Marriage And Divorce: Laws, Policies And Trends In The United States

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The History of Marriage and Divorce Laws in America

Marriage and divorce is an issue that concerns people across the globe and that has an evident repercussion in the economic and social health of a nation. This essay shall focus on this topic highlighting the laws and policies related to marriage and divorce in the United States. The independent states in America govern the laws related to divorce and marriages where the cases arise. Marriage laws are also governed by the individual states as per the laws implemented by these states. During the 19^th century, ambiguities in marriage and divorce laws became an advantageous instrument for the Americans to dissolve marriages (Time.com). This trend had negatively affected the female partners in marriage mostly who had to face numerous problems. The divorce rates were at a peak during that time. With time, the citizens started to realize the problems within the laws and amendments were made. However, throughout the 1950 until the 1970s and 1980s, some ‘bizarre’ laws were witnessed where couples could divorce just because of someone confirming handprint on the cheeks of a partner.  In the contemporary setting in America, a huge number of people believe that marital decline is the new trend because marriages are no longer valued or respected especially in the African-American community.  The chief argument of the essay thus, is that marital resilience is the best option to reestablish faith in marriage institutions.

There is always an ensuing debate regarding whether the status and social position of marriages in America have become worse or not. There are supporters of marital decline who defend that marriage have lost the social position that it used to occupy previously. In fact, Manning et al. professes that high rates of divorce shows an acute lack of commitment along with decline in moral character. In fact, Wolfinger supports the fact by providing the stats that this social development has directly harmed children and their psychological as well as social development. In high contrast, supporters of marital residence like Glass and Philip have expressed that in spite of the fact that marriages in America have experienced disruptive consequences like high rate of divorce, such occurrences bear the signatory that the marital institution have evolved and is now highly supportive of individual autonomy, specifically in the case of women.

In fact, in support of marital resilience, Lafortune and Corinne have stated that it would have been truly harmful for the institution of marriage if it has remained as confining as it had been about 50 to 60 years ago. Herein, the opinion presented by Greenwood et al. deserves mention. The average marriage in today’s context is weak. The rate of satisfaction is marriages today is remarkably low and the divorce rate equally high. However, amidst that the best marriages in America today, are fundamentally much stronger. Both, mutual satisfaction as well as personal well-being is achieved out of marriages (Lafortune and Corinne).

The Debate Over Marital Decline vs Marital Resilience

An example, with citation to the African-American community can be cited in this context. Since 1980s, the divorce rate in this community in America have settled at about 45%. In this regard, the information provided by Popenoe bears evidence that the conceptualisation of marriage have become less satisfying to the young generation. In sharp contrast, a recent survey analysis conducted by the Missouri University can be specifically highlighted. A prolonged study conducted by the university since 1990s to 2016, judged marital quality as well as personal wellbeing of the married people (those marrying after 1980) (Popenoe). One evident fact that have emerged as an outcome of this analysis is that the gap between good and satisfying marriage on one hand socially entrusted and mediocre marriages have increased. To talk of the Afro-American community, which is emphatically the focus of perception in this essay, people have gradually perceived social freedom in the institution of marriage. Marriage is now, not the only legalised relationship status in this community. Hence, people have the necessary and essential liberty to move out of this social contract whenever they feel that the marriage or their disposition in the institution of marriage is spoiling the eccentricity of self-existence.

In order to justify this newfound divergence, the new Theory of marriage can be highlighted. Marital partnership is a lifelong adjustment that requires sustaining quality and a sense of compatibility along with an urge to sacrifice for the counterpart. However, the view of psychologists is that the new generation of Americans have much elevated expectations from the people they are going to marry. However, Lundberg, Robert and Jenna opines in this context, that the life styles of the Americans are not suited to render time as well as energy for the sake of their partnerships. As an outcome, the conceptualisation of natural selection works in the case of Americans. They can enter in to a sustainable relationship with the person with whom he or she feels naturally comfortable. Marriage have hence become more of an “all or nothing” proposition. Hence, this conclusion alongside challenging the contradictory views of marital decline as well as marital resilience. Rather, for the policy makers, there is an opportunity to bolster the marital institution. American individuals should look up at this opportunity as a scope of finding new ways to solidify their relationship.

In this context, it is recommendable that the No-fault Divorce laws that is in application since 1960s, should be subjected to some amendments. This law does not abide the court to seek for the root cause of the breaking-up of the relationship. Rather, if a couple have remained separate for more than 12 months, the court can effectively declare the separation of a couple.

The New Theory of Marriage in America

The Supreme Court should seek to find out what are the generic reasons that can be held accountable for the major percentage of break-up in relationships. Statistics shows that median length of a relationship in the form of marriage is 11 years. Again, based on the findings of England, divorce rates in America is mostly high among the poorly educated couples. Among the richly educated couples, the rate of divorcing is only 11%. On the contrary, he same criteria for the poorly educated couples is about 17%. These are the facts that the court should take in to notice and go in to the depth of every divorce case so that relevant laws cam be created to stop divorce cases among the Americans.

