Tuna again In Fault-Finding England, It's a Cause for Divorce Essay

Tuna again In Fault-Finding England, It's a Cause for Divorce - Essay Example Because of this, complaints include the mundane, absurd and occasionally the bizarre. However, I argue that Lyall takes a serious subject much too lightly and that her implied ‘solution’, does nothing to fix the problem, instead it is an attempt to hold the rest of the world to a particular standard, which does not appear to be working very well anyway. Lyall is adamant about criticizing the United Kingdom system of divorce, implying that the most effective solution for the problem of divorces in the United Kingdom would be to move to the American model, and allow for no-fault divorce. However, how much of a problem is there in the United Kingdom? In the United Kingdom, the divorce rate for 2010 is 11.1 divorces per 1,000 individuals in the married population. If one takes into account the fact that a married couple consists of two individuals, this is a rate of a little over 20% of marriages fail (Rogers 2011). Furthermore, it is estimated that around 70% of these divor ces occur for first marriages (Divorce Rate 2009), suggesting that either people learn from their mistakes, or that few remarry. These statistics are different in the United States, where the divorce rate is approximately 50% (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2012), that is, half of all marriages end in divorce. The relationship of divorce to number of marriage is also different, with second marriages having a higher rate of divorce than first, and third marriages having an even higher rate (Divorce Rate 1999). These figures suggest that marriages fare significantly better in the United Kingdom than in the United States. This might be a result of the United Kingdom system of divorce being more difficult, but the article by Lyall implies this is not the case. She suggests that results are not more complicated in the United Kingdom, just that they focus on more trivial matters. Therefore, if this trend is not caused by a difficultly in divorcing, the next logical answer is t hat marriages in the United Kingdom fare better than their United States counterparts. This raises some important questions. For example, does the United Kingdom system of divorce help to keep couples together? This argument is not as unreasonable as it sounds as thinking and writing out reasons for the divorce may help couples to confront their problems, and to realize how trivial many of these actually are. This allows room for much more reflection than the American process, where couples may not even be certain between themselves why they are divorcing. Lyall argues that creating a no-fault divorce would remove the requirement for judges and lawyers to determine fault in the divorce. As she explains, currently under the United Kingdom law a divorce must fall into one of five categories before it can be granted. The most common category is unreasonable behavior, which as Lyall shows, can cover a wide range of different types of behavior. However, Lyall appears to believe that movi ng to a no-fault divorce system would not increase the rates of divorce. This argument is heavily flawed, as by its very nature, making divorce easier would increase how often it occurs. For example, in the United Kingdom the practice of extended separation is common, and this is often used to provide evidence for a future divorce claim (National Family Mediation 2010). This practice can help couples to understand what they lose

Assignment Essay and Discussion Forum in Sociology Week 5

Assignment and Discussion Forum in Sociology Week 5 - Essay Example ed status and achieved status and very often the ascribed status of an individual is â€Å"conferred at birth or received involuntarily later in life, based on attributes over which the individuals have little or no control, such as race, ethnicity, age and gender† (Kendall, p. 105). However, it is possible for an individual to acquire achieved statuses in one’s life with hard work, personal competence, personal choice and successful competition. There is a close link between ascribed statuses and achieved ones; therefore, it should also be kept in mind that factors such as race, ethnicity and gender are most likely to diminish one’s opportunity to reach higher realms of achieved statuses. It can therefore be concluded that people who are privileged by their positive ascribed status are more likely to develop positive achieved status whereas those who are disadvantaged by ascribed status tend to acquire negative achieved status (Kendall, p. 105). For a person who occupies different statuses, it is his master status that dominates over all others and determines his social position. According to Hughes (1945), a person’s master status â€Å"is the most important status a person occupies; it dominates all of the individual’s other statuses and is the overriding ingredient in determining a person’s general social position† (Kendall, p. 105). Factors such as a person’s race, ethnicity and religious identity can very often constitute the master statuses for individuals. In any society or community where racial discrimination, ethnic bias and religious prejudices prevails, the dominant group members tend to â€Å"single out members of other groups as â€Å"inferior† on the basis of real or alleged physical, cultural or nationality characteristics† (Kendall, p. 106). The social identities of ethnic minorities are most likely to be perceived based on their ethnicity or race. Factors su ch as a person’s race, ethnicity and religious identity constitute as the