The resort to divorce in England and Wales, 1858–1957

This paper consists of a statistical analysis of the increasing resort to divorce in England and Wales over the past hundred years. In view of the social, financial and procedural barriers surrounding the Divorce Court over most of the period it is impossible to regard the spread of divorce as an index of increasing marital breakdown. It indicates merely the greater ability and willingness of estranged couples to take advantage of the legal machinery for bringing their marriages to a formal end.

The analysis of published data shows that since 1857, the rate of petitioning per 10,000 married couples (of whom the wives were 15–49 years of age) has risen from 0.83 to 37.98. Various factors have been responsible for this fifty-foild increase: it seems that a five-fold rise was due specifically to the lowering of formal barriers (which made divorce more accessible to the poor and to women petitioners), while the remaining tenfold increase was brought about by the growing acceptance by society and by discordant couples, of divorce as an appropriate end to a broken marriage. This change in public opinion can be seen not only in the slow yet persistent rise in the rate of petitioning over all but the last few years, but also in the long-term effects of the two world wars.

Divorces since 1921 have been allocated to the various marriage cohorts involved so as to estimate the proportion of each cohort divorced by successive marriage anniversaries. This procedure has shown that the recent war had its greaters disruptive impact on the “hastliy contracted” marriages of the early war years; the impact on these cohorts was, however, only slightly in excess of that exerted on the immediately preceding cohorts married in the later 1930's. In fact the war took its toll of all cohorts back to 1921.

As complement to this study of trends the position near the beginning and near the end of the whole period was investigated by analysing a special extraction of statistics relating to all the 1871 petitions and to a sample of those of 1951. The study of couples involved in divorce in these two years, illustrates its extension in the intervening period to most sectors of the married population. From a tiny group of predominantly well-to-do and frequently childless couples in 1871, the divorce population by 1951 appeared to have become very nearly a cross-section of all married couples, at least in respect to occupational structure and family size. To some extent, the close similarity between the divorcing and the still married couples in 1951 was a temporary phenomenon, due to the entry into the divorce courts in that year of an unuually large number of poor petitioners using the new legal aid provisions introduced in 1950. Nevertheless, there is good reasong to believe that this factor has led to only slight over-emphasis of the long-term trend for the poor and those with families to take an increasing share in divorce petitioning.

So far as the mid-twentieth century position is concerned cohort analysis shows that, at least in the early years of matrimony, the couples married since 1945 have petitioned for divorce less than their immediate elders in the wartime or just pre-war cohorts. While the post-war marriages have not run their full course through the most divorce-prone years, this finding suggests that the rate of petitioning is not likely to go on increasing in the future nearly so rapidly or so persistently as it has done in the past. It seems possible that the rate may be stabilized in the next few years at approximately its present level, i.e. within the range of 5%–10% of each marriage cohort. If this should occur, it would probably mean that divorce in England and Wales had found its own level, and that virtually all those requiring to terminate marriage in the existing context of social circumstances were no longer prevented by extraneous barriers from using the appropriate legal procedures.     

‘Gone,leave, go,move, vanish’: race,public space and (in)visibilities

This chapter is a discussion of the various ways Canadian-born young men of colour (aged 17–26) experience (in)visibilities in the public spaces of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I begin this chapter by analyzing the different ways ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ have been conceptualized in the scholarly literature, including literatures on homelessness, public space, and race. Invisibilities include ‘invisible homelessness’ as well as material invisibilities in which young men of colour both purposefully and accidentally navigate public spaces in ways that affect whether they are seen or unseen and by whom. This research emphasizes the contingency and indeterminacy of varying (in)visibilities. Despite the various ways they move between visibility and invisibility in public spaces, young men of colour experiencing homelessness maintain an explicit presence in urban street spaces. Understanding their experiences of (in)visibility in urban space helps us understand the geographies of race and racism in the GTA and in North American cities more broadly.     

