Equilibration of attitudes toward divorce

One thing that people occasionally mention in the comments on this weblog is that it seems futile to be “conservative” because the arrow of history goes in one direction. Even many conservatives, including myself, have fallen into this assumption. But upon a closer inspection of history I think we need to be careful about this, as the truth can sometimes confound our coarse models. For example, I strongly suspect that when it comes to love and marriage the realized element of individual liberty has not had a monotonic trajectory over human history. More plainly, free choice declined over the past 10,000 years, and has reemerged in the past few centuries. Whether this is liberal or conservative is less relevant than that it shows that attitudes, beliefs, and practices, do not always change in magnitude in one direction, only at different rates. More recently, sexual mores in the West shifted to a more puritanical direction between 1750 and 1900, only to switch back to a more relaxed attitude over the 20th century (with a punctuated shift in the 1960s).

And these sorts of trends are evident even over a shorter time scale. So it may be with attitudes toward divorce. One could argue (I probably would) that “liberal” attitudes toward divorce in the 1970s was a correction from an unsustainable equilibrium leading up to the 1960s. But over the past few decades it does look as if college educated whites have had second thoughts about the “arrow of history.” At the very least they are now more likely to stand athwart history and yell “stop.”

Below are results limited to non-Hispanic whites with college educations. Note especially the change in those with “No religions.” They seem clearly to have had enough.

Attitudes toward divorce laws:

		1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s
Born before 1946	Easier	35	19	18	15
	More Difficult	40	52	54	50
	Stay Same	25	28	28	35
Born 1946-1964	Easier	43	22	20	18
	More Difficult	31	48	50	47
	Stay Same	26	31	30	35
Born after 1965	Easier	*	*	16	17
	More Difficult	*	*	53	52
	Stay Same	*	*	32	31
Liberals	Easier	49	27	26	26
	More Difficult	26	40	35	32
	Stay Same	26	33	39	42
Moderates	Easier	36	23	19	17
	More Difficult	33	51	51	47
	Stay Same	30	27	30	36
Conservatives	Easier	26	16	14	9
	More Difficult	52	57	65	65
	Stay Same	21	27	21	26
Protestant	Easier	32	18	14	11
	More Difficult	42	56	60	58
	Stay Same	26	26	26	31
Catholic	Easier	29	19	18	15
	More Difficult	45	54	55	53
	Stay Same	26	27	27	32
No Religion	Easier	63	35	32	28
	More Difficult	14	18	26	28
	Stay Same	22	47	42	44
1986 index income <$20,000	Easier	36	18	20	16
	More Difficult	40	56	51	46
	Stay Same	24	26	29	38
1986 index income $20,000-$50,000	Easier	37	21	19	16
	More Difficult	37	49	54	55
	Stay Same	26	30	28	29
1986 index income $50,000>	Easier	39	22	20	18
	More Difficult	36	47	49	46
	Stay Same	25	31	32	36

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All results computed from the GSS