A. Social Facts about Marriage, Divorce and Family Life

You must know the following definitions.

Marriage

- where a man and a woman are united legally for the purpose of living together and, usually, having lawful children

Divorce

- legally dissolving a marriage in the civil courts. The divorced partners are then free to marry again.

Cohabitation

- where a man and a woman live together (as if they were husband and wife) but they are not legally married. (NB The verb is "cohabit" NOT "cohabitate")

Promiscuity

- the attitude of a promiscuous person who has sexual intercourse with several partners without any thought of commitment or a lasting relationship. People sometimes refer to such actions as casual sex. The old, Biblical term for it was fornication.

Adultery

- happens when a married person has sexual intercourse with someone other than his or her marriage partner.

Monogamy

- is the practice of being married to one partner only.

Serial Monogamy

- is the practice of marrying only one partner at a time, but serially marrying more than one (i.e. divorcing and re-marrying)

Polygamy

- is the practice of marrying more than one partner at a time.

Nuclear Family

- this is the basic unit (nucleus) of family of mother and father with their children living together.

Extended Family

- the phenomenon of the wider family (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and so on) living together as a unit or living in close proximity to each other and having a lot of contact with each other.

One Parent Family

- when only one of the parents is bringing up the children. This may be for a variety of reasons - separation, divorce, death of a partner, or unmarried parent.

Reconstituted Family

- is where two sets of children (step-brothers and sisters) become one family when their divorced parents marry.

Evidence from Statistics

1. 50% of marriages in Great Britain take place in Church. The other 50% are civil marriages and take place in a registry office or, nowadays, in any other location that has been registered.
2. Marriage seems to be decreasing and the rate of cohabitation increasing over the last 25 years.
3. The divorce rate has been increasing over the last 30 years
4. Couples cohabiting are 3 times as likely to break up as those who are married (report in national press in 1999)
5. The numbers of children affected by divorce is also increasing.

You do need to look at statistical information in your notes or revision booklets.
Divorces are increasing for various reasons including:

• Grounds for divorce are now wider
• It is more socially acceptable
• It is becoming cheaper (e.g. so-called Do-it-Yourself divorce)
• Divorces happen much more quickly now
• It is the result of greater economic pressures and the stress of modern life - both partners working and so on.
• People are living longer - more leisure time - more time and opportunity to grow apart

Make a list of the non-religious attitudes, for and against, cohabitation.