LIFE AFTER DIVORCE : A CASE STUDY OF SINGAPORE INDIAN WOMEN

Abstract

It is often the case that divorce has been looked upon in a negative and unfavourable light. There is often the need to classify it as a social problem and try to curb its rate of increase. However, this study does not make any judgements on the morality of divorce, neither is there an attempt to discover the reasons and causes for such a phenomenon. Instead, attempts are made to portray the lives of Indian women in Singapore after divorce and their adjustment to it. In the course of this study, I found that most of these women were able to assign positive meanings to their new lives and achieve constructive divorce adjustment. For those who were still having difficulty adjusting, it was not the fact of being divorced per se that led to adjustment problems but, the stresses and lack of resources that accompanied such a change. Thus, it can be seen that for all of these women divorce presents itself as a second chance and a new life, only the ability to adjust to it varies among them.