Abstract

Divorce-and After: I. Children and Property

The article presents information on the adverse effects of divorce on children. At least one out of every eight married or formerly married adults in the United States is living separate from a spouse. Statistical information on this matter is entirely inadequate. The number of persons living separate by agreement without divorce is nowhere recorded, but may well exceed four million. Much has been written about the causes of divorce, but little attention has been paid to divorce in action. A national stock-taking would require, among other things, checking up the arrangements made by divorced or separated couples, an analysis of the results on the adults and the children, and the correlation, if possible, of these results with the grounds for divorce. At present each persons unhappily mated must learn everything for himself as if he were the first to break away from the family hearth.