The Effect of Money on Frequency of Divorce Essay -- Marriage Divorce

Missing Figures INTRODUCTION Despite the fact that divorce is discussed in almost any sociology or anthropology book, no unified explanations for family instability are available. Levinson and Malone (1980: 69) state that "anthropologists have offered little in the way of trustworthy, universal explanations for divorce." The differences in cultures, traditions, and practices among societies make it almost impossible to offer general explanations for family instability. The widely held belief is that when a significant amount of money or property is exchanged, the marriage is more stable. This belief is supported by Minturn et al. (1969: 308) findings that absence of bride price, dowry, and gift exchange at marriage make divorce easier. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the presence or absence of a marriage transaction and how marriage payments such as bride wealth and dowry affect the frequency of divorce. Definition of Marriage I began my study by looking for a definition of marriage. For I believe how people in these societies view marriage may give me an explanation on why divorce is practiced. Stephens (1963: 5) defined marriage as follows ". . .is a socially legitimate union, begun with a public announcement and undertaken with some idea of permanence; it is assumed with a more or less explicit marriage contract, which spells out reciprocal rights and obligations between spouses, and between the spouses and their future children." Similar to Stephensï ¿ ½ definition, many experts defined marriage as some sort of a permanent relationship between two people. Then, why do societies permit divorce? It can be argued that divorce serves as a way for individuals to get out of abusive and/or unhappy marriag... ...r cope with the in-laws and giving the couple more time to spend together to allow more communication. As a result, a dowry or an indirect dowry is quite effective in reducing the frequency of divorce. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cooper, Barbara M. Womenï ¿ ½s Worth and Wedding Gift Exchange in Maradi, Niger, 1907-89. Journal of African History V36, N1 (Jan, 1995): 121-141. Levinson, David and Martin J. Malone. 1980. Toward Explaining Human Culture: A Critical Review of the Findings of Worldwide Cross-cultural Research. Minturn, Leigh, Martin Grosse and Santoah Haider. 1969. Cultural Patterning of Sexual Beliefs and Behavior. Ethnology 8:301-318. Stephens, William N. 1963. The Family in Cross-cultural Perspective. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Tambiah, Stanley J. Bride Wealth and Dowry Revisited. Current Anthropology V30, N4 (Aug-Oct, 1989) 413-435.