Marital Dissolution

1. MARITAL
DISSSOLUTION
Dr. Veena Shahi
Department of HDFS
College of Community Science
RPCAU. Pusa

2. MARITAL DISSSOLUTION
The breaking or ending or termination of marriage / marital
ties is known as marital dissolution.
Types of Marital Dissolution
 Involuntary :
Due to death
 Voluntary :
Annulment
Divorce
Desertion
Judicial separation

3. FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR AN INCREASE
IN THE RATE OF LEGAL MARITAL
DISSOLUTION
Demographic factors:
 Differences in socioeconomic status of spouses.
 Employment or financial independence of women.
 Low educational level of spouses.
Life course factors:
 Intergenerational transmission.
 Young for marriage.
 Remarriage

4. Societal factors:
 Decline in stigma of divorce.
 Reduction in the institutional functions of the family.
 Lower levels of social integration.
 Casual approach towards marriages.
 Decline in moral values & religious beliefs.
 Priority of personal happiness over family happiness.
 More liberal divorce laws.
Personal factors:
 Impotence.
 Extra marital affairs.
 Age.
 Any kind of disease or addiction.
 Convert religion or done fraud.

5. FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR
REFRAINING FROM DIVORCE AFTER
MARRIAGE FAILURE
 Sake of the children
 Property considerations
 Desired by only one spouse
 Common interests & responsibilities
 Hope of readjustment
 Attitude of bargaining & holding
 Woman may want support
 Moral or religious reasons
 Existence of love
 Their state not permitting divorce
 Memory of earlier life & habit patterns

6. SOCIAL PROCESS OF MARITAL FAILURE &
DIVORCE
 People do not separate or divorce suddenly.
 They gradually move apart through a set of predictable
stages.
 Sociologist „Diane Vaughan‟ calls this process
“uncoupling”, which starts with alienation.
 Alienation is a slow accumulation of conflicts &
disagreements.
 If alienation is advanced, spouses tend to exaggerate the
deficiencies of mate & marriage.
 Most marriages don‟t break easily, „crisis of reconciliation‟
happens in which couples struggle for resolving problems.
 Some succeed, but if again hostilities break, recovery level
falls leading to final break & separation.

7. Waller identifies some marital crisis upon
which the alienation process rests (Waller &
Hill):
1) Disturbance in “affectional-sexual life of the pair”
2) One partner “mentions possibility of divorce”
3) When “solidarity” is broken
4) Anger leads to “the decision of divorce”
5) The painful “crisis of separation”
6) Divorce results in final severance of marital relationships
7) Still existence of “period of mental conflicts”
SEPARATION DISTRESS
• In marital breakdown, crucial event is separation & distress
resulting from it is known as separation distress.
• Though it generally precedes divorce, not all separations lead
to divorce, they may reconcile.
• In this, almost all attention is centered on missing partner, &
usually women undergo greater uplift.
• It immediately results in euphoria & but that is gone soon.

8. FACTORS AFFECTING SEPARATION DISTRESS:
 Length of time married
 The leaver & the left
 Finding someone new
 Quality of post-marital relationships
 Resource
 Loneliness
NO-FAULT DIVORCE
 Doesn’t require showing of wrong doing by either
party.
 Laws providing for it allow a family court to grant a
divorce in response to a petition by either party of the
marriage.
 There is no requirement of petitioner to provide
evidence that the defendant has committed a breach
of marital contract.

9. CONSEQUENCES OF DIVORCE:
 Continues to be a sign of failure.
 Bound to cause personal sufferings & guilt
 Socially, its major cost id division of family into
weaker units.
 Family having mother & children has lower income
than a two-parent family.
 Role of bread-winners as well as parents, are difficult
for both parent, when children accompany them.
 Also, chances of remarriage & further happiness
exists.
CHILDREN AS WEAPON AGAINST DIVORCE:
 Alienating children’s affection.
 Using children to maintain bonds.
 Demanding total commitment.
 Holding children’s hostage.

10. ADJUSTMENT TO DIVORCE:
Five general phases:
I. Denial that there was divorce.
II. Anger towards those involved.
III. Bargaining on parts of children.
IV. Depression.
V. Acceptance of divorce.
Some common adjustments:
 Adjustment to the knowledge that divorce will take place.
 Adjustment to the divorce itself.
 Adjustment to implications of family failure.
 Adjustment to changed feelings.
 Adjustment to living with one parent of the child against
the other parent.
 Adjustment to peer group attitudes.
 In some cases, adjustment to remarriages.

11. REFERENCES
 ecoursesonline.iasri.res.in
 www.wikipedia.org.in