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A significant change that has required place in the American family is a heightened occurrence in divorce. Whereas in the past, divorce was a relatively rare incident, in recent times it may be quite commonplace. This change is borne out evidently in census figures. One example is thirty years ago in Australia, just one marriage in ten resulted in divorce; nowadays the figure is more than one in three (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996: p. 45). A result of this change has been a substantial increase in the number of single parent or guardian families and the worker problems that this brings (Kilmartin, 1997).

An important issue for sociologists, and indeed for all of society, is why these changes in marital habits have occurred. In this essay I will seek to critically examine a number of sociological details for the 'divorce phenomenon' and also consider the social policy implications that each explanation carries with it. It will probably be argued that the best explanations are to be found within an extensive socio-economic framework.

One particular type of explanation for rising divorce has centered on changes in regulations associated with marriage. For example, Bilton, Bonnett and Roberts (1987) believe increased rates of divorce do not necessarily indicate that households are now more shaky. It is possible, they claim, that there has always been a level of marital instability. They will claim that changes in the law have recently been significant, because they have provided unhappily married lovers with 'access to a legal solution to pre-existent marital problems' (p. 301). Bilton et al. therefore believe changes in divorce rates can be best explained in conditions of modifications in our legal system. The problem with this type of description yet , is that it really does not consider why these laws have changed in the first place. This could be argued that reforms to family regulation, as well as the increased rate of divorce that has accompanied them, are the product of more fundamental changes in
Another kind of explanation is the one that concentrates precisely on these wide-ranging societal changes. For example, Nicky Hart (cited in Haralambos, 1995) argues that increases in divorce and marital breakdown are the result of economical changes which may have afflicted the family. One example of these changes is the elevated material aspirations of family members, which Hart suggests has put pressure on both spouses to become income earners. Women therefore have been required to become both homemakers and monetary providers. According to Scharf, the contradiction of such two roles has lead to conflict and this is the key cause of relationship breakdown. It would show up that Hart's explanation simply cannot account for all circumstances of divorce - for example, marital breakdown is liable to occur in families where only the husband is working. Even so, her approach, which is to relate within family relations to broader interpersonal forces, would seem to be to be more probing than the one which looks only at legislative change.

The two explanations described above have different implications for cultural policy, especially in regards to how the condition of increasing marital instability might be dealt with. Bilton et al. (1995) give a legal explanation and hence would start to see the solutions also being determined in this domain. If rises in divorce are usually the consequence of liberal divorce laws, the clear way to stem this go up is to make them less obtainable. This procedure, one imagines, would lead to a reduction in divorce statistics; however, it may not be kept up as a real solution to the problems of marital stress and malfunction in society. Indeed it would seem to be to be a solution directed more at symptoms than dealing with fundamental causes. Furthermore, the expertise of social employees, working in the region of family welfare shows that restricting a couple's usage of divorce would occasionally provide only to exacerbate existing marital problems (Johnson, 1981). In those cases where violence is involved, the consequences could be destructive. Apart from all of this, coming back to more restrictive divorce laws appears to be a solution little favoured by Australians. (Harrison, 1990).

Hart (cited in Haralambos, 1995), writing from a Marxist-feminist position, traces marital conflict to modifications in our capitalist economical system College Paper and Essay Writing Service the resultant effect on the roles of men and women. It is difficult to learn however, how such an analysis might be translated into practical cultural policies. This is due to the Intensiv program would seem to require in the first place a radical reorganization, rearrangement, reshuffling of the economical system. Whilst this might be desirable for some, it is not achievable in the present political climate. Hart is right however, to lay claim that much marital discord can be linked in some way to the economical circumstances of people. This is borne in many statistical surveys which show constantly that rates of divorce are higher among socially disadvantaged households (McDonald, 1993). This situation suggests then that cultural policies need to be geared to providing support and security for these kind of families. It is little cause for optimism however, that in recent years governments of all certitude have shown a growing unwillingness to fund social well being programs of this kind.

It is hard to give you a comprehensive explanation for the growing trend of marital breakdown; in truth it is even more difficult to find alternatives that might ameliorate the problems created by it. Clearly though,? nternet site have argued in this essay, the most useful email address details are to be found not within a narrow legal framework, but in a broader socio-economic one.

Finally, it is worth aiming out that, whilst we may appear to be surviving in a time of increased family instability, research suggests that historically, lack of stability may have been the norm as opposed to the exception. As Bells and Zajdow (1997) point out, before, single mother or father and step families were more common than is assumed - even though the disruptive influence then had not been divorce, but the premature death of one or both parents. This kind of situation suggests that in studying the modern family, one needs to use a historical perspective, such as the likelihood of looking to yesteryear in searching for means of dealing with problems in our.