Marital disruption as a stressor: A review and analysis.

Abstract

This article describes some of the major demographic trends in the field of marital disruption and provides an analysis of the evidence linking separation and divorce with a wide variety of physical and emotional disorders. Separation and divorce appear to be profoundly stressful life events. Hypotheses that have been advanced to account for the strong associations between marital disruption and emotional disorder are critically examined. Studies of problems faced by persons undergoing marital disruption and studies of remedial programs are reviewed and evaluated, and major unresolved issues are identified and discussed.In 1976, more than 3,000,000 persons in the United States were directly involved in a dissolution of marriage. There were over 1,000,000 divorces, and in each divorce there was an average of 1.08 children. Thus, more than 2,000,000 adults and over 1,000,000 children were affected by divorce in a single year, representing, in 1 year alone, 1.5% of the total United States population (see National Center for Health Statistics, 1974Statistics, , 1976aStatistics, , 1977a; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1974). These figures might have little interest to any group other than demographers were it not for the fact that there is a growing body of evidence that marital disruption (separation or divorce) constitutes a severe stress and that the consequences of that stress can be seen in a surprisingly wide variety of physical and emotional disorders. More than a century ago, "the slow tortures of connubial disturbance" were cited as being among the causes of psychiatric disorders (Wood, 18S2, p. 708). Continuing interest in marital disruption as a specific stress is now part of the growing general interest in those events that appear to precipitate physical and psychological dis-Brief portions of this article are excerpts or paraphrases of passages in chapter 6 of Bloom's (1977) book.Requests for reprints should be sent to Bernard

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