Gender and Separation: A Female Narrative

Divorce, with its increasing rate, is still an important social problem to investigate. Due to importance of family for its members and society, any disintegration of it can be serious. Women and their reasons to initiate the divorce is a crucial topic to be studied. This study has investigated gender and its changes over time as well as transitions in identity and agency of women. Besides, it focuses on narratives of divorce from women’s perspective. For this purpose, a sample of 28 women with at least one experience of marriage and divorce were selected. The findings show that there are three stages in women’s narration about marriage and divorce; none-calm entrance, perilous continuation and stressful exit. This situation occurs on an intersection of the role of individual (woman) and structure (gender) in three stages including prior to marriage, during marital life and the beginning of divorce. Women’s narration of divorce has focused on the important of gender roles changes in providing the opportunity to terminate the marital life.