Preview

Marital Breakdown

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1106 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Marital Breakdown
Marital Breakdown

In this assignment I am be going to talk about the different forms of marital breakdown. I am also going to analyse the reasons and trends of marital breakdown and divorce.

Marital Rates

Since 1981 the number of marriages conducted every year has fallen by a third. Marriages were at the highest rates between 1932 and 1946 . in 1981 marriage rates were in the UK was at 7.1 but by 2001 it was down to 5.1 per 1000 of the population per year. Cohabitation is on the increase whilst marriage rates are declining. Statistics show that marriage rates have declined due to different factors which I am going to discuss. The number of couples getting married has been steadily declining since the 1970s. Over the century's women have become more career minded and putting marriage on hold while they continue with there career and since 1975 the sex discrimination act was put in place and therefore there was a rise in women choosing careers over marriage as before in 1930's it was the man in the household that worked and the women stayed home looking after the home and children. Another reason is people find that living together is a big commitment and that people are not getting pressured into marriage after knowing they are a couple. Back from the 1930's it would be frowned upon and bring shame to the family to have a cohabiting couple in the family. Nowadays marriage is not seen as something so serious people would rather live together unmarried with there children as most people surveyed say that marriage is just seen as a piece of paper.

Cohabitation

Cohabitation is another way of being together as a family without marriage. Between 1971 and 2001 the proportion of 18-49 year olds cohabiting has increased from 11 per cent to 32 per cent so therefore there is definitely an increase in cohabiting couples. In the mid-1960s, only five per cent of single women lived with a man before getting married. By the 1990s, about 70 per cent did so. In this

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In order to assess reasons for the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation; it is necessary to first establish the term marriage and cohabitation. Marriage is traditionally conceived to be a legally recognized relationship, between two consenting adults, that carries certain rights and obligations. Cohabitation is an arrangement whereby couples who are not legally married live together in partnership within the common law. Cohabitation has become so widespread that the term itself is now rarely used. I will now critically examine the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation in the last 40 years or so.…

    • 929 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the last 40 years marriage rates have declined significantly while the number of couple’s cohabitating has risen rapidly. This is due to our changing society where equality, laws, social acceptance and religions have all contributed into the way we view marriage and relationships. In the 1970’s there were around 400,000 first marriages whereas, in 2011, there were 248,000. The average ages of people getting married have also increased from 25 for men and 23 for women in 1961 to 36 for men and 33 for women in 2011. Cohabitation is a big factor in the decreasing number of marriages with people using it as either an alternative to marriage entirely, or a ‘trial marriage’ which just delays the time of a couple’s marriage.…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As stated in our text, various factors can bind married couples together, such as economic interdependencies, legal, social and moral constraints, relationship, and amongst other things. In the recent years some of these factors have diminished their strengths. The modern generation sees marriage in a different perspective altogether. Individuals today feel they are stable independently, they do not need to rely on their spouse for emotional or financial support. Many are career driven and soar to conquer their dreams over settling down with a family. Such untraditional views have increased divorce rates.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    At the beginning of the essay Neil explains the social changes that have occurred in the last few decades showing the stark rise of “unmarried –partner households.” He claims that…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the past forty years marriage, divorce and cohabitation rates have fluctuated significantly. For example, the number of divorces has increased from 27,000 in 1961 to 153,000 by 2006, whilst the Telegraph newspaper reported that ‘one in six people are cohabiting as marriage rates decline’. Why is this? There are multiple reasons for these varying statistics.…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the 1960’s divorce rate began to increase dramatically but the biggest rise in divorce rate was in 1972 when it doubled and was 120,000. The divorce rate continued to rise and in 1993 reached its peak at 180,000. There has been explanations for the rise in divorce which are: secularisation, changes in law, divorce had become cheaper and also changing attitudes in society especially with women as they had begun to receive more rights. By the times divorce had become a lot more socially acceptable.…

    • 990 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The patterns of marriage, divorce and cohabitation over the past 40 years has varied considerably. In 1972, over 480,000 couples got married subsequently making this the highest amount of marriages within a year ever since the Second World War. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this was down to the baby boom generation of the 1950’s reaching the age of marriage.…

    • 2163 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Identify and explain two reasons for the increase in cohabitation in the contemporary UK (17)…

