Interesting article in Time which describes the results of a study which states that women are far more likely to initiate a divorce in comparison to men (69% vs 31%). However in non married couples the initiation of the end of the relationship was split evenly between the genders.
I think most guys and maybe some gals would think that the answer to why this is the case would be fairly obvious. You would assume that women generally do better financially out of divorce than men given that traditional roles are still fairly prevalent in a lot of western societies with men being the primary breadwinner and the women splitting their time between work and kids or just full time mums/housewives. If a woman can keep the family home, keep the kids and get spousal and child maintenance then it must be a fairly attractive option if you are bored with the husband or he has turned into a bit of a dck.
But what I love about this article is the complete absence of this explanation for the skewed figures.. Instead we get the following explanation;
Women may be responding to the still arcane conventions of spousal roles, which contrast with growing equality in other institutions, such as the workplace. “I think that marriage as an institution has been a little bit slow to catch up with expectations for gender equality. Wives still take their husbands’ surnames, and are sometimes pressured to do so. Husbands still expect their wives to do the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the childcare,” he said in the statement. “On the other hand, I think that non-marital relationships lack the historical baggage and expectations of marriage, which makes the non-marital relationships more flexible and therefore more adaptable to modern expectations … of gender equality.”
Now I must point out that this study was led by a man (Michael Rosenfeld - Stanford) and the comments above are his. So what say you? Man afraid to state the obvious in fear of a backlash
or the above explanation makes total sense?
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