Women, Divorce, and Suicide

Abstract

This paper is based on taped interviews from a sample of 200 women. It shows divorce as a traumatic life crisis for women that leads to depression and feelings of hopelessness, if not suicide. Evidence is presented that emotional stress from separation and divorce for women is compounded by inadequate role development which prevents their subsequent integration into the economic, legal, political, and social structures of society. This is substantiated by theory, data, and a brief review of the research literature on divorce. Issues discussed include: (a) society's denial of divorce despite the soaring of the present divorce rate beyond the all-time peak in 1946; (b) the grief process and divorce; (c) the increased emotional stress for women as they refuse to relinquish traditional roles, and begin to articulate and practice new roles to deal with a changed life-style; (d) identification of traditional roles; and (e) women's early socialization favoring passivity and "existing for others" which keeps them in a complex dilemma resulting in helplessness, depression, and numerous suicide attempts. The subsequent self-destructive behavior is as devastating as the actual suicide to women, men, and their children.