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The Divorce Culture
the author's Atlantic Monthly article "Dan Quayle Was Right" ignited a media debate on the effects of divorce that rages still. In this book she expands her argument, making it clear Americans need to strengthen their resolve with regard to divorce prevention, new ways of thinking about marriage, and a new consciousness about the meaning of committment. 240 pp. Author tour. Radio satellite tour. 60,000 print.
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224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 14, 1997
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About the author
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead
13 booksCo-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. She lectures and writes about family and child well-being. On April 28, 2004, she gave testimony before the US Senate sub-committee on children and families.
She grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, studied at Columbia University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Social History from the University of Chicago. She holds an honorary doctorate in letters from Lawrence University.
She her husband, Ralph Whitehead Jr., have three children and live in Amherst, Massachusetts.
She grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, studied at Columbia University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Social History from the University of Chicago. She holds an honorary doctorate in letters from Lawrence University.
She her husband, Ralph Whitehead Jr., have three children and live in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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February 8, 2009
"At such high and sustained levels," Barbara Dafoe Whitehead argues, "divorce is not simply a mechanism for dissolving marriages but a social and cultural force that opportunistically reproduces itself everywhere." In this book she reviews the history of divorce in America, examines the recent and contemporary claims made about the benefits of divorce, and even explores childrens' literature on the subject. On the whole, she argues that while divorce must be available to adults as a matter of liberty, living in a divorce culture is not good for anyone, most especially for children. I agreed with her at the outset, but even had I not, her arguments would be hard for me to successfully debunk.
I grew up in the height of the late 20th century divorce frenzy. My parents stayed married throughout my childhood and it was only after I was grown up and moved out that I became aware of any major stresses or strains to their relationship. Most of my friends, on the other hand, experienced the loss and grief of a fractured home, the tumult of parents dating and remarrying and introducing step-siblings, and all the other heartbreak that was so much in vogue among the adults at this time. As a parent myself, now, I watch with concern as I see my peers replicating this selfish, mixed-up romantic behavior and subjecting their own children to such.
My biggest complaint about this book is that no one will listen to it. It has been out for some time and while I'm sure a few conservative voices trumpeted it, it should have had far wider an audience. Whitehead is critical of conservatives as much as of liberals; her beef truly is with all society and how we choose to frame our families and personal relationships today. It's too hard to hear, I suspect, for those who are themselves in the midst of talking themselves into believing that "families come in different shapes and sizes but it's all equal." You tell yourself what you have to believe, I suppose, when you know you're doing something that is inherently less than ideal.
I especially appreciated the way she debunked the notion of divorce as feminist self-improvement project. That's an idea I have personally encountered too many times to count, and it has always rung false to me. Whitehead pulls some truly embarrassing quotes from self-help manuals to make her point and I have to say that placing those quotes next to the statistics makes for a truly devestating critique. The look at childrens' literature on divorce was also very interesting to me, especially as many of those books came out and became popular when I was a child.
I grew up in the height of the late 20th century divorce frenzy. My parents stayed married throughout my childhood and it was only after I was grown up and moved out that I became aware of any major stresses or strains to their relationship. Most of my friends, on the other hand, experienced the loss and grief of a fractured home, the tumult of parents dating and remarrying and introducing step-siblings, and all the other heartbreak that was so much in vogue among the adults at this time. As a parent myself, now, I watch with concern as I see my peers replicating this selfish, mixed-up romantic behavior and subjecting their own children to such.
My biggest complaint about this book is that no one will listen to it. It has been out for some time and while I'm sure a few conservative voices trumpeted it, it should have had far wider an audience. Whitehead is critical of conservatives as much as of liberals; her beef truly is with all society and how we choose to frame our families and personal relationships today. It's too hard to hear, I suspect, for those who are themselves in the midst of talking themselves into believing that "families come in different shapes and sizes but it's all equal." You tell yourself what you have to believe, I suppose, when you know you're doing something that is inherently less than ideal.
I especially appreciated the way she debunked the notion of divorce as feminist self-improvement project. That's an idea I have personally encountered too many times to count, and it has always rung false to me. Whitehead pulls some truly embarrassing quotes from self-help manuals to make her point and I have to say that placing those quotes next to the statistics makes for a truly devestating critique. The look at childrens' literature on divorce was also very interesting to me, especially as many of those books came out and became popular when I was a child.
