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Religions
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Divorce Rituals: From a Cultural and Religious Perspective
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Divorce Rituals: From a Cultural and Religious Perspective

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 January 2023) | Viewed by 8439

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Martin Hoondert

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Interests: ritual; music; death; funeral; cremation; memory culture; genocide
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Kathleen Jenkins

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Sociology, William & Mary College, Williamsburg, VA 23185, USA
Interests: religion and family; therapeutic culture; sociology of pilgrimage; New Religious Movements
Dr. Andrea Marco Bianca

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Independent Researcher, The Swiss Reformed Church, Kuesnacht 8700, Switzerland
Interests: rituals; religion; divorce rituals; funerals; weddings; ethics in religion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect descriptions, analyses and evaluations of divorce and end-of-relation rituals from various cultures and religions. In many cultures, the beginning of a relationship is celebrated with family and friends. Relations can be ritualized in both a secular and religious way, and in some countries, churches have an official role in registering relationships (e.g., Finland and Denmark). In ritual studies, marriage or other forms of registering and ritualizing the beginning of a relationship are considered transformative rituals (Grimes 2000). However, what happens when partners decide to part, and a relationship is brought to an end? Do people ritualize the ending of their relation to mark, once again, the transformation from being partners to being separated? There are many practical guides helping partners to work through the process of divorce, with Constance Ahrons’ The good divorce (1994) as a ground-breaking example of this genre. The academic literature regarding divorce or end-of-relation rituals, however, is scarce. Although the literature regarding divorce from sociological and psychological perspectives is overwhelming, with Emery’s Cultural Sociology of Divorce: An Encyclopedia (2013) as one of the main sources, alongside the scholarly Journal of Divorce and Remarriage (since 1977) and the more popular Divorce Magazine (USA and Canada, since 1996), there is hardly any attention paid to the divorce ritual in the academic literature, with Bianca’s dissertation (2015) being an exception. The purpose of this Special Issue of Religions is to bring together research regarding secular and religious divorce and end-of-relation rituals. We hope to engage scholars with expertise in various cultures and religions and to offer a selection of articles that is culturally and religiously diverse. The guiding questions are:

  • In what ways and by what means do churches and secular institutions facilitate divorce and end-of-relation rituals? What are good examples of useful (healing, transformative) divorce rituals?
  • What is the doctrinal position of churches/religious institutions/religions regarding divorce?
  • What is the relevance of divorce and end-of-relation rituals for the people involved, from sociological and psychological perspectives? How do these rituals help people to cope with divorce and to re-organize their lives?

We invite scholars to submit articles in which they reflect on either the usefulness and functions, or the reasons and consequences of the absence of divorce and end-of relation rituals.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400-600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors (m.j.m.hoondert@tilburguniversity.edu) or to the Religions editorial office (religions@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative completion schedule:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 15 April 2022
  • Notification of abstract acceptance: before 1 May 2022
  • Full manuscript deadline: 9 January 2023
  • Publication of the special issue: Spring 2023

References

Ahrons, Constance R. 1994. The good divorce: keeping your family together when your marriage comes apart (HarperCollins: New York).

Bianca, Andrea Marco. 2015. Scheidungsrituale. Globale Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven für eine glaubwürdige Praxis in Kirche und Gesellschaft (Theologischer Verlag Zürich: Zürich).

Emery, Robert E. 2013. Cultural sociology of divorce: an encyclopedia (SAGE Reference: Thousand Oaks, Calif.).

Grimes, Ronald. 2000. Deeply into the bone: re-inventing rites of passage (University of California Press: Berkeley, Calif.).

Hoondert, Martin. (2019). Emerging Ritual: Divorce Ritual, in Paul Post & Martin Hoondert (eds). Absent Ritual. Exploring the ambivalence and dynamics of ritual (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press) 31-44.

Jenkins, Kathleen E. 2014. Sacred Divorce: Religion, Therapeutic Culture, and Ending Life Partnerships (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press).

Dr. Martin Hoondert
Prof. Dr. Kathleen Jenkins
Dr. Andrea Marco Bianca
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • divorce
  • ritual
  • religion
  • secular institutions
  • transformation

