role of the internet

The internet has changed how people meet and how they live their relationships.

Secularisation

Many religions teach that marriage is a sacred promise and that divorce is wrong or should be a last resort. As societies become more secular, fewer people follow these teachings, and religious weddings become less common. People are then more likely to marry in a civil ceremony, to marry later, or not to marry at all. They are also less likely to see divorce as a sin.

Secularisation is not the same everywhere. In societies where religion remains strong, marriage patterns have often changed less.

Changes in the status and power of women

This is one of the biggest explanations. In the past in many societies, most women had to depend on a husband for money, because few could earn a wage or own property. Leaving a marriage could mean poverty.

Today, in many societies, more girls stay in education, more women have paid jobs and the law gives them more equal rights. Female empowerment has several effects:

• Later marriage: women often study and work first, and so marry later.
• More divorce: a woman with her own income can afford to leave an unhappy marriage. In many societies, more divorces are started by women than by men.
• More choice: women are less pressured to marry for security, so some choose not to marry.

The factors also link together. A change in the law, a change in attitudes and women's growing independence often happen at the same time and push in the same direction.

Exam-style question

(a) Define the term secularisation. [2 marks]

(b) Give two examples of changes in society that help to explain why people marry later. [2 marks]

(c) Explain three reasons why divorce rates have risen in many societies. [6 marks]