August 13, 2025
AN ARGUMENT AGAINST THE ‘POST NUCLEAR FAMILY IDEOLOGY’ OF DIVORCE
Journalist and author Barbara Whitehead wrote in the Introduction to this 1996 book, “Divorce is now part of everyday American life… Divorce has become an American way of life only as the result of recent and revolutionary change… For most of the nation’s history, divorce was a rare occurrence and an insignificant feature of family and social relationships… In 1960, the divorce rate stood at a still relatively modest level of nine per one thousand married couples. After 1960, however, the rate accelerated at a dazzling pace. It.. continued its upward climb until the early 1980s, when it stabilized at the highest level among advanced Western societies… divorce moved from the margins to the mainstream of American life in the space of three decades.” (Pg. 3)
She continues, “This book is about the ideas behind the divorce revolution and how these ideas have shaped a culture of divorce. The making of a divorce culture has involved three overlapping changes: first, the emergence and widespread diffusion of a historically new and distinctive set of ideas about divorce… second, the migration of divorce from a minor place within a system governed by marriage to a freestanding place as a major institution governing family relationships; and third, a widespread shift in thinking about the obligations of marriage and parenthood. Beginning in the late 1950s, Americans began to change their ideas about the individual’s obligation to family and society… At least as important as the moral obligation to look after others, the new thinking suggested, was the moral obligation to look after oneself.” (Pg. 4)
She goes on, “This ethical shift had a profound impact… People began to judge the strength and ‘health’ of family bonds according to their capacity to promote individual fulfillment and personal growth. As a result, the… family began to lose its separate place … as the realm of duty, service, and sacrifice… the family was increasingly viewed as just another domain for the expression of the unfettered self… In the new conception of divorce… The dissolution of marriage offered the chance to make oneself over from the inside out… and to acquire certain valuable psychological assets and competencies, such as initiative, assertiveness, and a stronger and better self-image.” (Pg. 4-5)
She clarifies, “this book is not intended as a brief against divorce as such. We must assume that divorce is necessary as a remedy for irretrievably broken marriages, especially those that are marred by severe abuse such as chronic infidelity, drug addiction, or physical violence… Nor should this book be taken as an appeal for a return to an earlier era of American family life… the [question] is what kinds of contemporary family arrangements have the greatest capacity to promote children’s well-being and how we can ensure that more children have the advantages of growing up in such families.” (Pg. 9)
She explains, “[T]his book … challenges the popular idea of divorce as an individual right and freedom to be exercised in the pursuit of individual goods and satisfactions, without due regard for other stakeholders in the marital partnership, especially children… it seeks the abandonment of ideas that have misled us and failed our children…” (Pg. 11-12)
She observes, “by the 1980s the psychological revolution had gained cultural momentum even as the economic high that had given it life began to fade. Under these changed conditions, marriage became more fragile as the main institution of family life. From the mid-1960s on the affectional requirements for marriage ratcheted upward, the demands for emotional satisfactions in family life escalated, the pursuit of love connections took on a manic intensity. Marital happiness, like the definition of a good provider, turned out to be a highly elastic notion.’ (Pg. 53)
She reports, “The notion that divorce and single-motherhood provided the opportunity for mothers to gain new competencies that had value in the larger world of work overturned the earlier conception of divorce as a source of hardship and disadvantage to divorced mothers and their children. If divorce contributed to women’s achievement of autonomy, control and freedom, then it assumed far greater cultural significance … than if it were simply a legal remedy for irretrievably broken marriages.” (Pg 64-65)
She points out, “Particularly for children in stepfamilies, the evidence strongly disputes the ‘happily ever after’ scenario. A 1990 survey … suggested that parental divorce, with its chain of disruptive events, is a significant source of disadvantage for children… contributing to the sharp divergence in school, employment, and economic-achievement outcomes between children in intact families and those in families disrupted by divorce… even advantaged children of middle-class, college-educated parents are not exempt… The chances that a white girl from an advantaged background will become a teen mother are five times as high, and… will drop out of high school are three times as high.” (Pg. 102-103)
She asserts, “the post-nuclear family ideology---what I call the Love Family ideology---abandons the norm of permanence in marriage and other intimate partnerships in favor of a norm of unfettered choice. Individuals are free to pursue their love interests and choose their love partners outside the institutional confines of marriage….turnover in family membership is one of its distinguishing features… the Love Family ideology proposes a new definition of what constitutes a family. A family is defined not by blood, marriage, or adoption but by bonds of voluntary affection… Love alone dictates the arrangements and content of family life.” (Pg. 143-144)
