Involves restrictive rules:

• Engagement counseling and marriage counseling before a divorce is granted
• Spouse consent and 24 month waiting period for a divorce
• Abuse, felony, adultery, abandonment, long period of separation conditions acceptable for a divorce

Response to "no fault" divorce laws

In american kinship, people must establish and maintain kin relationships

To be a relative, there must be effort made on both ends to maintain a relationship

• Changing nature of created kin: when a stepfamily breaks up, relationships with created kin changes

Divorce, remarriage, non - marital childbearing, and cohabitation are increasing the frequency with which people create their own kinship ties out of the many possibilities available to them

• Similar to constructing families of choice
• Created kinship ties always changing

• How do children of divorces parents fare over the long term?

• Psychologist, Judith Wallerstein, followed a group of such children for 25 years.  Her books are about their well - being after 10 years and 25 years that report widespread, lasting difficulties in personal relationships.

• Children who seemed fine in the short term, but experiences emotional difficulties later, in adolescence or young adulthood

Few judges now agree to alimony since it is now assumed that women can be self supporting following a divorce

It was more common when women were in the home (now women are expected to be in the work force)

Rehab alimony is meant to help a spouse get training and education so they can become self - supporting

Suppose to be for women who have stayed out of the work force while taking care of children

Earned Income Tax Credit

(EITC)

Provides a refundable tax credit to low income families with children in which at least one parent is employed

Aid to Families with Dependent Children

(AFDC)

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

(TANF)

1996 welfare reform law transformed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)

Roosevelt developed programs to help needy families

AFDC and TANF known as "welfare"

TANF - welfare went from an entitlement program to a block grant program

5 year limit on cash assistance & recipients must take jobs after 2 years

• Stereotype of the "Welfare Queen"
• Attitudes toward women's roles (women CAN work)
• Characteristics of recipients (deserving and nondeserving poor)
• Concern about dependency: culture of poverty or social isolation?

Child abuse -

Parents leave a child alone while they go to work and parents don't have faith in the school system so they don't care if their children go to school or not.

Being a stepmother can be harder than being a stepfather

• The media portrays stepmothers as bad people

A typical stepmother does not live with the children.  She must establish a relationship during visits

Many stepfathers are filling a void of a departed father.

Domestic violence -

• Defined as violent acts between family members or between women and men in intimate or dating relationships
• History of domestic violence largely an issue of preserving the family vs. protecting women and children

• Hard to define and measure domestic violence
• Difficult to determine intent to injure
• Could include not just serious injuries, but also attempts to coerce women through minor violence

Child Abuse