Abstract
This chapter examines reasons for marital breakdown and analyses across the entire corpus of motives for divorce narratives. The slim existing literature on lone parenthood and divorce among British Asians has emphasized domestic violence, arranged and forced marriages, problems of ‘family interference’ and ‘clashes of upbringing’ in transnational marriages as causes of marital breakdown. Although the material here confirms the persistence of hard-hitting gender inequalities in some families, it argues that these forms of analysis may exoticize marital breakdowns among British Asians. The chapter outlines four more proximate explanations for divorce: lack of commitment, not putting up with any more, sexual unfairness and infidelity and wanting love and not getting it. These are quitefamiliar to the family sociology and marriage therapy literature.
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Qureshi, K. (2016). Storying Marital Conflict. In: Marital Breakdown among British Asians. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57047-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57047-5_2
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