She notes, “Perhaps the strongest evidence of the divided love interests of mother and child comes when the mother remarries. Indeed, remarriage … poses the greatest challenge to the idea that a happy mother makes for happy children. For remarried mothers, the new marriage brings great happiness … as well as respite from the burdens of single parenthood. But children, especially girls, rarely share these ecstatic feelings; while boys often respond positively to a new male presence in the household, girls… see the stepfather as a rival and intruder. Stepfathers also pose a sexual risk to children, especially stepdaughters.” (Pg. 163)
She points out, “The idea that a greater number of adults can provide more attention than two married parents is not borne out by the evidence. Dividing time among three or four parents … is not likely to be as advantageous to the child as time spent with two parents who live together in one household… Marriage brings together two families and … potentially two separate streams of support … But when a marriage breaks up… the child’s access to both sides of the family is often weakened.” (Pg. 173-174)
She argues, “Nor can it be said that widespread divorce has moved us closer to the social goal of greater gender equality. In … divorce, women not only bear double responsibility for breadwinning and childrearing but bear them alone.” (Pg. 183)
She summarizes, “For the past three decades American children have attended the school of divorce and learned its lessons. The main lesson is that families break up, relationships end, and love is not forever… divorce erodes not only the social basis of commitment but also extinguishes the very idea of lasting commitment.” (Pg. 188)
She concludes, “It has been the argument of this book that … notions of unfettered choice, limited warranties, and contingent obligations undermines the strength and durability of family bonds… If we are to strengthen marriage as the central institution for child rearing, it may be necessary to recover… another American tradition… that our aspirations toward individual perfectibility and happiness are linked to the pursuit of the well-being of others. It is this tradition that recognizes the entirety of a ‘for better, for worse’ commitment… Without such abiding commitments, we would not be able to endure the disasters, losses, and personal tragedies that befall us…” (Pg. 194-195)
This is a very thought-provoking analysis of divorce, that will be of great interest to those studying the topic.
Journalist and author Barbara Whitehead wrote in the Introduction to this 1996 book, “Divorce is now part of everyday American life… Divorce has become an American way of life only as the result of recent and revolutionary change… For most of the nation’s history, divorce was a rare occurrence and an insignificant feature of family and social relationships… In 1960, the divorce rate stood at a still relatively modest level of nine per one thousand married couples. After 1960, however, the rate accelerated at a dazzling pace. It.. continued its upward climb until the early 1980s, when it stabilized at the highest level among advanced Western societies… divorce moved from the margins to the mainstream of American life in the space of three decades.” (Pg. 3)
She continues, “This book is about the ideas behind the divorce revolution and how these ideas have shaped a culture of divorce. The making of a divorce culture has involved three overlapping changes: first, the emergence and widespread diffusion of a historically new and distinctive set of ideas about divorce… second, the migration of divorce from a minor place within a system governed by marriage to a freestanding place as a major institution governing family relationships; and third, a widespread shift in thinking about the obligations of marriage and parenthood. Beginning in the late 1950s, Americans began to change their ideas about the individual’s obligation to family and society… At least as important as the moral obligation to look after others, the new thinking suggested, was the moral obligation to look after oneself.” (Pg. 4)
She goes on, “This ethical shift had a profound impact… People began to judge the strength and ‘health’ of family bonds according to their capacity to promote individual fulfillment and personal growth. As a result, the… family began to lose its separate place … as the realm of duty, service, and sacrifice… the family was increasingly viewed as just another domain for the expression of the unfettered self… In the new conception of divorce… The dissolution of marriage offered the chance to make oneself over from the inside out… and to acquire certain valuable psychological assets and competencies, such as initiative, assertiveness, and a stronger and better self-image.” (Pg. 4-5)
She clarifies, “this book is not intended as a brief against divorce as such. We must assume that divorce is necessary as a remedy for irretrievably broken marriages, especially those that are marred by severe abuse such as chronic infidelity, drug addiction, or physical violence… Nor should this book be taken as an appeal for a return to an earlier era of American family life… the [question] is what kinds of contemporary family arrangements have the greatest capacity to promote children’s well-being and how we can ensure that more children have the advantages of growing up in such families.” (Pg. 9)
