Marital instability is a state of imbalance in the relations of spouses, judged by the norms of their society. Every society treats marriage as a lasting tie, yet every society also provides a way to end a marriage that has failed: annulment, informal separation, or divorce with or without remarriage. The grounds, the procedure and the frequency of divorce vary widely. The commonest restraints on divorce are children, the return of bride price, social penalties and alimony.
This note covers the causes of marital instability, the grounds, procedures and frequency of divorce, and the impediments to it, with cross-cultural examples, for the UPSC Anthropology Optional. It falls under Paper I, topic 2.3 (marriage) of the Anthropology Optional syllabus.
Marriage as a permanent tie, and its failure
- The ideal. Marriage is everywhere conceived as permanent. No society encourages the dissolution of marriage in principle, since that would deny the permanence of the tie.
- The practice. All societies recognise that under certain conditions, differently defined, it is better to end a marriage than to let it continue as a failure.
- The result. Divorce is a concession to necessity, not a value in itself.
Reasons for marital instability
The reasons vary from one society to another, and from one period to another in the same society. Ethnographers report the following.
| Reason | Reported among |
|---|---|
| Adultery or infidelity | Muria Gond and Savara in India; Comanche of North America; Tiv of Nigeria; Kurtachi of the Solomon Islands; Wogeo of New Guinea |
| Impotence | Baiga, Gond, Santhal, Oraon and Bhil in India; Ojibwa; Ifugao of the Philippines; Siwai of the Solomon Islands |
| Childlessness or sterility | Kamar, Muria and Gond in India; Siriono of Bolivia; Ganda of Uganda; Chiricahua Apache |
| Cruelty or ill-treatment | Savara and Koya in India; Apache and Comanche; Tallensi of Ghana; Mundugumor of New Guinea |
| Quarrelsomeness | Muria in India; Subanun of the Philippines |
| Laziness, stinginess or bad temper | Hopi of North America |
| Incompatibility or dislike | Muria Gond, Bondo and Baiga in India; Hopi; Kipsigis of Kenya; Trobriand Islanders; Iban of Borneo; Ifaluk of Micronesia; Murngin of Australia |
The same reasons recur in peasant and industrial societies. Two of them, childlessness and adultery, bear directly on the functions of marriage: legitimate children and regulated sexual relations.
Three ways of ending an unsatisfactory marriage
G. P. Murdock (1950) and W. N. Stephens (1963) observed that no society has found a formula for perfect marital harmony, and that societies have devised three solutions.
| Solution | Nature | Where found |
|---|---|---|
| Annulment and informal separation | The marriage is declared never to have been valid, or the couple simply live apart | Societies that treat marriage as a sacrament and do not permit divorce. In certain historical periods this was the position in Christian Europe, among Hindus and in China. |
| Divorce and separate living | The marriage is ended; the parties do not remarry | Where remarriage, especially of women, is restricted |
| Divorce and remarriage | The marriage is ended and both are free to marry again | The great majority of societies |
Grounds for divorce
- Where divorce is informal, as among the Ojibwa, Samoans, Kaska, Hopi and Ifaluk, the grounds for divorce are simply the reasons for the couple's unhappiness.
- Where divorce is a legal proceeding, as among the Kurtachi of the Solomon Islands and on Pukapuka, the stated grounds may be justifications more than real reasons. Among the Kurtachi adultery is a ground for divorce, yet it is common and usually overlooked; it is cited when a person wants a divorce for some other reason (Beatrice Blackwood, 1935).
Verrier Elwin recorded the reasons Muria men themselves gave: that a first wife would not accept a second, that the wife quarrelled over work, that she would not stay when the husband was ill. Among the Iban of Borneo, bad dreams and omens were accepted as grounds.
Who can seek a divorce?
Murdock (1950) compared 40 societies.
| Pattern | Number of societies | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Equally easy for men and women | 30 | Chiricahua Apache, Hopi |
| Easier for men | 6 | Kurds of Iraq, Silwa in Egypt, Baganda of Uganda, Siriono of Bolivia, Japan |
| Easier for women | 4 | Kwoma of New Guinea, Dahomeans of West Africa, Yurok of California, Witoto of the Amazon |
The right to initiate divorce reflects the relative status of men and women in the society.
