ABSTRACT
Divorce did not appear suddenly in the 1960s and 1970s. It is not a new or uniquely U.S. experience, nor does it mean the end of marriage and the family. But it is a subject of ongoing debate and concern, of proposals to make it more difficult to obtain, of groups seeking to prevent it, of other groups arguing that divorce is an inevitable and necessary expression of who we are and what we value. Groups like the Council on Families insist that most problems faced by children in the United States are caused by divorce, while others believe it is the U.S. economy and our political institutions that consign children to poverty and misery (Popenoe, 1996; Ahrons, 1994; Coontz, 1997).
