Psycho-Social Effects of Parental Divorce on Children in Pakistani Society

Abstract

Divorce is the lawful form of dissolution of a marriage, which is permitted by Allah Almighty only in unavoidable unconducive conditions, hence it is still the most disliked act near to Him among lawful acts. The divorce has severe socio-psychological outcomes for stakeholders, particularly children from divorced spouses are at worst hit. Today's children are the tomorrow's vital human resource. The main objective of this research has been to analyze social and psychological impacts of divorce on the divorced spouses' children. Hypothesis of study was that parental divorce affects the children adversely in psycho-social terms. The universe selected for this study was province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A number of 30 respondents were purposively selected, while using non-probability sampling technique. The respondents were juveniles having their ages ranging between 5 years to less than 18 years; these juveniles' parents were divorced. The Interview was used as method of data collection. The results of study shows that parental divorce affect their juveniles in terms of parental loss associated with emotional and economic loss, stress in life, complex dynamics in relationships, social and psychological problems etc. It is recommended that every possible effort should be made to maintain the marital tie intact, and if in some case, Allah forbid, the divorce occurred, even then children should be supported by both parent, by society and by the state.