Coontz defines the era from 1850 to 1965 as the period of companionate marriage. During this time, marriages in America increasingly focused around much intimate needs much intimate needs like love, expectation to be loved as also the expectation of experiencing a complete and fulfilling sex life. This was the era that marked the transition from rural to urbanised life in America. As this phase completed, American economic interface seemed complete and the nation was now wealthier as well as the social institutions became stronger. After that the Americans could afford the luxury of looking up to marriage for the fundamental purpose of companionship. The latter perception towards marriage has been termed by Schoen, as a self-expressive marriage. Viewing marriage relationships of this era, Cohen, quotes that love has now become, for the good:

“The mutual exploration of infinitely rich, complex and exciting selves.”

The evolution of marriage and its position in the American communities and culture, can be traced to be outlining the “Hierarchy of Needs” theory of Maslow. The need in the lowest rung is that of psychological wellbeing of people, which includes food and drink. This is followed by the need for safety and then the need for belonging and love. Finally comes the step of self-esteem as well as self-actualisation. The emergence of each level typically depends up on prior satisfaction of the previous need. There have been an analogy observed in the expectations out of marriage by the American people. The expectations were set at low standards during the institutional era (during the 1930s) and in this self-expressive era at the high levels. As an outcome, people, specifically women looked up to food, shelter and other necessities from their male counterparts in marriage. As an outcome, they did not or least expected other amenities like love, sexual fulfilment or other pleasures from marriage. However, the scenario began to change when the society began to come out of its orthodox conch shell.  The earning capability of women began to enhance and as an outcome, they did not need to depend on men for the fulfilment of their basic needs. That is why they could seek compatibility out of marriage from men. At the current moment, both men and women are at the highest rank of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. That is why the need to care for and “make feel special” became a priority for most couples. Keeping this in mind, Grossmann and Michael, have noted that the spouses who spends

Opportunities to Bolster the Marital Institution in the US

Again, according to the views of Rocque, the amount of personal time that spouses spend with their counterpart, standing in 2015 is much less compared to that they did in 1980s. As an outcome, the factors that the spouses want to extract from their counterparts are not available to them. This is the reason for the divorce of 65% American and specifically Afro-American families.

The socioeconomic dimension of marriage have also emerged as one of the factors behind increment in the cases of divorce. The low earning families have higher divorce rates. This is obviously linked with the spouses’ incapability to fulfil the socioeconomic needs. Hence, a subtle implication of the economic factor cannot be obliterated from the scope of marriages. The modern day marriages are indeed supportable and much more strengthened. The government of USA is also taking up family friendly workplace policies as onsite child care policies in order to render support towards strengthening the foundation of marriage. However the modern day couples also need to invest more time and space and Andersson, Ognjen and Kirk Scott, suggests that they can perhaps do so by alternative the mode in which they spend the mutual leisure time that they spend together. On the contrary, Root and Laura, opines that of the couples lack adequate time as well as energy, they can consider adjusting their mutual expectations. In order to do so, they might focus on cultivating affection and bonding with each other, rather than attempting to facilitate the self-actualisation of each other.

As Raley et al. note, patterns of marriage in the U.S. is different for black women as compared to white or Hispanic women. According to the authors, increase in the economic contributions made by women in their household has become an important factor in marriage. “Race continues to be associated with economic disadvantage, and thus as economic factors have become more relevant to marriage and martial stability, the racial gap in marriage has grown”, the authors further add. Schwartz, Christine and Han on the other hand shed light on the dissolution of marriages due to educational level of the African-American spouses. According to them, “Marriages in which wives have the educational advantage were once more likely to dissolve, but this association has disappeared in more recent marriage cohorts”. Further, the stability in marriages has increased amongst spouses with equal educational level.

The findings from the study conducted by Kogan et al. reveal that racial discrimination and economic difficulties contribute to the declining rates of marriage amongst the African-American community.

The above discussion reveals that marriages and divorce rates in the United States especially amongst the African-American couples. The paper mainly discussed the two major patterns in marriage including marriage decline and marriage resilience. Those favoring marital decline argued that due to the increasing self-dependence of the female partners in marriages, they no longer need the assurance from their male partners to stay in relationship. In addition, the couples have started to value societal relationships more than their marital bond and hence, divorce rates are on the rise as well. In contrast, the ones in favor of marriage resilience argued that those who value relationships are more likely to have a stable marriage than those who do not. The analysis found that although divorce rates are increasing in the modern context, marital resilience should be able to lower the rates. The couples need to deal with the socioeconomic tensions together.

References

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Greenwood, Jeremy, et al. "Technology and the changing family: A unified model of marriage, divorce, educational attainment, and married female labor-force participation." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 8.1 (2016): 1-41.

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