the crossroad of gender and family: men’s understanding of marriage and divorce

Abstract

Studying the situation of family and its dissolution have different interpretation between men and women in order to their genders. This understanding in men is due to experiencing a kind of losing. This experience is the result of the crossroad of the structure of gender and the institution of family and its effect on the new situation of men. Some part of this transition is related to men and the other parts is due to women’s identity transition which challenge the status of men in family. This study has been conducted to analysis men’s understanding of divorce process with participating of 23 men with at least one experiencing of marriage and divorce. The result shows that the conflict between prior images of marriage and the live experience of that lead men to feel Breaking monopoly strings. Men with core identity knot to monopoly on public and private sphere, feel confused when other ones (women) ask their share on controlling private and public sphere and left them with identity crisis. And it’s consequences.

Keywords

• gender
• meaning
• men
• marriage
• divorce