She explains, “[T]his book … challenges the popular idea of divorce as an individual right and freedom to be exercised in the pursuit of individual goods and satisfactions, without due regard for other stakeholders in the marital partnership, especially children… it seeks the abandonment of ideas that have misled us and failed our children…” (Pg. 11-12)
She observes, “by the 1980s the psychological revolution had gained cultural momentum even as the economic high that had given it life began to fade. Under these changed conditions, marriage became more fragile as the main institution of family life. From the mid-1960s on the affectional requirements for marriage ratcheted upward, the demands for emotional satisfactions in family life escalated, the pursuit of love connections took on a manic intensity. Marital happiness, like the definition of a good provider, turned out to be a highly elastic notion.’ (Pg. 53)
She reports, “The notion that divorce and single-motherhood provided the opportunity for mothers to gain new competencies that had value in the larger world of work overturned the earlier conception of divorce as a source of hardship and disadvantage to divorced mothers and their children. If divorce contributed to women’s achievement of autonomy, control and freedom, then it assumed far greater cultural significance … than if it were simply a legal remedy for irretrievably broken marriages.” (Pg 64-65)
She points out, “Particularly for children in stepfamilies, the evidence strongly disputes the ‘happily ever after’ scenario. A 1990 survey … suggested that parental divorce, with its chain of disruptive events, is a significant source of disadvantage for children… contributing to the sharp divergence in school, employment, and economic-achievement outcomes between children in intact families and those in families disrupted by divorce… even advantaged children of middle-class, college-educated parents are not exempt… The chances that a white girl from an advantaged background will become a teen mother are five times as high, and… will drop out of high school are three times as high.” (Pg. 102-103)
She asserts, “the post-nuclear family ideology---what I call the Love Family ideology---abandons the norm of permanence in marriage and other intimate partnerships in favor of a norm of unfettered choice. Individuals are free to pursue their love interests and choose their love partners outside the institutional confines of marriage….turnover in family membership is one of its distinguishing features… the Love Family ideology proposes a new definition of what constitutes a family. A family is defined not by blood, marriage, or adoption but by bonds of voluntary affection… Love alone dictates the arrangements and content of family life.” (Pg. 143-144)
She notes, “Perhaps the strongest evidence of the divided love interests of mother and child comes when the mother remarries. Indeed, remarriage … poses the greatest challenge to the idea that a happy mother makes for happy children. For remarried mothers, the new marriage brings great happiness … as well as respite from the burdens of single parenthood. But children, especially girls, rarely share these ecstatic feelings; while boys often respond positively to a new male presence in the household, girls… see the stepfather as a rival and intruder. Stepfathers also pose a sexual risk to children, especially stepdaughters.” (Pg. 163)
She points out, “The idea that a greater number of adults can provide more attention than two married parents is not borne out by the evidence. Dividing time among three or four parents … is not likely to be as advantageous to the child as time spent with two parents who live together in one household… Marriage brings together two families and … potentially two separate streams of support … But when a marriage breaks up… the child’s access to both sides of the family is often weakened.” (Pg. 173-174)
She argues, “Nor can it be said that widespread divorce has moved us closer to the social goal of greater gender equality. In … divorce, women not only bear double responsibility for breadwinning and childrearing but bear them alone.” (Pg. 183)
She summarizes, “For the past three decades American children have attended the school of divorce and learned its lessons. The main lesson is that families break up, relationships end, and love is not forever… divorce erodes not only the social basis of commitment but also extinguishes the very idea of lasting commitment.” (Pg. 188)
She concludes, “It has been the argument of this book that … notions of unfettered choice, limited warranties, and contingent obligations undermines the strength and durability of family bonds… If we are to strengthen marriage as the central institution for child rearing, it may be necessary to recover… another American tradition… that our aspirations toward individual perfectibility and happiness are linked to the pursuit of the well-being of others. It is this tradition that recognizes the entirety of a ‘for better, for worse’ commitment… Without such abiding commitments, we would not be able to endure the disasters, losses, and personal tragedies that befall us…” (Pg. 194-195)
This is a very thought-provoking analysis of divorce, that will be of great interest to those studying the topic.
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November 21, 2009None
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