Watching older sitcoms, television shows and movies, it is easy to see how much society has changed over the years. The “Leave It to Beaver” days are pretty much gone. Those days were the ones in which men worked, women kept the house and children were free to roam the neighborhood.
In today’s society, both spouses are likely to work, keep the home and care for the children. Even with that shift, it was still noted that women continue to hold sole responsibility for twice as many of the domestic duties than men. That shift in marriage roles seems to have brought some other consequences along with it. In today’s society, more women are initiating divorce than men.
The focus of the marriage has gone from one in which the man brings home the bacon and is free to do what he wants while the woman was dependent on him and had almost no social autonomy. Now, more Americans are looking for love, fun, companionship, reliability and reasonableness when they are trying to find a spouse.
With those changes, and possibly along with the decreasing social stigma of divorce, women are ending marriages at a higher rate than men. In fact, a study of 2,262 opposite-sex partnerships over a five-year period showed that women are the ones who initiate the divorce proceedings in 69 percent of cases.
The bottom line is that women aren’t fully dependent on a husband these days. That means that women aren’t having to stick things out with the marriage if they are unhappy. An unhappy woman, or an unhappy man, might choose to file for a divorce. If you find yourself in that position, you should make sure that you take appropriate steps to protect your rights during the divorce proceedings.
Source: The Washington Post, “Women are more likely to initiate divorce,” Yanan Wang, Aug. 27, 2015
