Marriage and Divorce in the Post Victorian Era
Marriage is a social structure. When couples get married they enter into a relationship that is societally recognized and to some degree societally regulated. Laws, customs, traditions and cultural assumptions are intrinsically involved in defining the path that a marriage will take. In the late 19th century many Americans had to come to terms in some way with the societal expectations of marriage, guided by the Victorian mores. But as the 20th century began these elements began to evolve. As personal expectations became more important societal expectations lost prevalence.
The laws and regulations of the 1920's succeeded in making it more difficult to obtain a divorce. More conservative states in the East limited divorce to only two or three complaints, adultery or abandonment were the most common. But this red tape did not slow down the rapidly accelerating rate of divorce in the 1920's. Especially in the more liberal West was divorce becoming a more usual case. The state of California and the state of New Jersey were the center of May's Great Expectations.
California was settled by Victorians, many of who were European immigrants who moved to California from the mid-West. Other Victorians were native-born white Protestant Americans from the middle class. These men and women believed that independence and self denial would lead to progress. Most of these people were well to do merchants and professionals, who had economic autonomy. This Victorian culture encouraged domestic morality.
During this time there were clearly defined sex roles. The husband served as the sole provider and the wife took care of the home, children and volunteer work at the c...
... middle of paper ...
... with the lifestyle that their husband was providing for them. Some of these cases were granted to the men and other to the women. Women often desired a divorce from husband who tried to force them to go to work. These women felt that their husband was unwilling to simply provide for his family, most of these women were granted the divorces.
Elaine Tyler May did a great job of backing up all of these ideas with many cases from California and a few from New Jersey. This may assume that all California and New Jersey accurately represented America. Perhaps May should have instead sub-titled her book Marriage & Divorce in Post-Victorian California. I am sure that most of these same trends were spread all over the nation but there may have been other causes that May did not touch on.
Bibliography:
Great Expectations, Elaine Tyler May
I agree with the article’s thesis. Divorce has slowly seeped its way into the “normal” way of life and is running rampant through our country and Americans have become numb and desensitized to its abhorrence. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more prominent and society equates this as normal. The Funk and Wagnall’s Dictionary defines divorce as the “Dissolution of a marriage bond by legal process or by accepted custom.
...ct religious rules and less prejudice against divorced people have made it easier for people to end unhappy marriage. The suburban population boomed, fueled by a growing economy, city residents moved to the suburbs to fulfill dreams of home ownership and to flee crime and congestion. Employment outside the home made a big difference in American women and mothers’ lives, giving them self-confidence as well as economic independence. All of the above mentioned facts indicate that the American society had changed.
Dating back to the early 20th century, women’s roles in the United States were very limited. In regards to family life, women were expected to cook, clean, and take care of their homes. Men, on the other hand, were in charge of working and providing for the family. Together, these designated roles helped men and women build off of each other to ultimately keep their families in check. As the years progressed, society began to make a greater push to increase women’s rights. As women started receiving greater equality and freedom, their roles began to shift. More women had to opportunity to leave the house and join the workforce. The norm for a married couple slowly began to change as men were no longer expected to individually provide for their
For Centuries in our society marriage between man and woman has been a practiced cultural right and custom. Over 90% of Americans will marry in their lifetime and roughly 50% of those marriages will result in Divorce. Many Sociological factors contribute to the high divorce rate expressed in our culture. Reasons that contribute to the divorce rate are longer life expectancy, women in the work force, birth control, social acceptance of cohabitation, single parenting and welfare reform. It is also now socially acceptable and legal to get a divorce due to dissatisfaction and unhappiness. This social acceptance of divorce implies that today there is a changing criteria when entering marriage. Couples today now insist on the element of personal fulfillment and happiness for entering wedlock, where as, in times past this was not one of the main considerations for man and woman to get married.
In the early 1900’s divorce rates were low and you could not get a divorce without showing significant proof of abuse, abandonment, or adultery. In the nineteenth century, society individuals did not think too much about the importance of love and compassion in a marriage. It was
California society, and people as individuals, could not decide whether they relished their newfound freedom or despised it. Some people attempted to recreate the lives they knew at home, while many others threw off the shackles of their old proper lives. Victorian culture emerged in the 1820’s and 1830’s in America. At 1850, the time of the Gold Rush, it was at it’s high point. Anyone who came to California from the states, no matter what their position, would have come from a place influenced by the Victorian way of life. This included strict ideas about the roles of men and women, taboos on drinking and gambling, high value set on hard work, Christian ethics, and ethnic prejudices.2 People who came to California experienced something quite different.
Although changes have been made to Jewish divorce laws, women are continually being mistreated when dealing with the issues of divorce. In biblical times, there were no assurances that women would be protected when faced with a man who wanted a divorce. Furthermore, women were not allowed to initiate the process by asking for one. As time went on, it was recognized that women needed to be somewhat shielded from actions that her husband could take, which she had no control over. Rabbinic law made four major changes to help the plight of women regarding divorce (Biale p.5).
Coltrane, Scott, and Michele Adams. "The Social Construction of the Divorce "Problem": Morality, Child Victims, and the Politics of Gender." Family Relations 52.4 (2003): 363-72. Print.
There was a time when women typically maintained the home and raised children while the husbands were the sole bread-winners for the family finances. However, times have changed and so have women’s rights and expectations for divorce, education, an...
A divorce was almost unheard of in the 1960's unless there was truly a good reason. Today, women work for themselves, make their own money and raise a child all by them selves.
Marriage is a socially approved sexual relationship between two individuals or it is a formal relationship between man and woman which is typically recognized by law. It is simply a cultural universe. It always involves two opposite sexes but nowadays same sex marriage is permitted in some part of world. As we are moving towards the modernization society, the value and beliefs of marriage are also changing. People do not have same traditional perception about the marriage rather they have different attitudes towards it. The importance of marriage has lost in our society and children are no longer taught about the purity of marriage.
One tough thing about today's American family is divorce. In 1816, one marriage out of one hundred ended in divorce. Then between the years 1869-1888, divorce increased up to one hundred and fifty percent. And the worse, between the years 1960-1980, the divorce rate increased up to two hundred and fifty percent. Divorce rates peaked in 1981 and then started to decline a little during the mid 1980's. However, divorce rates now are as high as they have ever been. Now fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. There are five reasons for the increase in divorce. The first reason is in modern societies; individual happiness is regarded to be important so when people are unhappy with their marriage, they break-up and split. The second reason is it is easier to get divorced financially. The third reason is that women's economic independence has contributed. The fourth reason is the stigma of divorce has lessened so people are not
Historically saying, divorce has always been known as a deviance of society and people who are involved in divorce were being looked down on. However, as the world slowly evolves, people’s sense of individualism also amplified; this created the
The Reasons for Changes in the Patterns of Marriage, Cohabitation and Divorce in the last 30 Years
During Hardy's time, divorce wasn't as prevalent as it is today, and usually only wealthy men were able to leave their wives. A man could divorce his wife on grounds as simple as adultery, while a woman had to prove cruelty, rape, sodomy, incest or big...