Divorce in Modern Society - Coursework Example

Divorce Introduction In modern society, the divorce is regarded as one of the most important social problems that are prevailing in the society. Thedays are gone, when women was believed to be community leaders. The dramatic alteration has affected the family structures and socioeconomic fabric. The contributing factors towards rise of female dominance lead to divorce. The impact of divorce on parents and their children can be destructive. The children of divorced adults have to experience economic and mental stress. This can hinder their process of social growth. The separation of parents can have worse impact on their children. After hearing the news of divorce, the first reaction of children is denial, confusion and fear. Furthermore, this is followed by panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, depression, anger and aggression. Unfortunately, even children of divorced adults can experience economic and mental stress. This can unfortunately hinder their process of social growth and create negative impact towards both families and their children. As revealed in experimental research, the event of divorce can lead to the growth of the economic vulnerability of children, men and women. (Conrad, 2005) Divorce can convert many of these divorced adults towards complete deprivation and poverty. The emotional stresses from the process of divorce can create long-term effects on children such as increased rate of tension, constant misunderstanding and various fears. This everything can severely affect the psychology of children. This research paper lays the groundwork and impact of divorce in society. This sociological issue of divorce is selected to provide descriptive analysis and negative psychological impact towards the issues. This research paper lays the groundwork and impact of divorce in society. Additionally, the paper tries to implement few sociological perceptions to examine the impact of divorce. I chose this sociological issue because I have experienced it with my family and I am so sensitive and interested in that topic. Discussion The increased rate of divorce is regarded as one of the main economic and social issues prevailing in society. In the last half of 20th century, some of the biggest countries such as the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, United States, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Korea, etc. have seen augmentation in divorce rate. Changing role of wives and husbands primarily causes this increased rate of divorce. In other words, the expectation, conflict and misunderstanding between both parties could highly lead to divorce. Moreover, psychological incapacity, unstable financial situation, added marital affairs, domestic violence and early marriage are some other primary causes of increased divorce rate. It is believed that divorce can deter society by weakening belief and dissolving families. According to sociologists, the role of family is more than critical towards uniting people through blood and marriage. Family provides emotional, financial and educational support towards their members. This can benefit other family members to thrive communally and socially. However, the lack of support from family members can weaken divorced adults and children physically, emotionally and mentally (Wolfinger, 2005). The social participants from separated adults and children tend to be less productive than that of happy families. According to The Heritage Foundation, a child belonging from divorce households tends to enter into marriages that are at high-risk level. One of the famous researchers Patrick Fagan stated that this also tends to get even worse. (Wolfinger, 2005) These children from divorced households starts families from their own and often do not want to participate in any marriage ceremony. This phenomenon of ignoring marriage can become disturbance situation for social harmony. At the time of divorce, it becomes a great loss for one spouse and most of the time both of them and their children if any. It becomes difficult for single parent to shoulder full load of parenting. Furthermore, the single parent has to deal with disappointment and loss of feelings. Therefore, divorce can lead to somatic complaints, aggression, depression and personal dysfunction. In fact, the personal dysfunction can act as huge burden situation for single parents. Moreover, it can heavily affect parenting responsibilities, which sometimes become an overwhelming situation (Everett, 2014). Divorce can make children to be supervised more much longer period of time. This is primarily due to the fact that parents spend time to enter into the state of dating. Sometimes divorce can make parents so exhausted that they can invest little time on their children. Unfortunately, this can later lead to lack of discipline and affection. Daily household routine is also affected by lack of parent involvement towards children nurture. Also, most of the times, friends distance themselves from adults that are divorced. They might feel that they do not know the right approach and ways to make divorced individual feel restored. Impact of divorce in different social context In modern era, the rise of societal importance on personal growth and independence has lessened the position of marital union. In case of different social context, the marriage is no longer believed to be considered as social obligation, routine and adulthood (Utexas, 2015). The introduction of social, moral issues and compulsory education has become a problematic situation for most families. This makes families to lose control on the authority of socialization over their rearing of child. It is observed that people who are at a lower social class have high rate of divorce cases and are young couple that unites in spite of low level of commitment (Eagan, 2004). During 20th century, the improvement and consideration of gender equality had created opportunity for women to have extensive variety of options. Both men and women have rejected old roles that used to separate them into two different categories of responsibilities based on their gender. Additionally, they try to place additional stress and initiate challenging re-adjustment on couples. This provides the fact that divorce has become socially acceptable choice for couples. Impact of divorce in different cultural context The alteration in employment options of a women and variations in different cultural context has been some of the reasons for increased rate of divorce. Conventionally, women were heavily reliant and dependent upon the ability of a man (Eagan, 2004). The ability of men determines how they can sustain and support their family whether financially or emotionally in order to survive the marriage. For many years now, there has been a great improvement towards employment availability for women. It specially occurred for women with children, which reduced dependence on male counterpart and enabled female members with children to have opportunity supporting them financially. This aspect of divorce is correlated with alteration in different cultural perspective. There are some countries with different cultural norms reduced the employment