FROM THE WESTERN TO THE MURDER MYSTERY: THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION OF C. WRIGHT MILLS

More than half a century after its emergence as a formal field of study, medical sociology remains an important substantive area within our discipline, wide ranging in its appeal and the plethora of topics it engages. Tangible indicators, including the increase in the number of medical sociology journals and the number of medical sociology courses offered in colleges and universities across the country (Bloom 2000), point to the continued interest in this field. The vitality of medical sociology stems in part from the fact that today's health sector is an extraordinarily broad and vibrant arena of society (Weiss and Lonnquist 2000). Major topics of current interest have included the medicalization of society, sociocultural responses to health and illness, patterns of physician-patient interactions, health services utilization, alternative healers and alternative health practices, and comparative health care systems. The array of topics of analysis in our field continues to expand; recently emerging areas of interest include the social effects of health care technology, medical ethics, managed care, and health care reform. Indeed, it is an exciting time to be a medical sociologist. In the Call for Papers distributed for this special issue, we announced that we hoped to explore health- and illness-related topics that should continue to be influential into the new millennium. Further, we specifically encouraged submission of various formats and lengths not typically included in Sociological Spectrum or similar publications. Thus, this collection is unique in its conceptual essays, and methodological and theoretical notes. As suggested by the special issue's title, we hold a broadened view of medical sociology, a view also encouraged by scholars such as Conrad (2001), Weiss and Lonnquist (2000), and Charmaz and Paterniti (1999), that encompasses a sociology of health, healing and illness, as well as of medicine. Although not all inclusive, the organizational schema of the special issue reflects the broad range of topics that scholars who responded to our Call for Papers, our special issues reviewers, and we, as co-editors, considered particularly relevant to medical sociologists at this point in time.     

Residential Adjustment of Elders: Learning from Experiences With Parents and Peers

The ways elders learn from the experiences of their parents and peers in coping with declining health can affect residential adjustments they make themselves to minimize their exposure to long-term-care risks. Experiences of parents and peers can affect predisposition toward residential options, and parental and peer experiences sometimes can have major influences in elder residential choices. Drawing on qualitative interviews with community-residing elders, we illustrate how elders critically assess how their own parents and peers responded to declining health. We then show how these assessments influence the residential thinking and adjustments of these elders in anticipation of their own declining self-care capacity.     

Strengthening Australian Families: Socioeconomic Status,Social Connectedness,and Family Functioning

Abstract

Social connectedness has been promoted as one factor that may facilitate optimal functioning for families experiencing economic adversity. Using data from 218 Australian families, the current study explored the relative importance of social connectedness to the functioning of economically diverse families. Overall, results indicated similar levels of social connectedness and family functioning across low- and high-income groups. However, important differences were identified with regards to the relative contribution of social connectedness to the functioning of families across the economic spectrum. Clinical implications arising from these findings include the potential benefit of exploring social connectedness as a routine part of clinical assessment and ongoing intervention for families experiencing economic vulnerability.     

Screening Elders in the Emergency Department at Risk for Mistreatment: A Pilot Study

Impaired functional status is associated with risk of elder mistreatment. Screening for functional impairment in elderly patients admitted to emergency departments could be performed to identify patients at risk for elder mistreatment who might benefit from further evaluation. This study utilized a modified Identification of Seniors at Risk (ISAR) screening tool to identify the proportion of elderly at risk for mistreatment due to functional difficulties presenting to two emergency departments in southeastern Virginia, one urban, the other rural. Of a 180-patient cohort (90 per site), 82 screened positive (46%), ISAR > 2 (range 0–6), indicating nearly half of all patients enrolled are at risk for mistreatment. Patients presenting to the urban emergency departments were potentially more at risk than their rural counterparts (p < 0.01). Health care professionals, particularly in urban settings, should consider screening seniors with a simple tool to identify patients at risk of elder mistreatment.     

Brief Report: The Unrealized Potential of Autonomous Vehicles for an Aging Population

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to improve the health and well-being of older people. This exploratory study involved in-depth interviews with 43 key stakeholders across a broad range of sectors to identify the primary policy implications of AVs for aging populations. Four main issues were evident: a general lack of salience of the needs of older people in the AV discourse, the perceived dominance of the commercial drivers of AV technology, the implications of the particular characteristics of the senior segment, and a lack of available analyses to guide decision making. Threats and opportunities represented by these issues are discussed.