Examining why so many women file for divorce

People in Arizona should know that women are far more likely to initiate divorce proceedings than men are. In 2015, the American Sociological Association looked at divorce filings and found that women initiated close to 70% of them. This flies in the face of social expectations. Stereotypes say that women, more than men, want to get married. So why is there such a large discrepancy?

Expectations versus reality

The author of that ASA study had some interesting insights into why women might be more fed up with marriage than men tend to be. Women face many traditional pressures when they marry a man. They may be expected to do most of the housework and take his name, even though they work out of the home and have plenty of outside commitments. This might lead women to wonder why they agreed to marriage in the first place. This level of frustration could easily precipitate a divorce filing.

A licensed marriage and family therapist, Anita Chlipala, echoes this sentiment. She notes that, in some cases, the wife is the main breadwinner yet is still expected to act subservient to her husband. Women in these situations may understandably feel that they’d be better off on their own. If they don’t feel supported by their husband or children, wives can lead very lonely existences.

Outside heterosexual marriage

Although these theories clearly have grounding in reality, they don’t seem to explain the full divorce discrepancy. In Great Britain, the Office For National Statistics looked at same-sex divorce statistics in 2017. They found that women filed more by an even larger margin than in the States. About 78 percent of divorces in the study were filed by lesbians. Hopefully, more research will uncover why women are so eager to divorce.