Divorce procedures
| Type | Society | Procedure |
|---|---|---|
| Simple, in favour of men | Arunta of Australia | A man could send his wife away on a slight pretext. A wife had no right of divorce and could only run away. |
| Baganda of Uganda | A man could divorce his wife at will, sending her back and reclaiming the bride price, especially if she was childless. A wife could not divorce; she could take refuge with her clansmen, who tried to mend matters. If she persisted for good reason, her kin sheltered her and returned all or part of the bride price. | |
| Simple, equal for both | Apache, Hopi, Iroquois; also Ojibwa, Samoans, Kaska, Ifaluk | The couple simply separate, each keeping his or her own property. In these matrilocal societies the man leaves his wife's household. There is no ceremony, and remarriage is easy. |
| Legalistic | Subanun, Pukapuka, Kurtachi | The dispute is heard by legal authorities, who decide which party is mainly at fault and settle the bride price, property and children in favour of the other. |
Frequency of divorce
| Pattern | Examples and findings |
|---|---|
| Very frequent | Alorese of Indonesia (Cora Du Bois); Reindeer Chukchee of Siberia (Bogoras); Hopi; also reported for the Aymara, Kaska, Kurtachi, Lesu, Ojibwa, Papago, Somali, Toda and Trobriand Islanders (Stephens, 1963) |
| Rare | Kipsigis of Kenya; Lepcha of Sikkim; Siriono of Bolivia. Among the Muria Gond fewer than 3 per cent were divorced (Elwin, 1947). In the Chinese village of Taitou only one divorce was recorded in thirty years (Martin Yang, 1945). |
| Frequent early, rare later | Among the Siwai, about 40 per cent of marriages ended before a child was born, and very few after the second child (Douglas Oliver, 1955). Among the Navajo, half of the broken marriages studied ended in the first year (Kluckhohn and Leighton). In Silwa, Egypt, half of all divorces occurred in the first two years and nine-tenths within ten (Hamed Ammar, 1954). Among the Plateau Tonga most divorces fell in the early trial period (Elizabeth Colson, 1958). |
| Rare after children are born | Iban, Murngin, Subanun and Wogeo (Stephens); Kaingang of Brazil (Jules Henry); Copper Inuit, among whom early unions were brittle but divorce was rare once there were children (Diamond Jenness) |
The general finding is that divorce is concentrated in the first years of marriage, before children arrive.
Impediments to divorce
In some societies, such as the Hopi, Ifaluk, Ojibwa and Chukchee, there are virtually no obstacles to divorce. In others a person bent on divorce meets one or more of four impediments.
| Impediment | How it works | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Children | Love of one's children, and the question of who will keep them, hold couples together. Stephens considered this the most widespread deterrent, since most divorces occur before children are born. The threat of divorce is then used mainly as a check on ill-treatment. | Children are divided between the parents among the Lepcha, Papago, Samoans, Siwai, Somali and Subanun. The wife keeps them among the Kurtachi, Lesu, Navajo, Siriono and Trobrianders. |
| Marriage payments | Bride price must be returned on divorce, and the wife's kin are unwilling to give it up. This makes it hard for a woman to seek a divorce. | Alor and Kipsigis. Among the Subanun the bride price is returned only if the wife is judged to be at fault. |
| Penalties and social pressure | Fines on the party at fault; public punishment; limits on remarriage; pressure from the two kin groups, especially where the marriage is part of a continuing alliance. | Fines among the Iban, Ifugao, Subanun and Toda. Elwin held that the elaborate Muria wedding itself inhibited divorce. Benjamin Paul showed that in a Maya village of Guatemala the visits and gift exchanges of the wedding set up "moral machinery" to stabilise the union. Among the Navajo, divorce could disrupt an arrangement between two families. |
| Alimony | The husband must continue to support his former wife or her children. | Found where the nuclear family stands apart from larger kin groups, as among the Copper Inuit, the Iban and in the Caribbean. Where large kin groups are strong, relatives support a divorced woman and her children, and alimony is unnecessary. |
Stephens remarked that marriage in a society such as the United States is an unusual combination: easy to begin, because the choice of partner is free and the ceremonial slight, but hard to end, because divorce carries financial and legal penalties.
