The Impact of Parental Divorce on Courtship

Abstract

While a limited number of studies focus on the impact of parental divorce on courtship, none examine the conditions surrounding the divorce that may influence children 's attempts to form intimate heterosexual relationships. Drawing on a large sample of college students that includes 365 cases of parental divorce, we examine the impact of the amount of parental conflict during and after divorce, change in the quality of parent-child relations, and parent's remarriage on the level and evaluation of courtship relations. Our analysis shows that parental divorce increases courtship activity among offspring. Such activity increases even more if the divorce is accompanied by acrimony during and after the divorce, parent-child relations deteriorate, and the custodial parent remains single. The perceived quality of courtship relations seems to be eroded only if there is postdivorce conflict and a decline in parent-child relations. The age at which the divorce occurred seems to have no bearing on the quality or quantity of courtship activity and, with few exceptions, males and females were similarly affected.