a sociological analysis of tendency towards divorce

this study aims to offer a sociological explanation of influential factors on the rate of tendency toward divorce in kermanshah city. a combination of homogamy theory, exchange theory, and network theory is used as the theoretical framework of the study. the study has been conducted via survey method and data is collected through questionnaire and interview. the statistical sample of study consists of the couples who had referred to family court in kermanshah city to file for divorce during 2006. overall, 364 people (182 men and 182 women) are chosen through systematic random sampling method. dependent variable is the rate of tendency toward divorce. impacts of independent variables, including interference of others in the couple's marital life; disability of satisfying the spouse's expectation, having positive imagination about divorce outcomes, on the dependant variable is measured through statistical techniques, based on spss. the results of the study show that almost half of the couples reported medium tendency towards divorce, whereas only 9 percent of couples had a strong tendency. multivariate regression analysis reveals that tendency towards divorce is under direct influence of such variables as disability in satisfying spouse’s expectations, having positive imagination about divorce outcomes, and interference of others in couple’s marital life. furthermore, such variable as age-related differences, educational differences, and opinion-related differences of couples have indirect effect on tendency towards divorce, through increasing disability in satisfying mate’s expectations. interference of others in couple’s marital life has the strongest influence on tendency toward divorce.