ABSTRACT
Under socialism divorce plays a dual role in relation to marriage. Socialist society upholds the former function of divorce and places no obstacles to the dissolution of marriage when it is really necessary, but it tries to prevent divorces that are destructive with respect to the very institution of the family and its social role. The chapter focuses on the problem of family stability, regarding the concept of stability as a kind of continuum, the extreme point of which is destabilization. It shows that the factors affecting family stability should be taken into account at the very earliest stages in the establishment of marital relations. Hence the problems of divorce are inseparable from problems of premarital relations, marriage, and the mutual adaptation of the spouses. Divorce statistics have been analyzed in a number of interesting sociodemographic studies.
