- Society’s thoughts.
Opposing the thoughts about divorce some decades ago, today’s society faces the idea of divorce in a much lighter and one can say even natural way.
This happens because of an increased focus on the ideals of one being autonomous, working on their personal growth; marriage ceased to be so imperative to maintain as it was before, it “is no longer a social obligation” (Introduction to Divorce, 1). Instead of this, inside the society’s self-fulfillment perspective is merely one of the many possible ways to achieve such goal.
Society also changed the role that family has, because it has transferred the responsibility for abuse and neglect situations to the government; this way, society made the family striped from this basic role, together with the social education one. Nowadays, with the introduction of social and moral classes in schools, children no longer learn these concepts from their parents, who, on their turn, are free from this feature as well, giving even more way to the selfish, self-fulfillment perspective mentioned before.
This lack of linkage with such notions leads, more and more, to couples that have less abilities to cope with each other, with their differences and feel increasingly frustrated with each other.
Thus, of course, makes the divorce resource more desirable and seen as a solution to such relationship problems, where, if people are no longer motivated to deal with their relationship issues and, instead, make ways for increasing arguments, it seems more logical and reasonable to end such proximity and bond, than to try to maintain it.
Furthermore, the ever-evolving notions of such self-fulfillment are never stable and this makes it difficult to establish concrete features to the concept of marriage that becomes somewhat a subjective definition. On another point of view, the mutable notion of marriage makes any kind of “credible durable marriage vows” (Gibbons, 12) unaccountable.
Together with the government support systems that were developed to help the ones who separate, in order to be able to provide for themselves and the children, when having them, the economic and structural stability constraints that once a breakup would carry are decreased. These helps are indeed seen by society as needed and essential (and they are), but this vision pairs with another one where divorce appears as not so difficult to choose for a path.
Having become such an everyday situation nowadays, however, divorce remains as not being an issue up for open discussion for society. It is frequent, yes, but not a debatable subject on why, how, when or who, publically.
Regarding the society’s acceptance issue, even though divorce is much more frequent nowadays and present in many families, this is still a subject of exclusion and prejudice, because there are still small groups of people, who are supposed to be defenders of marriage as a social, moral and religious duty.
Never the less, divorce, in resume, may be seen as “a staple in our society” (Buckley, 1). Nowadays, with the frequency divorce is increasingly having, society is more surprised with cases of long-term marriages and relationships, which are actually successful and where people manage to deal with their differences and overcome difficulties and problems. Unlike past decades, a successful marriage is now the odd situation. Along with this situation, couples who get married have now bigger concerns on pre-nuptial agreements and contract plans than before, as if they were already expecting divorce to be something to count on later in the marriage.
- Important issues & public attention
Divorce has also become a very big topic, represented vastly on the media; this as been a topic for TV, movies or even music themes. More than ever, all aspects of modern culture have this item present on their base and everyday both adults and children are exposed to the issue of divorce. It is another way in which it becomes even more natural for people to face.
Both on such media representations and reality, being the first a mirror of society, one can also observe a very important fact: divorce seems to occur more often among women in branches of society where education is lower, or among women with a higher education that are fit in low-divorce-level societies.
Regarding the first scenario, divorce being more often in environments with lower education levels brings to the surface another very important social issue, directly related to this and which is key in everyday’s news: an increase in youth crime.
Indeed, every other day, if not every day, news can be read, heard, seen, in which young adults and/or teenagers are involved in serious crime. One wonders immediately: where are the parents? The thing is, many times these young adults and teenagers come from low-education homes and being divorce more frequent in such environments, it is not rare to encounter many of them without a father-figure.
Today’s society is often an absent-father one, a fatherless one if you will, where all the burden of teaching social and moral values relies in just one parent, mostly mothers. The instability of only having one parent unbalances the whole process of educating children. And this becomes also a key factor, where the fact that the parent has to provide for the child, or children, makes it imperative to have a job (or even more than one); without someone to team up with, the parent struggles to cope with everything: job, house, children, etc.
Furthermore, in divorce cases where the children have to split their time to be with both parents, one at a time, makes it difficult for their education to have a concrete path and defined traits, because the parents don’t easily function as one in this way.
So, many times, what happens is that these children do not spend enough time with their parents and do not receive proper social and moral education due to lack of scenarios and opportunities for so.
In addition to all these important factors, the economic perspective must also be taken into consideration. Divorce and relationship issues, of course, are a source of many kinds of problems, which generate stress, tiredness and anxiety. These are not desirable feelings and/or states of mind to bring to the workplace, because they will, obviously, get in the way of a productive career. This negative influence will affect both the individual’s economy and the company’s to which he/she works to.
So, another important issue that stands out is that higher divorce rates also seem to affect economy: the personal economic situation, which comes to make the scenario even worse for the ones going through divorce, by not being able to have the needed productivity to ensure a proper income for the expenses, and the companies’ economic situation, because with less productivity comes less profit; with less profit, the projects and goals become more difficult; of course, no company wants that, so the people that represent this negative influence become an hazard and their relationship/divorce issues become a double hazard for them, respectively.
The range of problems that high rates of divorce imply can be much broader than the one people might think in the first place.
