Changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation and divorce
The statistical trends and β more importantly β the CAUSES examiners want you to explain.
Family life has changed dramatically over the last few decades. You need to know both the trends and the reasons behind them.
The main trends:
- Falling marriage rates β fewer people marry, and a smaller proportion of the adult population is married.
- Later marriage β the average age at first marriage has risen.
- Rising cohabitation β living together without being married has become common and socially accepted, often as a step before (or instead of) marriage.
- Rising remarriage and serial monogamy β many people who divorce marry again, producing a pattern of one committed partner at a time, one after another.
- Rising divorce β far more marriages end in divorce than in the past.
Why has divorce risen? (the most examined causes):
| Cause | How it raises divorce |
|---|---|
| Legal changes | Divorce has become easier, cheaper and quicker to obtain (reform of divorce laws), so unhappy couples can actually end a marriage. |
| Secularisation | As religion declines, marriage is seen less as a sacred, lifelong bond, so divorce carries less moral weight. |
| Declining stigma / changing attitudes | Divorce is no longer shameful, so people feel free to leave unhappy marriages. |
| Women's financial independence | More women work and can support themselves, so they are not trapped in marriage for economic reasons. |
| Higher expectations of marriage | Fletcher (functionalist) argued people now expect emotional fulfilment from marriage; when it falls short, they divorce β high divorce reflects high VALUE placed on marriage. |
| Feminist view | Women are less willing to accept unequal, unhappy or oppressive marriages than in the past. |
Consequences of these changes: more lone-parent families (often after divorce/separation), more reconstituted (step) families (after remarriage), more single-person households, and greater family diversity overall. These trends feed directly into the diversity debate below.
- Trends: fewer and later marriages; more cohabitation, remarriage and serial monogamy; rising divorce.
- Causes of divorce: easier/cheaper laws, secularisation, declining stigma, women's independence, higher expectations (Fletcher), feminism.
- Fletcher's twist: high divorce reflects how much people VALUE marriage, not a rejection of it.
- Consequences: more lone-parent, reconstituted and single-person households β i.e. more diversity.