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mr Josh Gallagher

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One of the many reasons for the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation is the changing social attitudes, over the last 40 years social attitudes towards marriage and cohabitation have changed dramatically which has had a massive effect on how marriage and cohabitation is looked at by people in today’s society, because of this change in social attitudes marriage isn’t looked at as compulsory as it was 40 years ago as attitudes have changed which has led to the increase in cohabitation and also it becoming acceptable. There has been a recent data collection which shows how marriage has dropped due to the changes in social attitudes; the number of marriages taking place in England and Wales per year has been in decline since the early 70s, decreasing from 404,734 in 1971 to just 232,443 in 2009. There has been a significant trend to where there are more cohabiting couples, the number of opposite sex cohabiting couples has increased, from 1.5 million in 1996 to 2.9 million in 2012. The number of dependent children living in these opposite sex cohabiting couple families also increased, doubling from 0.9 million to 1.8 million in the same period. This shows how social attitudes has effected the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation, this is shown…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cohabitation is an arrangement where two people who are not married live together in an intimate relationship, usually an emotionally and/or sexually intimate one, on a long term or permanent one. Before 1970, cohabitation was illegal in certain countries, like America. But due to a change in the law, Cohbitation is now a common way of living, all over the world. As well as sex/birth outside of marriage, leaving at least 50% to 60% of couples cohabitating, this started in the late 1990s. This lead to the decline of traditional nuclear families as people want to live in companionship because nearly half the amount of marriages now end in divorce, as well as cohabitating being cheaper, easier and less hassle. The new right see the decline in the traditional nuclear family and increase on family diversity as negative trends on modern society. From the new right perspective, these changes are the cause of many social problems in Britain today.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Unit 1 Families + Households

    • 2270 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Recent decades have seen major changes in families and households in the United Kingdom. Some sociologists argue that, with the rise of the symmetrical family, the patriarchal power of the husband has disappeared and relationships have become more equal and democratic. However, feminists argue that women still have a dual burden to carry. There have also been many changes in the patterns of marriage. For example, the number of first marriages in England and Wales fell from almost 340 000 in 1970 to just over 161 000 in 2004. On the other hand, the number of remarriages has remained relatively constant since the early 1970s.…

    • 2270 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marriage was seen as a ‘typical’ experience for woman throughout the 20th Century, however towards the end of the century the ideas surrounding marriage began to change. John Gillis has called the period 1850-1960 ‘the long era of mandatory matrimony’. The first marriage rate per 1,000 woman over the age of 16 rose from 57.4 to 97.9 by 1971. However, it was then saw to decrease to 40.1 by the end of the century; there was a increase in marriage immediately post-war. Within the years of 1951-1961 it showed these were the years the ages in which to marry were at its youngest, having a mean age of 23.1, before increasing in the average age to marry in the end of the century.…

    • 1650 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cohabitation has increased as well, as there has been a decline in stigma attached to it. Couples may decide to live together before considering marriage and children. The younger generation is more likely to accept cohabitation than older generations, this is linked to one of the Rapoport’s family diversities, generational diversity.…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As society’s view of a ‘conventional family’ has changed over the last 40 years, the variety of acceptable norms has increased drastically. In the past, an unmarried woman or spinster would be looked down on in society ,as it was a norm that a woman should be married with children. If they didn’t they would be judged as there was a problem with them so that they couldn’t have kids or a husband. The average age for a women first getting married in 1961 was 23.1 this has risen to 30 by June 2009. This shows that women are now waiting longer for their first marriage. This is down to many different reasons. Single women aren’t looked down on by the majority of people today, they are viewed as strong, independent women. This means that there is next to no pressure for women to get married quickly. This has resulted in the rise in cohabitation. Marriage is no longer seen as the definition of a proper relationship by society. 40 years ago, living together outside of marriage was a rarity; however cohabitation can now be seen as a socially acceptable alternative to marriage. This is partly due to the changing attitudes to sexual relationships mean that sex…

    • 1889 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One reason is changing social attitudes. Religion regarded cohabitation as ‘living in sin’, but today there is less shame attached to it. Barlow et al found increasing acceptance of cohabitation. This shows that the change in religions social attitude, cohabitation is accepted more, leading to an increase in cohabitation. Some people prefer love that focuses of on intimacy, closeness and emotion rather than the duties of marriage. Giddens argues that there has been a trend towards confluent love. This love focuses on the intimacy, closeness and emotion of a relationship, rather than the feelings of obligation and duty that is in vows at marriage. When a marriage no longer has confluent love, the relationship is likely to end. This shows that monogamy may start being replaced by serial monogamy, in which cohabitation is most suited to. However, the ONS found that 60% of cohabiting couples will eventually end in marriage showing that monogamy can often replace serial monogamy. There is less pressure to follow traditional norms and values. Beck and Beck-Gernshiem argue that individualism has led to changing attitudes towards cohabitation and marriage. There is less pressure to follow the norms and values around love and relationships set by family, religion or culture. This shows that the change in attitudes has led to people making their own decision about whether they marry or cohabitate. The acceptance of sex outside marriage has made it more likely that cohabitation will occur. Allan and Crow argue that effective contraception has made it possible for partners to cohabit without fear of pregnancy. This alongside the acceptance of sex before marriage means cohabitation without marriage is likely to occur. This shows that the change in social attitudes towards sex outside of marriage has led to an increase in cohabitation.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics