Marital Ties Research Articles

Marital therapy in prison: one-partner 'couple therapy'.

The intent of this article is, first, to describe some currently available means of strengthening marital and family ties for the incarcerated offender, and to point out the inherent limitations of these processes. Second, we will describe common reactions of inmates to marital crises, especially impending divorce. Third, we will make some comments and recommendations about the conduct of 'marital therapy' when the therapist has access to only one spouse or partner. Inefficient and dysfunctional as such an approach may sound to the therapist accustomed to working with couples 'on the streets,' it is often the only alternative available to the correctional mental health professional when the imprisoned marital partner is in a state of acute pain, with both crisis intervention and follow-up treatment critical.

Social Aspects of the Family Court

The Department of Commerce, through the Bureau of Census, has recently published a report on Marriage and Divorce for the year 1916. This report discloses that 112,036 divorces were granted, showing an increase of 55.5 per cent in 1916 over the year 1906, which is higher than the percentage of increase in population. The report is undoubtedly free from any serious errors and affords reliable information in respect to marriage and divorce in so far as it is revealed by official records. In respect, however, to its affording data upon which Congress may act in formulating uniform marriage and divorce laws, it is misleading and unreliable. No scientific inquiry has ever been made as to the cause of divorce. The divorce codes provide that certain acts of either one or the other of the parties shall be sufficient to warrant the dissolution of the marital ties. The report groups the causes of divorce under a few broad heads, such as: Adultery, Cruelty, Desertion, Drunkenness, Neglect to Provide, Combinations of the Preceding Causes, etc., and All Other Causes. Under each of these headings, except that of adultery, there are numerous subdivisions. It is evident that in this report the symptoms only of family dissensions are considered and no attempt made to classify basic causes; nothing is revealed as to the social, psychological and pathological conditions that impelled behavior leading to divorce. Even if it be conceded that the usual statutory grounds for divorce are merely symptomatic, yet the report is misleading still in that the number of cases listed under the various headings and as shown by court records is not true in fact. The court records show that 12,486 decrees were granted on the grounds of adultery; of this number, 5,636 decrees were granted to the wife and 6,850 to the husband. A survey of the methods of administering the divorce laws would reveal that if the real cause of divorce had been disclosed at the hearing, there would have been a far greater number of cases on this ground than is shown by court records. There are thousands of cases in which gross neglect, desertion, or extreme cruelty is alleged in the