For Richer, For Poorer: Mothers Confront Divorce

For Richer, For Poorerprovides a new perspective on the impact of divorce on women. Public debates focus on divorce as a sign of "family decline" and a loss of "family values." While divorce brings hardships for most mothers and their children, many are happy to be free of difficult marriages, particularly the large number of women who experienced domestic violence. Based on interviews with a random sample of divorced mothers, this book identifies their real concerns: inadequate resources from their ex-husbands and the state, and unequal social policies. InFor Richer, For Poorer, divorced mothers of different classes and races present their accounts of how they manage the divorce process. They describe leaving their marriages, managing their families on reduced incomes, negotiating with their ex-husbands for resources and custody and visitation agreements, and rebuilding their own lives and those of their families. Many women experience serious conflictswith their ex-husbands over resources, custody and visitation during this process, and some are fearful. Studying divorce from the point of view of mothers provides critical information about what women gain and lose through divorce, and what frustrates their attempts to support themselves and their children and to live independently. Women's accounts of their divorces also contribute to our knowledge of how the family is and is not working for women, how inequality hinders women, and how that inequality is mediated by factors of gender, class, and race. Demie Kurz argues that current debates about "family values" do not address the real problem. We must dramatically reverse our policies which penalize the single-parent family and instead provide mothers and children with adequate resources.