capability for women. This is mostly prevalent in underdeveloped countries. The cross-cultural studies reveal that women adheres conventional and mainstream opinions on society. However, men are likely to adopt values of traditional family norms. This different perspective for men and women in different cultural context can lead to divorce. Impact of divorce on different political context Across different political spectrum, one of the major danger situations is children that are being raised from families with one-parent. This is primarily caused by the rise of divorce. Every political nation with different political norms and ideas stimulates national history and constitution. The political dynamic and legal implication by government on a certain country can impact the divorced rate. The help of civic leaders and politicians is required at utmost level to restore the welfare of a child and importance of healthy marriage (Fagon & Rector, 2000). This requires help and authority from political parties to introduce effective pro-marriage programs for benefits of keeping healthy married couple. Conflict theory In the science of sociology, there are different sociological perspectives that can apply to various social problems. Those perspectives are functionalist, conflict, interactionist, or feminist perspective. Starting with the conflict theory, according to Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, the conflict theory in general stresses that a group of people who are from different societal background used to have different interests. (Clarke-Stewart, 2008). These interests will allow those groups to be different and unique from others. During the process of divorced adults, the conflict theory from sociological perspective includes the idea that people often struggle to resolve conflicting and disagreeing ideals. (Clarke-Stewart, 2008). This theory enables to increase awareness on divorce and the stages that it goes through. The prior conditions stage is the first stage that effectively reflects events that leads to the occurrence of divorce (Clarke-Stewart, 2008). Some certain conditions that can be primary cause for divorce are disloyalty, marital discords and financial issues. The second stage is awareness or frustration stage. This stage reflects the fact that one or both people from couple can grow into being upset and unsatisfied due to what’s happening in the previous stage. Followed by the active conflict, which is the third stage that involves moving couples from frustration and dissatisfaction to effective win-win situation (Levinger, 2009). In this scenario, couples may be aggressive and can show struggle but in a polite manner. The solution and accommodation stage comprises resolution of issues by couples. The solution stage provides vivid explanation about involvement of resolution strategies. The accommodation stage is providing effective space and explanation for finding a way for resolution. The aftermath and follow-up stage is the final stage. It involves facilitation of new rules, presence of grudges and rehashing of the struggle for the couple (Clarke-Stewart, 2008). This new rules are usually added during the process of divorce. Feminist perspective Since the surrounding has a major influence on individuals, long-term relationships are being affected by the culture of many countries such as power, beauty and money. For decades, men have dominated women and there was lack of alternatives for women to rule those (Fine, 2013). Women used to have no options rather than opt to maintain domination. In the era of industrialization, there has been considerable amount of transformation in the world. It provided opportunity for women to meet their basic needs for survival and refuse the drawback of previous generations. They started having the chance to have the power and control over themselves and others too. According to feminist sociological perspective, the perception on marital divorce continues in which women positions themselves at the time of divorce in a way that differs from the positions of men. (Eide, 2001). Furthermore, there has been no consistent expansion towards domestic contributions of fathers in the family. It has become the duty for women to bear the accountability for child education and many other obligations when they divorce their spouse. They will have to take the role of a mother and a father at the same time along with all the duties. This division of labor perspective has been a substantial part towards making divorced women to enjoy quicker emotional bonds with their children and face depressing financial forecasts (Portman, 2002). According to Liberal feminist, the domestic responsibilities of women would automatically place them at non-favorable situations and get tired quickly. (Crosby 2009). They would start to address and fight for lessening domestic responsibilities. Therefore, liberal feminists support policies that involve fair proportion of family responsibilities for men. It focuses on sharing family duty between men and women equally (Das, 2013). This would make women concentrate on other non-family related works and consider their beauty and happiness. Sometimes, it is difficult to predict whether involvement of women on child education and nurture differs from involvement of men in different society, as both of their contribution is vital. Conclusion This can be concluded that rapid rise of divorce rate is threatening social stability for every nation. The magnitude of the impact of divorce can be determined by different political, social and cultural environment. The existing divorce law does not address issues of supporting self-sufficiency for each party, gender-neutral custody values and lack of child support. The most applicable and convincing perspective on divorce is provided by conflict theory. This theory consists of stages that are noticeable and manifest during the process of divorce. References Clarke-Stewart, A. (2008). Divorce: Causes and Consequences. New York: Springer. Conrad, C. (2005). African American in the US Economy. New York: Springer. Crosby, F. (2008). Radical Feminism. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Das, C. (2013). Divorce Consequences. London: Routledge. Eagan. (2004). Attachment and Divorce: Family Consequences. Retrieved from: < http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/eagan.html>. Eide, A. (2001). Economic, Social and Cultural rights. London: Sage. Everett, C. (2014). The Sociology of Divorce. London: Routledge. Fagon, F. P., & Rector, R. (2000). The Effects of Divorce on America. Retrieved from: < http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2000/06/the-effects-of-divorce-on-america>. Fine, M. (2013). Divorce and Relationship Discussion. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Levinger, G. (2009). Divorce and Separation: Context, causes and consequences. New Jersey: Pearson. Portman, A. (2008). Socioeconomic causes and consequences of divorce. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Utexas. (2015). Introduction to Divorce. Retrieved from: < http://www.utexas.edu/courses/pair/CaseStudy/DB.html>. Wolfinger, N. (2005). Understanding the Divorce Cycle. New Jersey: Pearson. Read More