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 276 KiB  
Article
Walking Pilgrimage as Ritual for Ending Partnerships
by Kathleen E. Jenkins
Religions 2023, 14(12), 1485; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14121485 - 29 Nov 2023
Viewed by 727
Abstract
Scholarship in pilgrimage studies suggests that people use travel to sacred sites to mark life transitions such as moving into adulthood, retirement, the death of a loved one, or the ending of an intimate relationship. This research has also illustrated how walking pilgrimage [...] Read more.
Scholarship in pilgrimage studies suggests that people use travel to sacred sites to mark life transitions such as moving into adulthood, retirement, the death of a loved one, or the ending of an intimate relationship. This research has also illustrated how walking pilgrimage can provide physical and symbolic structures for individual therapeutic and spiritual practice. However, pilgrimage scholars have not put the experience of ending long-term partnerships at the center of analysis, and family scholars have yet to explore how people might use extended walking pilgrimage as ritual when relationships end. Recent scholarship in pilgrimage studies has called for a more dynamic and inclusive approach that highlights the multiple and varied social forces at work in travel to and around sacred spaces. I draw from existing empirical studies, recent theory in pilgrimage studies, the literature addressing divorce rituals, and my qualitative document analysis of published narratives of extended walking after ending long-term partnerships to identify important sociological questions, methods, and perspectives for future research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Divorce Rituals: From a Cultural and Religious Perspective)
9 pages, 251 KiB  
Article
Divorce Rites as a Way of Dealing with a Life Course Transition: The Case of Contemporary Italy
by Laura Arosio
Religions 2023, 14(8), 978; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080978 - 28 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1066
Abstract
In Western culture, divorce is becoming a transition event in individual life courses. As a result, it starts to be celebrated in ritual forms. In Italy, divorce is still a highly deritualized event from both civil and religious perspectives, although the transformations that [...] Read more.
In Western culture, divorce is becoming a transition event in individual life courses. As a result, it starts to be celebrated in ritual forms. In Italy, divorce is still a highly deritualized event from both civil and religious perspectives, although the transformations that make divorce a transition event have been occurring in recent years. This article depicts the complexities of divorce in a society such as Italy, where instances of social change coexist with strong elements of tradition. Emerging cultural practices related to couple dissolution in both formal and informal contexts are discussed. Structural determinants emerge as a force that can contribute to shaping the divorce rite as a new rite of passage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Divorce Rituals: From a Cultural and Religious Perspective)
8 pages, 184 KiB  
Article
Divorce: Experiential and Structural Elements: Cases from Papua New Guinea and Africa
by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew J. Strathern
Religions 2023, 14(3), 303; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030303 - 23 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1249
Abstract
Divorce emerges as a phenomenon in counterpoint to marriage, both terms representing processes or phases of interaction punctuated by moments of completion and transition to further phases. We can make an initial distinction between divorce, viewed as undoing of preceding phases, and marriage, [...] Read more.
Divorce emerges as a phenomenon in counterpoint to marriage, both terms representing processes or phases of interaction punctuated by moments of completion and transition to further phases. We can make an initial distinction between divorce, viewed as undoing of preceding phases, and marriage, viewed as prospective of moving into a new relationship. Both divorce and marriage may carry different meanings depending on the wider culture in which they occur. Where marriage comes into being via a series of reciprocal transactions of wealth objects, divorce correspondingly consists of the undoing of such transactions, with the aim of creating a new order of relationships. This process can, in turn, itself vary as it turns on emotional manifestations between the parties involved, sometimes connected with the presence of offspring, as in the case of the Nuer people of South Sudan, among whom a wife does not shift to her husband’s settlement place until the couple have a child. The question of transactions goes with the significance of the wider kin networks in which marriages and divorces are regulated. All in all, our paper examines a counterpoint between legal and emotional aspects of both marriage and divorce, raising issues about what a marriage is and what constitutes a divorce, together with nuances of ritual processes that mark pathways between these categories. We draw on ethnography from Pacific cultures, especially Papua New Guinea, and from Africa, to explore these processes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Divorce Rituals: From a Cultural and Religious Perspective)
23 pages, 340 KiB  
Article
“There Is No Official Divorce Ritual in the Church”—Challenging a Mantra by Ritual Design
by Bernhard Lauxmann
Religions 2023, 14(2), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020137 - 19 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1675
Abstract
End-of-relationship rituals are not respected within Protestant churches. Therefore, many church websites emphasize that there are no official divorce rituals to this day. This is despite the fact that there are numerous impulses for divorce rituals, some of which are also firmly established [...] Read more.
End-of-relationship rituals are not respected within Protestant churches. Therefore, many church websites emphasize that there are no official divorce rituals to this day. This is despite the fact that there are numerous impulses for divorce rituals, some of which are also firmly established in church practice. Practitioners who devote themselves to these rituals often have to be innovative. This article presents three unpublished drafts for separation rituals, which are understood as expressions of ritual design. Experiences from academic teaching show that the field divorce rituals is particularly suitable for initiating learning processes on ritual design, a skill of great importance for future pastors. Although divorce rituals are unpopular now, they are likely to become part of the standard repertoire of churches soon. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Divorce Rituals: From a Cultural and Religious Perspective)
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