- Arguments: with or against.
Divorce is a two-sided coin, which can reveal us arguments that are both with or against it and that are equally prone to tear one’s opinion into a dilemma.
On one side, regarding the large number of domestic violence and adultery cases, one could say that the lesser of two evils would be to divorce and each part go their separate way, not harming each other or the children (if existent) as well.
Anyone would easily agree that keeping a marriage in such scenarios would not benefit neither of the two, and much less the children that the couple might have. Indeed, the damage on a child’s mind and life would be much greater seeing the two parents destroying each other, physically and/or psychologically, than to see them separate.
However, on the other hand, when thinking of the family being torn apart, solely, it is not a good solution, especially for the children.
It has been proven that a divorce context between a child’s parents takes a very negative toll on the infant’s academic and social achievements. Studies regarding schools with many cases of single-parent families have shown that these tend to have less social interaction between the parents and, so, the children’s school performance is lower, when compared to schools where these cases of single-parent families are less present.
Inside this context, the cases where the mother has the role of the single-parent are the ones where the children “are particularly harmed by attending such schools” (Prokic & Dronkers, 2).
Furthermore, in a divorce context, the children may feel less attachment to their parents, which can be due to the divorce itself, or for conflicts between the parents, both before, during and after divorce. Distancing from them, the education is also compromised, together with the acceptance of the parents as having authority; this may lead to the above mentioned problem: an increase of delinquent behavior.
- Importance of the topic.
So, as it can be seen regarding the previous arguments, divorce is a very important social topic to be addressed, even more now that is such a common situation in nowadays’ society and reaching even younger couples and families.
This assumes a bigger deal when talking about children and the way they are affected by this, not only on their childhood, but also the repercussion throughout their life.
As stated previously, divorce takes a very big toll on children’s stability in environmental, psychological, educational and social integration contexts. A child goes through divorce together with the parents and the whole process, together with all the conflicts that are implied, makes the child to distance from them and the parents themselves.
Of course, children need that strong-grounded link with the parents for a balanced development, both social and psychological. Without it, they lose their ground below their feet and don’t have the needed support right by their side to hold on when they do not know how to act, or what to think, or even to face up to their emotional challenges as well.
On another point of view, when children have to choose with whom they want to be with, one at a time, they develop torn feelings about the situation and the parents with the “biased socialization of the co-resident single parent” (Prokic & Dronkers, 2), becoming probable for them to have modifications on values and attitudes that constitute their under-construction personality; and this will affect who they will become in the future society.
Furthermore, it is important to take some steps back and see the bigger picture, in which divorce stands, which is the toll on society as one.
Divorce processes and the help needed for the parents to subsist and be able to provide for the children involved also have a huge toll on society’s structure and stability also, because they cause additional expenses for the government; help and support programs have to be created and continuously sponsored so that they stay viable and available for a society that has an increasing need for it, which takes a very significant part of a budget that, this way, may not be used for other aspects of this same society’s development.
Besides creating such support systems, it is essential to provide with help and psychological counseling that can help a society that is, more and more, unable to deal with the differences between each other and has a too easy way to just run away from them, to cope, accept, analyze and overcome those difficult situations.
- Conclusion
In conclusion, divorce is becoming, more and more, a feature of today’s society: it is present every day in various situations and society branches. Divorce has become a subject of everyday’s news and of the entertainment media: TV, movies, music, etc. Today, one is more easily surprised a couple is still together after a long time, than of having gone their separate ways.
One can observe that the couples going through divorce nowadays are increasingly younger, which demonstrates the younger generation inability to handle the marriage difficulties and couple differences and jus how increasingly easy divorce has been given as a solution; divorce is also observed in a larger number of cases when talking of social branches where education is lower.
It is an issue that takes its toll mainly on children that are involved between their parents’ divorce process. It causes stress, trauma, torn feelings and a sense of distancing from the parents, because of having no stability of feelings and psychological environment.
Society itself is influenced, both social interaction and well-being and the economic side. A society with increasing rates of divorce is prone to have more young delinquent crimes due to lack of a father-figure in cases where the single-parent is the mother, or by the child’s poor development as a member of this same society. Economically, active individuals going through divorce produce less and companies suffer from this also.
Reference
Alvar212. “Prevalence of Divorce in Society”. Sections 6 &7 F11 Psy1001. 20011. 30th of January 2013.
Buckley, Dave. “Divorce and its Impact on Society”. Society, Ezinemark. 2011. 29th of January 2013.
Gibbons, Joel. “The Divorce Economy: A Pragmatic View of Divorce in Society”. Logistic Research. N.d. 29th of January 2013.
Prokic, Tijana, Dronkers, Jaap. “Parental divorce and attitudes about society of their children”. Seventh Meeting of the European Network for Sociological and demographic Study of Divorce. 2009. 30th of January 2013.
Rahimi, Shahram abdol, Shakarbigi, Ali reza, Naderi, Ghoobad. “Phenomena Effects of Divorce on Families and Society”. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research. 2012. 30th of January 2013.
The Pair Project. “Introduction to Divorce”. Processes of Adaptation in Intimate Relationships, Famiy Theory Graduate Seminar. Fall 1998. 29th of January 2013.
