Sociology Now, Census Update

in their lives, while some others gave financial considerations, worries about stress,

marriages too fragile to withstand children, being housebound, and diminished career

opportunities (Gerson, 1985). Men usually cite more practical considerations, includ-

ing commitment to career and concern about the financial burden (Lunneborg, 1999).

Family Transitions

Through most of European and American history, marriage was a lifelong commit-

ment, period. Divorce and remarriage were impossible. Though couples could live

separately and find legal loopholes to avoid inheritance laws, they could never marry

anyone else. In the sixteenth century, the English King Henry VIII had to behead two

wives, divorce two others, found a new Church (the Anglican Church), and close all

the monasteries in England in order to get out of marriages he didn’t like. Today, it’s

a little bit easier.

Divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage. Grounds for divorce may vary from

“no-fault” divorces in which one party files for divorce or those divorces that require

some “fault” on the part of one spouse or the other (adultery, alienation of affection,

or some other reason). Divorces are decrees that dissolve a marriage; they do not dis-

solve the family. Parents must still work out custody arrangements of children,

alimony payments, child support. Just because they are no longer husband and wife

does not mean they are no longer Mommy and Daddy.

In the United States, the divorce rate rose steadily from the 1890s through the 1970s

(with a dip in the Depression and a spike after World War II). During the past 25 years,

it has fallen significantly, along with marriage rates overall. The annual national divorce

rate is at its lowest since 1970, while marriage is down 30 per-

cent and the number of unmarried couples living together is

up tenfold since 1960 (Time,2007, p. 6).

These trends are led by the middle class. At the lower end

of the scale, however, the picture is reversed, leading some

sociologists to describe a “divorce divide” based on class and

race (Martin, 2006). Among college-educated women who

first married between 1975 and 1979, 29 percent were

divorced within 10 years; for those first married between

1990 and 1994, only 16.5 percent were. Yet for high school

dropouts, 38 percent of those first married between 1975 and

1979 were divorced within a decade—and 46 percent were

between 1990 and 1994. For those with a high school

diploma, divorce rates for those years rose from 35 to 38 per-

cent (Martin, 2006; Figure 12.5). And the figures mask the

fact that a larger percentage of poorer women avoid divorce

by never marrying in the first place.

Whatever these different sociological dimensions, some

commentators broadly blame divorce for nearly every social

ill, from prostitution (where else are divorced men to turn?)

to serial murder (evidently watching their parents break up

has kids reaching for the nearest pickax). More moderate

voices worry that quick-and-easy divorce undermines the

institution of the family, forcing the divorced adults to start

courting again when they should be engaged in child rearing

and teaching children that dysfunction is the norm.

406 CHAPTER 12THE FAMILY

FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE

1975–1979 1980–1984 1985–1989 1990–1994

50

40

30

20

10

0

PERCENT

Less than high school First degree

High school

Some post-secondary

Master or professional degree

FIGURE 12.5More Education, Less Divorce

Source:Adapted from “Trends in Marital Dissolution by Women’s
Education in the United States” by Steven P. Martin, Demographic
Research, December 13, 2006, Vol. 15, #20, pp. 537–560, © 2006 Steven
P. Martin. Reprinted by permission.