Explaining variation in divorce
- Bridewealth and descent. Max Gluckman compared the patrilineal Zulu, with high bridewealth and rare divorce, and the Lozi, with low payments and frequent divorce. He argued that marriage is stable where "father-right" is strong and the wife's fertility is transferred to her husband's lineage.
- Leach's qualification. Edmund Leach replied that what matters is whether a woman keeps her ties with her own kin. Where she is fully absorbed into her husband's group, divorce is rare.
- Matrilineal societies. Divorce tends to be more frequent where descent is through women, as among the Hopi and the Trobrianders. A woman's security and her children's membership lie with her own lineage, so less depends on the marriage.
- Women's economic position. Where a woman can support herself, or return to kin who will support her, divorce is easier to seek.
Divorce in India
- Hindu tradition. Marriage was a sacrament and in principle indissoluble among the higher castes. Many other castes and most tribes allowed divorce and remarriage by custom.
- Tribal custom. Divorce is generally permitted, is decided by the village or tribal council, and involves the return of bride price or compensation. Among the Santhal the ceremony of divorce is the tearing of a sal leaf (sakam orec) before the assembled villagers.
- Law. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 introduced divorce on stated grounds such as cruelty, desertion and adultery, and an amendment of 1976 added divorce by mutual consent. Customary divorce is recognised where it exists.
For present-day issues in tribal communities, see tribal India today.
Is high divorce a sign of social breakdown?
Murdock's comparison answered this. Of his 40 societies, in 16 marriage was more stable than in the United States of the time, and in 24, or 60 per cent, the divorce rate was higher. He drew two conclusions:
- Rates of divorce that alarmed his contemporaries were well within the limits that human societies have shown they can tolerate.
- In nearly all societies, effort goes into encouraging permanent unions, not dissolving them. Divorce is regarded as regrettable but often necessary, a practical concession to human frailty.
Even in divorce, then, societies uphold the ideal that marriage, once contracted, should last.
Using this topic in a UPSC answer
- Open with the paradox: marriage is everywhere meant to be permanent, yet every society allows it to be ended.
- List four or five causes of instability with one tribe each.
- Give Murdock's 40-society figures on who can seek divorce.
- Contrast informal divorce (Hopi) with legalistic divorce (Subanun).
- Set out the four impediments: children, bride price, penalties, alimony.
- Add Gluckman on bridewealth and stability, and an Indian example such as the Santhal sal-leaf rite.
- Conclude with Murdock: divorce is a concession, not a breakdown.
For presentation, see our guide to anthropology answer writing with diagrams, thinkers and case studies.
Frequently asked questions
What is marital instability?
Marital instability is a state of imbalance or breakdown in the relations between spouses, as judged by the cultural norms of their society. It may lead to separation, annulment or divorce.
Is divorce found in all societies?
Almost all societies provide some way of ending a failed marriage. Where formal divorce has been forbidden, people have used annulment or informal separation instead.
What are the common grounds for divorce across cultures?
The grounds most often reported are adultery, childlessness or impotence, cruelty, quarrelsomeness, laziness and simple incompatibility.
What are the main impediments to divorce?
The four main impediments are concern for children, the need to return bride price, fines and social pressure from kin and community, and the obligation of alimony.
When in a marriage is divorce most likely?
Cross-cultural evidence shows that divorce is most frequent in the first few years of marriage and becomes much less common after children are born.
Does bride price make marriage more stable?
Often it does, because the wife's kin must return it on divorce and are reluctant to do so. Gluckman linked high bridewealth and strong patrilineal descent with rare divorce.
What did Murdock conclude about divorce?
From a comparison of 40 societies, Murdock concluded that most allow divorce to men and women alike, that many have higher divorce rates than the modern West, and that all nevertheless try to encourage lasting unions.