Researchers found that men who stop committing offences after marriage are apt to commit more offences if the marriage ends in divorce.
A general belief is that after a man is married, he commits fewer offences. With almost half of all marriages ending in divorce these days, researchers from Taylor & Francis Group conducted a study to analyze the effect on divorce in the pattern of offences committed by men.
Delphine Theobald and David P. Farrington conducted a 50-year- long survey on 400 men born in South London and found a distinct pattern of offences committed among them. Researchers found that all men who stopped committing offences after marriage began committing more offences if the marriage ended in divorce.
According to authors of the study, men who come out of a marriage feel like they have "nothing to lose." This makes them feel detached from social institutions and vulnerable, which makes them display unethical behavior.
Similarly, risk‐taking and anti‐social behavior have been recognized as factors that lead to marital stress and eventually separation. Authors of the study are still not sure whether a man's own parents' separation or his ability to cope with stress are the cause of such behavior.
Theobald and Farrington note that the findings of this study emphasize the importance of having a good, stable family so that children escape "negative outcomes" like felony, substance abuse and inculcate the ability to have good relationships themselves. They also emphasize on the importance of teaching adolescents, who have witnessed conflicting parents, to maintain supportive and stable relationships.
