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GAZETTE
JULY-AUGUST
1979
tically and levelled off. The clear implication is not that
the new laws caused marriages to break up with remark-
able speed, but that there existed a huge backlog of
already broken marriages which were simply waiting for a
way of obtaining legal recognition of that fact. The new
law simply permitted regularisation of an extant situation.
Plainly, however, since the new laws broadened the
threshold for the bringing of petitions, the overall annual
level of petitions was raised.
Precisely the same situation arose with the introduction
and extension of Legal Aid for divorce petitioners in 1949
and 1960 respectively. Once again there was an
immediate rush to the courts immediately the new rules
came into force and once again the swollen statistics were
purely a temporary phenomenon. The new regulations
were simply creating a situation in which the divorce
figures were beginning to approximate more closely to the
actual incidence of marriage breakdown. But in the
context of the argument that divorce laws precipitate
marital instability, the period of the 50s and 60s is
perhaps of most interest for while precisely the same
legislation operated in both decades, in the first period the
divorce statistics fell markedly while in the second period
they escalated. Apart from the wider availability of legal
aid which obviously explains part of the discrepancy, the
only other major differences between these periods were
extraneous social factors and it is these which research
increasingly show to be influential in affecting attitudes to
marriage, expectations of marriage and continuing
viability of marriage. Probably the clearest indicator of
the immense role of social factors in marital instability is
the booming divorce rate in the wake of the second World
War. The why and wherefore lay not in the existence of
divorce laws for the same law had been operative for al-
most a decade, but rather in the existence of unusual
social circumstances which greatly exacerbated the
stresses under which marriages laboured. Many
marriages contracted during the war years were rushed
and illconsidered. Newly weds were often separated for
long periods, wives left to cope alone, there was the
nagging uncertainty as to whether absent spouses would
survive the war after all. There was too the severe
economic hardship of the war and post war years, lack of
housing, lack of employment prospects and the more
subtle problems caused by having to learn to live with
someone who may have become a stranger during those
years. Clearly it was a time when, for many, interpersonal
relationships were under stress and not unnaturally some
went to the wall. Only a fool would suggest that if there
had been no divorce laws such marriages would have sur-
vived, for from the outset may of these relationships were
dangerously vulnerable and at risk. Perhaps the miracle is
that so many survived for all that.
Reasons for marriage breakdown
But if then divorce legislation is not a cause of marital
breakdown but instead an expression of already changed
and changing attitudes to marriage what then are the
effective causes of marital disharmony and eventual
breakdown. The answer to this operates at two levels.
One identifies general factors which have had the effect of
subtly changing our traditional concept of marriage, of
relationships inside and outside marriage, of male female
roles in life and marriage etc. At this level our changing
views and expectations are themselves the dynamic force
in the changing nature of the institution of marriage.
Marriage is perceived not as a set of given and immutable
constants but as a growing and developing ideation
exposed to and vulnerable to change. The second level
identifies individualised factors which if present in a
particular marriage may mitigate its viability.
At the general level the greatest contribution is made
by the increasingly complex nature of modern life itself.
Our sophisticated, consumerised world creates its own
tensions and pressures and all too often the home is used
as a forum in which such tensions are relieved in an
inarticulate and violent way. Simultaneously our
expectations of life and marriage are changing radically in
step with the social and economic emancipation of
women, which while far from complete as yet, is
nonetheless real in its consequences. There is a growing
realisation among women that there exist alternatives to
the traditional subservient door-mat style existence of
former days and just as our prospects from life and
marriage have widened and been enhanced, so too our
tolerance and unacceptable behaviour inside marriage has
dropped as a consequence. There have too been real
changes in attitudes to contraception, to family planning,
to working wives, to sex inside and outside marriage and
each of these factors along with many others have almost
imperceptibly affected and moulded the overweening
attitude to marriage. Incidental to that there is the reality
that for many of our young people the sole source of
information about sex, love or marriage is gleaned from
cheap magazines who traffic in the belief that sexual
licence is the hallmark of freedom and that romance is a
synonym for love. But where are the official attempts to
controvert these fallacies which are more insidious to
marriage than any amount of divorce laws. Where are the
educational programmes designed to direct the young to
mature and unselfish sexual responses, to an intellectual
realisation of the need for loving, caring, forgiving and
communicating as fundamentals in marriage. Our
response instead of being open, confident and positive has
on the whole been unerringly negative and our failure is
highlighted in the illegitimacies, abortions and marital
breakdowns which increasingly form a normal part of
everyday life. It may very well be true that there is
nowadays a growing tendency to take lightly the marriage
vows and a reluctance to overcome problems in marriage
but if it is then it is a fact of life which has to be tackled in
a radical and realistic way just as it is a fact that
marriages break up with or without a legal way out and
that this too is a problem which needs an answer or better
still a series of answers.
At the level of individualised factors which put
marriages at risk research
2
shows a number of recurring
factors; e.g. Marriages between young partners or where
the bride was pregnant at the time of marriage are over-
represented in the statistics. Divorces occur twice as often
in the age group who married between 20 and 24 and
three times as often as those who married between 25 and
29. Hence factors which intuitive commonsense would
tell us to beware of are highlighted by empirical evidence,
immaturity, lack of preparation for the responsibility of
marriage or parenthood, youthfulness, ignorance of
family planning etc. There are two incidental factors
which are no less important than immaturity. The young
newly-weds also tend to be the most economically and
financially vulnerable. Furthermore they also tend to
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