A publication of the Institute for American Values by M. Christian Green discusses “The Ethics of Bystanders to Divorce.” (Propositions 8, July 2012 Americanvalues.org) She claims that divorce affects bystanders, as well as the divorcing couple and children involved. The witnesses of marital breakups and their social networks can be affected. Bystanders who are actually “stakeholders” should not remain “apathetic” or “indifferent.”
For Green divorce should be viewed like other “cultural traumas” that can be proved to have wide-spread and long term negative effects. The divorce culture can be judged as a collective phenomenon that contributes to a population’s “shaky social solidarity” in diffuse but real ways. Only a misguided view of marriage can see divorce as merely a private, completely autonomous relationship between individuals. In fact, “contagion theories of divorce” show that interlinked members in a social network will be more likely to divorce.
Read Full Article »