The Death of “Till Death Us Do Part”: The Transformation of Pair-Bonding in the 20th Century*
William M. Pinsof Ph.D.
President of the Family Institute at Northwestern University and Director of Northwestern's Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, 618 Library Place, Evanston IL 60201; e-mail: [email protected] .
Search for more papers by this authorWilliam M. Pinsof Ph.D.
President of the Family Institute at Northwestern University and Director of Northwestern's Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, 618 Library Place, Evanston IL 60201; e-mail: [email protected] .
Search for more papers by this authorI thank the following friends, colleagues, and relatives for their editorial feedback on this article: Carol Anderson, Douglas Breunlin, Lindsay Chase-Landsdale, James Feldman, John Gottman, Jay Lebow, Penny and Michael Mesic, Arthur C. Nielsen III, Suzan Pinsof, Laura Pinsof, Cheryl Rampage, and Rick Zinbarg. I particularly thank Catherine Barcy for her enthusiasm and energy in helping me find the facts, and Jean Goldsmith for helping me develop many of the ideas in this article.
Abstract
During the last half of the 20th century within Western civilization, for the first time in human history, divorce replaced death as the most common endpoint of marriage. In this article I explore the history of this death-to-divorce transition, the forces associated with the transition, and what the transition may have revealed about the human capacity for monogamous, lifelong pair-bonding. The impact and consequences of the transition for the generations that came of age during it and immediately afterwards are examined, with particular attention to the emergence of new, alternative pair-bonding structures such as cohabitation and nonmarital co-parenting. The article highlights the inability of the dichotomous marriage-versus-being-single paradigm to encompass the new pair-bonding structures and the normalizing of divorce. Precepts for a new, more encompassing, veridical and humane pair-bonding paradigm are presented, and some of their implications for social policy, family law, social science, and couple and family therapy are elaborated.
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