Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, "The Making of a Divorce Culture"

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (1944- ) was born in Rochester, Minnesota and earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1966, and both an M.A. (1972) and a Ph.D. (1976) from the University of Chicago. Whitehead has served as both the vice president of the Institute for American Values and the co-director of the National Marriage Project. She is also a renowned essayist. Her books include The Divorce Culture (1997) and Should We Live Together?: What Young Adults Need to Know About Cohabitation Before Marriage (1999). Her work, which often deals with issues of marriage and family, also appears in periodicals such as Commonweal, New Perspectives Quarterly, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. "The Making of a Divorce Culture," which takes a look at American divorce as an issue of intellectual history, is an excerpt from her book The Divorce Culture.

CONTENT

1. How does the author divide the history of divorce in America?
2. According to the author, when did divorce become a pervasive part of American life?
3. During which decade does Whitehead notice a shift away from obligations to others and towards obligations to the self in the U.S.?
4. What is the key issue about divorce that Whitehead wants to discuss?
5. What forces have seen Republicans and Democrats, in general, tend to agree with each other about divorce?
6. During which decade did "the lack of attention to divorce" become most noticeable, according to Whitehead? What did liberals and conservatives debate instead?
7. What are some of the negative effects of divorce the author mentions?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Find a simile in paragraph three; what things are being compared? How can you tie in this comparison with the author's ideas about divorce in America?
2. Discuss this essay as a process analysis. What is being analyzed and how does the author make her case?
3. Find three related structural signals in paragraph four. How can you characterize them? Why do you think the author made this choice? What would the paragraph lose without them?
4. The author includes a table as a footnote to a point she makes in paragraph seventeen. How could she have incorporated the information into the paragraph itself? Why do you think she chose to present the information in a note instead?
5. Whitehead uses paragraph nineteen to explain what her writing is not about. What is it about the nature of divorce that might have prompted her to make such a decision? What criticism might she have faced without this paragraph?

1. What are your feelings about divorce? Did any of them go through your mind while reading this piece? Is any of the essay going through your mind right now?
2. Describe your relationship with your parents. How can you relate this relationship to your reading?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. Write an essay about the relationship between American politics and American divorce.
2. Should parents strive to stay together for the sake of their children, or do horrible relations between parents harm children more than a divorce does? Using your reading and your own observations, write an essay with one of the statements above as the basis for your thesis. Make sure your key terms are clear and your support is sufficient.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Do some research comparing current divorce rates between the U.S. and one country in Europe or Asia with a significantly lower rate. How much do they differ? What might account for this difference? What light did your research shed on your reading?

WEB CONNECTION

Here's an article, "Dan Quayle Was Right," that discusses Whitehead's views of remarks made by the former vice-president. What does the title mean? What was the cultural context in which it was made? Do you agree with Whitehead?

LINKS

Biographical

Here is a brief bio of Whitehead, which chronicles her publications. There's also a link to a review of a talk she gave. How trustworthy do you find the information here? How can you tell?

This is the homepage of the National Marriage Project, of which Whitehead is a co-director. You'll also find a link to another brief biography and a bibliography of Whitehead's work there.

This is a speech in RealAudio by Whitehead entitled, "The Future of Marriage." There's also a bit more background information about the author here.

Bibliographical

This is an article by Whitehead called "Close But No Cigar—Barbara Dafoe Whitehead on Fatherhood," which she wrote for the Washington Post. How can you compare the subject matter here to the reading in your text?

Here is an interview with Whitehead about the "divorce culture" and its effect on the U.S. in the last generation or so from the PBS program NewsHour.

This is an article by Whitehead entitled "The Girls of Gen X," focusing upon the difficulties that this demographic faces. There's also a rebuttal by Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute.

Cultural

Want some more background about one of this author's frequent topics? Here's the homepage of Parents magazine.

How about some similar information from a different perspective? Check out the homepage of the I Am Your Child Foundation. What did you learn by clicking through this site?

Would you like to place these issues into a specific cultural context? Here's the homepage of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.