Divorce normally eliminates some of the friction so damaging to the home climate. But unless the family lives in a community where divorce is common, such a rupture in the family pattern is likely to stigmatize all family members in the eyes of the social group.
In most cases of divorce, the care of the children is awarded to the mother, and the damaging effects of living in solo home are compounded by the social stigma of being different and disgraced. Furthermore are usually given visiting privileges by the court when the divorce is granted, children experienced divided loyalties to their parents and develop the feeling of insecurity. They have three or four parents to adjust to, and they feel quite different from peers who have only two parents.
Divorce often means downwards social mobility for all family members because the income of the family must be divided to support two households. To avoid this or to minimize this impact, many divorced women work outside the home, turn the care of younger children over to a relative or servant, and expect the older children to assume heavier home responsibilities than their peers are expected to assume.
Variations ion the way family member adjust to divorce are greatly influenced by how much divorce upsets the accustomed patterns of family life, how the children adjust to a stepparents if their natural parents remarry, how old children are when the divorce occurs, how common divorce and stepparents are among families they are associated with, and many other conditions.
That divorce is damaging to the personalities of many children is evidences by a higher incidence of problem behavior and juvenile delinquency among children of divorce parents. It is also evidenced by their poorer personal and social adjustments, during both childhood and adulthood, in their schoolwork, their vocations, and their marriages.
Among parents, there are also marked differences in the personality effects of divorce. Some find divorce to be a happy solution to an unpleasant experience, and their personality improved after the friction that led up to the divorce ends. If they remarry and find happiness in their remarriages, this also favors personality improvement. When, on the other hand, divorce lead to a radically changed pattern of life, to loneliness, and to social stigma in a group where divorce is frowned upon, the effect on personality will be damaging.
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