Marital collapse : some causes and analysis

Abstract

The subject of marital failure is neither new nor synonymous with our day and age. Scientific studies of this phenomenon began towards the turn of the century and has been gathering momentum ever since. The first attempts were sociological in nature but where later augmented by further research from psychological standpoint. Rewarding and interesting as it may seem, research into marriage is· rather difficult, not only by virtue of the complexity and magnitude of the subject itself, but because marriage, by its very nature, stands at the centre of powerful social, religious, and legal currents all of which have a direct bearing on this - the most intimate of all personal relationships known to Western civilization. Christianity introduced a new concept into matrimony - 'lifelong indissolubility', and the Christian marriage was widely practiced in Europe and other countries which professed the Christian faith. Over the last few hundred years however and in particular during the last century, there has been a gradual decline of religious influences which were overtaken by the emergence of civil legislation based entirely on lay philosophies. The change was both radical and dramatic and it gave way to the introduction of solutions, which one might freely term as pre-Christian, of which divorce is but one. Like almost everything else on Earth, marriage (and for that matter, the family) has been in a state of evolution and thus has undergone per necessity - a lot of changes over the centuries. From the earliest of time until the Industrial Revolution, marriage and the family formed a cohesive unit which centred on the home the sight of both production and consumption. This state of fact was a by product of a predominantly agricultural economy. A large part of the manufacturing of goods was organised in the home, were wives and siblings contributed immensely both their traditional skills and also their physical energies. The Industrial Revolution gave birth to the concept of the 'Factory' as centres of production bringing about a permanent separation of 'Home' and 'Work Place' which at that time affected mainly the head of the family - the Father. [...]