DIVORCE, THE LAW AND SOCIAL-CONTEXT - FAMILIES OF NATIONS AND THE LEGAL DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE

This paper seeks to establish the extent to which the incidence of divorce and the character of the law regulating the legal dissolution of marriage can be accounted for by historical continuities and cultural traditions in distinctive 'families of nations'. The research brings together the diverse traditions of comparative law and comparative sociology, and uses both to come to grips with the questions of why divorce rates vary from country to country and why there has been such a massive increase in the divorce rate in the postwar era. A multivariate model of cross-national divorce outcomes suggests the strong influence of historical continuities within distinctive 'families of nations' on divorce outcomes in the 1960s and a much enhanced influence of social context variables on the character of the law in the following two decades.