Correlates of Divorce Liberality

Current theorizing about causes of the increasing rate of marital instability in the United States has pointed to increasingly liberal attitudes toward divorce as a key explanatory variable. This investigation attempted to identify significant correlates of divorce liberality by testing a series of hypotheses derived from cognitive dissonance, social learning, and social exchange theories. Based on interviews of a sample of 240 spouses (120 couples), it was found that husbands and wives differ in terms of the variables influencing the degree of divorce liberality. In line with social exchange theory, presence and number of children were the strongest predictors of divorce liberality for wives, but less so for husbands. Childless spouses were significantly more liberal toward divorce than were spouses with children, with childless wives being the most liberal of all. Husbands were more influenced by the perceived quality of the marital relationship, in support of cognitive dissonance theory. However, only 12 percent of the total variance in the divorce liberality measure was explained in a multiple regression analysis, leading to suggestions for more methodologically refined research designs and encompassing theoretical models in future investigations of divorce liberality.